Although active learning is highly recognized and recommended in the educational community, instructors are still struggling with how to incorporate active learning tools into writing courses. This study aims to 1) describe specific challenges encountered in the course of Molecular Cell Biology Laboratory--Critical Thinking through Writing…

Currently, it is considered fundamental to improve students' views of the nature of science (NOS) in science classes. In addition, models are also important in science education, not only as contributors for students to develop their views of the NOS, but also for them to develop conceptual knowledge, as well as inquiry skills. Teachers greatly…

It is important that students understand the role the ocean plays in mitigating climate change, and how every person on this planet is uniquely connected to the ocean. Identifying these connections can be challenging for students in rural or underserved areas, many of whom do not live by, or interact with, the ocean. Through the use of the board…

Nowadays Molecular Cell Biology (MCB) must be taught as science is practiced. Even though there are several approaches based on scientific practices, a key aspect is to define the purpose of each of these teaching strategies and, most importantly, their implementation. Our goal was to train students to acquire, understand, and communicate new…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the merits of lesson study (LS) as a research approach for research in (science) education. A lesson was developed to introduce students to model-based reasoning: a higher order thinking skill that is seen as one of the major reasoning strategies in science. Design/methodology/approach: Participants…

College students report sub-optimal perceived wellbeing including fatigue and low energy. The health behaviors of sleep, particularly sleep quality (SQ), sedentary behavior (SED), and physical activity (PA), including both aerobic and resistance training (RT) activity are interrelated and linked to wellbeing. These associations may differ for male…

STEM is a well-known acronym describing the intersections of science, technology, engineering, and math. Emerging from this paradigm is a relatively new interdisciplinary model entitled STEAM. STEAM endeavors to intersperse "the arts" into the sciences with the expectation of increasing student engagement and skills within the sciences.…

Sleep is critical to teen physical and mental health, daily function, and school performance. Yet, sleep deficiency is prevalent among ethnoracially diverse teens. The purpose of this community-engaged focus group study was to explore multilevel influences on teen sleep from teen and community stakeholder perspectives and to use this information…

The high cost of commercial textbooks in higher education creates barriers to equitable access to learning materials and negatively impacts student performance. Open educational resources (OER) offer a cost-effective alternative, but their impact on student learning remains a critical question. This study directly compared student outcomes between…

Given the growing trend toward using technology to assess student learning, this investigation examined test mode comparability of student achievement scores obtained from paper-pencil and computerized assessments of statewide End-of-Course and End-of-Grade examinations in the subject areas of high school biology and eighth-grade English Language…

Biology education research (BER), currently conducted mostly at four-year colleges and universities, is changing the culture of teaching biology and improving student success. We are community college faculty participating in the NSF-funded CC Bio INSITES network, getting training and support in BER to ask questions to improve student success in…

Practical work is a distinctive feature of school science and has close associations with scientific experiment and scientific methods as well. In this study, the nature of practical work was examined in the view of the diversity of scientific methods. Based on an analytical framework derived from Brandon's matrix consisting of four categories of…

The free inquiry approach based on blended learning is a learning approach that is carried out by combining face-to-face and online lectures which gives students the freedom to find problems and solve problems independently, design procedures or steps collaboratively by sharing and discussing with friends. Hence, this learning approach is…

While Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education is essential in the high school curriculum, it often carries a reputation of being formidable and overwhelming. The resulting unease students often face inhibits their ability to learn effectively; thus it can be beneficial to integrate a more familiar approach to teach them…

In the current debate, there is no consensus on the relationship between knowledge and values in students' reasoning and argumentation in socio-scientific and sustainability issues, i.e. if these should be addressed as separate entities or rather treated as a whole. In this study, we address this question empirically, with students engaging in two…