We used a novel approach that combined direct PCR of plant tissue and SRAP DNA fingerprinting to seek to identify the crosses made in "Brassica rapa" used in the Wisconsin Fast Plants. Our goal was to develop a rapid method for students to use in a biology, botany, or genetics class to identify the parental types (purple stem, non-purple…

The current study explores teacher leaders' emotions and its relationship with teacher professionalism and collegial trust in the Chinese context. A sample of 477 teacher leaders in China responded to three measures, namely, teacher leader emotions, teacher professionalism and trust in colleagues. To analyse the data, confirmatory factor analysis…

Studying biology entails negotiating knowledges, identities, and what paths, more or less well-trodden, to follow. Knowledges, identities, and paths within the very practices of science are fundamentally gendered and it is, therefore, critical to recognize when exploring students' learning and participation in natural sciences. Even though…

The outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic results in the suspension of universities' academic laboratory activities. This brought a difficult time for graduate students majored in molecular biology and their mentors, since the student's thesis progress relies on the data from wet experiments in the lab. Even facing the challenges during the pandemic,…

Purpose: This study isolates the effect of immersion on players' learning in a virtual reality (VR)-based game about cellular biology by comparing two versions of the game with the same level of interactivity and different levels of immersion. The authors identify immersion and additional interactivity as two key affordances of VR as a learning…

Cognitive scientists and psychology researchers have given growing attention to evidence of the testing effect, that is, the improvement of students' recall through memory-retrieval practice in the form of quizzes and exams. While laboratory experiments consistently show dramatic positive effects on learning through the testing effect,…

When analyzing classroom video, pre-service teachers can improve their professional vision, that is, their ability to notice important events in a classroom and to interpret them based on theoretical knowledge. However, learning with video is especially challenging for novice learners. Thus, video needs to be embedded into an instructional context…

Student anxiety is less frequently identified and treated in school settings relative to other mental health concerns (e.g., externalizing behavior problems). Considering the perspectives of school-based mental health providers is critical for improving supports for students with anxiety in schools. The present study examined patterns and…

The central importance of evolution to all biological sciences is recognised by many authors. Despite this scientific consensus, the theory of evolution is commonly presented as one discrete topic among many in the biology curriculum. Possible reasons for this scenario include discomfort with the content, ideological opposition and teachers'…

The COVID-19 pandemic has highly impacted our society, particularly educational professionals, on their daily routines and changing the way they work. COVID-19 spread quickly, and we had to take urgent action on closing schools so teachers would continue to teach their students and put stringent measures such as national lockdowns and social…

Students' difficulties interpreting diagrams remain a concern in science education. Research about improving diagram comprehension has included few studies of teachers' orchestration of language and gesture in explaining diagrams--and very few in senior high schools. Research with younger students and studies of research scientists' practice…

Teaching modalities such as Flipped Classroom Approach (FCA) are becoming increasingly popular in higher education. FCA requires that instructional content is completed outside the classroom, thus allowing active-learning activities to take place in class. In this article, we investigate the application of this approach to an undergraduate…

We present a course-embedded undergraduate research module that involves real-time polymerase chain reaction testing for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in environmental samples. A positive control RNA was constructed and two RNA extraction methods were compared and a range of primers were available to compare. Using a combination of published…

Race-based traumatic stress, also called racial trauma, refers to "mental and emotional injury caused by encounters with racial bias and ethnic discrimination, racism, and hate crimes" (Mental Health America, n.d.). While much research on racism-based stress in schools focuses on teachers, school psychologists can just as easily cause…

This research examines teachers' perspectives of a summer research experience for urban science teachers at an urban university with an ongoing commitment to support under-resourced schools. The program is a collaboration between the Colleges of Engineering and Education, and was developed to support urban science teachers' understanding of…