This collected papers dissertation explores students' academic interactions in an active learning, introductory physics settings as they relate to the development of physics self-efficacy and interest. The motivation for this work extends from the national call to increase participation of students in the pursuit of science, technology,…

Purpose: This report explores the notion of signature pedagogies within the field of e-learning for higher education. Methodology: We build on previous work that examined signature pedagogies in education, linking the concepts of signature pedagogies, the profession of education and e-learning as a means to help educators develop their practice…

The overall aim of the study is to understand effective practice and lessons that can be learned from the approaches currently being adopted, particularly in relation to curriculum design and employer engagement, as well as the broader challenges facing University Technical Colleges (UTCs). More specifically the objectives of the research are to:…

In September 2011, the Association of American Universities launched a major initiative to improve undergraduate STEM education. The overall objective was to influence the culture of STEM departments at AAU institutions so that faculty members are encouraged and supported to use teaching practices proven by research to be effective in engaging…

This article examines the association among inquiry, the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and school librarians. It explains the significance of asking questions, and describes the characteristics of the questions that are central to inquiry learning. The role of school librarians in inquiry learning and the implementation of CCSS is also…

In the educational psychology literature, self-regulated learning is associated with empowerment, agency, and democratic participation. Therefore, researchers are dedicated to developing and improving self-regulated learning pedagogy in order to make it widespread. However, drawing from the educational philosophy of Paulo Freire, teaching students…

This article critically examines existing models and different ways of understanding undergraduate research to argue that there is a need for a coherent framework for student research that can contribute to curricular and pedagogical decision-making. A framework derived from analysing and integrating models of undergraduate research within the…

Project-Based Learning (PBL) is a teaching and learning methodology that emphasizes student centered instruction by assigning projects. The students have to conduct significant projects and cope with realistic working conditions and scenarios. PBL is generally done by groups of students working together towards a common goal. Several factors play…

POGIL has been successfully implemented in a scientific computing course to teach science students how to program in Python. Following POGIL guidelines, the authors have developed guided inquiry activities that lead student teams to discover and understand programming concepts. With each iteration of the scientific computing course, the authors…

This study investigated prospective elementary teachers' understandings of the nature of science and explored associations with their guided-inquiry science learning environment. Over 500 female students completed the Nature of Scientific Knowledge Survey (NSKS), although only four scales were analyzed-Creative, Testable, Amoral, and Unified. The…

In this conceptual paper, we propose an heuristic to balance context-specific and generic scaffolding, as well as computer-based and teacher scaffolding, during instruction centered on authentic, scientific problems. This paper is novel in that many researchers ask a dichotomous question of whether generic or context-specific scaffolding is best,…

High school students and teachers in two countries (US and Israel) were interviewed to ascertain their perspectives about their Project Based Learning (PBL) experiences. Perspectives were evaluated to determine to what degree PBL approaches were based on the eight essential elements of PBL and whether PBL courses contributed effectively to…

Teachers can find opportunities to incorporate design thinking and scientific inquiry within any lesson where a constraint of the design can be connected to a scientific experiment. Within a lesson, this connection establishes context between engineering and science and can positively impact students' learning and interest in these subjects. The…

In recent years, many universities have opened courses to increase students' knowledge in the field of nanotechnology. These have been shown to increase students' knowledge of nanotechnology, but beyond this, advanced and applied nanotechnology courses should also focus on learning motivation and scientific enquiry abilities to equip students to…

Students used a compass trail to show how they could perform service to their school. When students performed service learning, they completed a real task that was needed for a grateful audience conjoined with academic content in the lesson. Students worked on the school grounds and used content from their regular curriculum while looking for…