Recently, we saw a forced transition in educational practice from traditional methods to online and virtual learning as higher education, along with nearly all aspects of society, was disrupted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As many of us have returned to face-to-face instruction, questions remain regarding modes of instruction and what forms of…

Improving the interest of high-school students towards chemistry (and science in general) is one of the goals of the Italian Ministry of Education. To this aim, we designed a context-based activity that actively involved students in six different laboratory experiences interconnected by a case study of the murder of Miss Scarlet, from the famous…

The purpose of this research is to determine the effects of different laboratory approaches on students' understanding of wave concepts. For this purpose, three experiments and experiment instructions have been designed for each of the three approaches (verification, hypothesis testing, and the 5E laboratory approach). Quantitative aspects of the…

The support of academics, professionals, and researchers from the most diverse scientific areas to STEAM education is due to the strong impact it has on preparing citizens for a world of continuous scientific and technological development. Among its benefits, we highlight the improvement of critical, innovative, and creative thinking; the…

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…

The goal of this study was to assess student's laboratory technique learning during online laboratories in response to the transition online caused by COVID-19. From Summer 2020 through Fall 2021 our General Chemistry 1 laboratories were completely online using at-home lab kits and 3 h weekly web conference sessions. Starting Spring 2021 select…

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…

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…

The instructors of four biology-related courses at a Canadian university integrated Labster virtual labs in their courses as a pre-lab activity, lecture substitute, or to provide lab experience in courses with no on-site labs. The instructors used a backward design approach to align the labs with the learning objectives of their courses and to…

Each fall at harvest time, young students in the authors' part of the Midwest visit apple orchards to learn more about the life cycle of plants. This tradition is one part of a larger unit centered on apples, integrating life science with language arts and social studies. The authors partnered with kindergarten teachers at several schools to…

In this study, the spring constant was determined within the scope of Hooke's law. For this purpose, an Arduino MEGA, an HC-SR04 Ultrasonic Distance Sensor, and a 1 kg Load Cell Mass Sensor was used. Sensors and microprocessor are mounted on a plane. One end of the spring is mounted on the force sensor, and a wooden rod, perceived by the distance…

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…

In science courses in general, but especially in first year chemistry classes, the amount of content that is delivered is often overwhelming and too complex for the student to easily cope with. Students not only have to gain knowledge in a variety of different fields, they also have to learn new laboratory skills and analytical techniques.…