Teachers love to have their students actively engaged with hands-on manipulatives in the pursuit of scientific investigation. However, students cannot develop an understanding of every important concept in science through their own investigation. There are points in their lessons that require outside information, usually through some type of text…

To improve student understanding of protein structure and the significance of noncovalent interactions in protein structure and function, students are assigned a project to write a paper complemented with computer-generated images. The assignment provides an opportunity for students to select a protein structure that is of interest and detail…

The students need not compute dependent values required in making line graphs but to teach the students the usage of graphing calculator to plot, calculating and graph linear equations, which are best suited to real world data. In this initial learning process, the teacher should give minimum support to the students in arriving at a solution as…

In this article, the author focuses on teaching the Millennials how to become effective learners and guiding them to hone their critical-thinking skills. Millennials are the children of the Baby Boomer generation, and some are the offspring of the early wave members of Generation X. These students learn differently and interact differently than…

This study explored the effects of active learning and types of elaboration on procedure acquisition (writing database queries). Training materials emphasized elaborations of conditions for executing actions versus elaborations of the connection between conditions and actions. In the "active" conditions, participants performed structured exercises…

This article describes an active learning demonstration to increase student interest in and involvement with the topic of research ethics and deception. Students received false, low feedback on an exam and then completed a faculty evaluation form. The class was then informed about the deception and the research issue (the impact of grades on…

Inquiry-based learning is more work than passive learning, and there is a body of students who prefer to take the easier route. But there is also a body of students who wish to explore science. Two descriptive evolutionary experiments conducted by university freshman/sophomore biology majors, enrolled in General Zoology are described.

The National Science Foundation funded the Multi-Initiative Dissemination (MID) project that was undertaken to introduce chemistry faculty to a variety of innovative new models, approaches, materials, and tools for active learning, retention, and understanding in lecture and lab. Innovations in units individualized to meet the needs of students…

A new approach for teaching general chemistry that combines lecture and laboratory into one seamless session and incorporates instructional methods supported by research-based findings is described. A comparative study of the understanding of basic chemical concepts and effective use of high-order cognitive skills by students exposed to two…

In Portugal, the number of students in higher education increased from 80,000 in 1975 to 381,000 in 2000 (a change from 11% to 53% in the age group 18-22), meaning a major change in the diversity of student population with consequences well known and studied in other countries. The teaching of chemistry at the University of Aveiro, for the…

We previously examined how three approaches to directing students in a laboratory setting impacted their ability to repair a faulty mental model in respiratory physiology (Modell, HI, Michael JA, Adamson T, Goldberg J, Horwitz BA, Bruce DS, Hudson ML, Whitescarver SA, and Williams S. Adv Physiol Educ 23: 82?90, 2000). This study addresses issues…

Making science relevant in students' learning is an important aspect of science education. This involves the ability to draw in examples from daily contexts to begin with the learning or to apply concepts learnt into familiar everyday phenomena that students observe and experience around them. Another important aspect of science education is the…

A program of library instruction, oriented towards the Outcomes attached to the ACRL's Competency Standards One and Two, assists community college students towards information literacy. Online resources and the World Wide Web provide integral components of this program. Library instruction alone cannot fulfill all of the Standards, however.…

Excellence in teaching is now a competitive imperative at most business schools. Management educators face the challenge of creating learning environments that engage, inspire, and motivate students to learn both the content and the skills they need. Focusing on four dimensions of the teaching process--context setting, class preparation, class…

This article was written as a result of the author reading "MT177," a special issue dedicated to the teaching of "proof" in mathematics. He used the ideas in this special issue for planning his session "mathematical reasoning and proof," which was part of a weekend course for primary trainees. It consisted of three activities: (1) How many…