Persistence is a major issue facing students, particularly those who are both female and from underrepresented ethnic minorities (URM). A closer look at the variables affecting their commitment and capacity for continuing the pursuit of their goal allows us to better design support systems that bolster persistence. This study tests a structural…

This report leverages state educational agency data to explore the association between Alabama Science in Motion (ASIM) implementation and student outcomes. We conducted this study in Alabama to evaluate the potential of teacher implementation of ASIM lab activities to improve high school level student achievement in science. This study follows a…

Contribution: The design of an operating system (OS) experiment course with a gentle learning curve is proposed and a scalable OS experiment platform supporting learning behavior analysis is presented. Background: In the teaching practice of the OS experiment course, several problems were faced. First, the learning curve for the students is too…

Degree-seeking distance students, who often are from disadvantaged demographics, are becoming increasingly common. Degrees earned through distance learning can be viewed as less acceptable by graduate schools and employers, yet undergraduate research can aid in employment and graduate or professional school applications. Therefore, it is important…

The goals for lab instruction are receiving critical attention in the physics education community due to multiple reports and research findings. In this paper, we describe a theoretically motivated scheme to evaluate instructional lab curricula and apply that scheme to three implementations of an electricity and magnetism lab curriculum. The…

Because the escalating loss of species is one of the most serious environmental crises we face, it is vital that students of biology comprehend and can communicate the roles that biodiversity plays in the functioning of ecosystems. Here, we report on a laboratory experiment that has been highly successful in our introductory biology courses at…

Fermentation is responsible for the production of myriad products across a variety of industrial sectors. In particular, the biomanufacturing industry requires a labor force proficient in fermentation and its associated technologies to drive the production of recombinant protein therapeutics. This paper describes the development of a course that…

The article introduces the continuous course lab (CCL) as an alternative model for conducting undergraduate research in the humanities. CCL segments large-scale research projects into smaller-scale projects that are run over a series of semesters. The CCL model is unique in that it provides majors from outside the humanities with exposure to…

Hands-on learning is a proven method of improving students' critical thinking skills. Undergraduate research projects are encouraged to help students develop research and laboratory skills. If properly designed and implemented, research opportunities can be embedded in existing student coursework, which increases the number of students who can…

Because critical thinking is essential for scientific learning, academics and casual staff struggle to effectively develop students' critical thinking. This study examined the integration of the Research Skill Development (RSD) framework into a Biology course in an Indonesian University and tested how it helped academics and casual staff develop…

Difficulties with academic writing tasks, such as the literature review, impact students' timely completion of graduate degrees. A better understanding of graduate students' perceptions of writing the literature review could enable supervisors, administrators, service providers, and graduate students themselves to overcome these difficulties. This…

The complexity of the world's current grand challenges demands interdisciplinary approaches. The education of future scientists must cross the silos of the traditional disciplines; however, there is still a strong reluctance to tear such walls down. Here, we describe an integrative chemical biology course focused on epigenetics that strives to…

Hands-on learning in a laboratory is an integral part of the undergraduate experience for chemistry students. However, with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, an opportunity for this approach was not possible. The pandemic has been forcing instructors to explore the remote setting instead of the laboratory. There are several commercially…

This paper describes an alternative approach to teaching and learning practices in an undergraduate physics laboratory. The instructor plans and implements the 5E instructional model into the laboratory instruction. The article includes an example of the 5E lesson for the laboratory component of a physics course, which has separate lecture and…

We demonstrate that the simplicity of preparing functional microfluidic devices using 3D printing is well suited for undergraduate laboratories. Educational experiments utilizing non-paper-based microfluidic devices are often relegated to well-equipped, resource rich universities because traditional fabrication techniques require specialized and…