Background: Preparing today's undergraduate students from science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) and related health professions to solve wide-sweeping healthcare challenges is critical. Moreover, it is imperative that educators help students develop the capabilities needed to meet those challenges, including problem solving,…

This work discusses repertory grid analysis as a tool for investigating the structures of students' representations of biological concepts. Repertory grid analysis provides the researcher with a variety of techniques that are not associated with standard methods of concept mapping for investigating conceptual structures. It can provide valuable…

This article describes the results of a study that investigated the use of the dissection of organs in anatomy and physiology classes in Slovenian lower and upper secondary schools. Based on a sample of 485 questionnaires collected from Slovenian lower and upper secondary school students, we can conclude that dissection of mammalian organs during…

"Group Intelligence" is an active learning, inquiry-based activity that introduces prebiotic chemistry, emergent complexity, and diversity's importance to adaptability across scales. Students explore the molecular emergence of order and function through theatrical exercises and games. Through 20 min of audio instruction and a discussion…

Many undergraduate institutions are reforming their courses to increase student engagement. A critical challenge in these efforts is to engage the academic community beyond the instructors in the process of change. At our university, we embraced this challenge by creating a volunteer community of faculty, postdocs, graduate students, and…

Student Services support, including learning skills assistance, can be integral in empowering learners. First-year students are expected to be self-directed in their learning, yet may have neither been challenged nor experienced negative consequences for a lack of perseverance. Academic skills professionals can be partners with teaching faculty in…

This graduate-level DNA methods laboratory course is designed to model a discovery-based research project and engages students in both traditional DNA analysis methods and modern recombinant DNA cloning techniques. In the first part of the course, students clone the "Drosophila" ortholog of a human disease gene of their choosing using…

Due to the increased interest in ecology, global warming and numerous environmental problems, ecological issues are becoming extremely important in education. Many researchers and thinkers believe that solutions to environmental problems are affected by the environmental ethics adopted. This article identifies which of the three branches of…

This study investigated the conceptions of the nature of science held by pre-service undergraduate biology teachers in South-West, Nigeria. Specifically, the study examined the influence of their gender on their conceptions of the nature of science. The study was a descriptive research of the survey method. The population for the study comprised…

This paper analyses some contemporary educational contexts that teachers should consider for their puberty education programmes and/or curricula, for primary and secondary school students. The educational contexts addressed here include significant international puberty education framework documents, socio-biological factors including earlier…

The research reported on here is part of a larger study exploring the alignment of the intended, implemented and attained curriculum with regard to practical work in the Zimbabwean A-level Biology curriculum. In this paper we focus on the alignment between the intended and implemented A-Level Biology curriculum through the lens of teachers'…

Biology I is a required course for many science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors and is often their first college-level laboratory experience. The replacement of the traditional face-to-face laboratory experience with virtual laboratories could influence students' content knowledge, motivation to learn biology, and overall…

This study explored the causes of student disengagement from their doctoral studies in the biological and environmental sciences. The data came from interviews of 40 doctoral students (male = 15, female = 25) and underwent qualitative analysis for content. Our results showed that doctoral studies provide multiple contexts for disengagement, such…

The sciences are often perceived by students as irrelevant as they do not see the content of science as related to their daily lives. Web 2.0-mediated activities are characterized by user-driven content production, collaboration, and multi-way communication. It has been proposed that employing Web 2.0 in educational activities will promote richer…

The purpose of this study is to examine the burnout levels of basketball players in terms of gender, age and experience. A total of 270 (124 female and 146 male) basketball players (age mean x = 23.07 ± 1.28 years) participated in the study. Maslach's Burnout Inventory was developed by Maslach and Jackson (1981) and adapted to Turkish by Ergin…