It is well known that laboratory applications are of significant importance in chemistry education. However, laboratory applications have generally been neglected in recent educational environments for a variety of reasons. In order to address this gap, this study examined the effect of a virtual chemistry laboratory (VCL) on student achievement…

Academic consulting is a form of knowledge and technology transfer largely under-documented and under-studied that raises ethical and resources allocation issues. Based on a survey of 2,590 Canadian researchers in engineering and natural sciences, this paper explores three forms of academic consulting: (1) paid consulting; (2) unpaid consulting…

Curriculum developers and researchers have promoted context-based programmes to arrest waning student interest and participation in the enabling sciences at high school and university. Context-based programmes aim for student connections between scientific discourse and real-world contexts to elevate curricular relevance without diminishing…

This study explores the use of online writing studios housed in the University Writing Center and attached to a Writing in the Disciplines course in the College of Technology and a First Year Composition program. The original goal of the online writing studio, modified from Grego and Thompson's (2009) writing studio approach, was to create an…

The process of conceptual change can be described as a three phase process. The first phase involves students' possession of initial naive "conceptions/misconceptions," the second phase involves students undergoing a process of "assimilation," and the third phase involves students undergoing a radical process called…

Although an understanding of radiometric dating is central to the preparation of every geologist, many students struggle with the concepts and mathematics of radioactive decay. Physical demonstrations and hands-on experiments can be used to good effect in addressing this teaching conundrum. Water, heat, and electrons all move or flow in response…

The use of video lectures in distance learning involves the two major problems of searchability and active user participation. In this paper, we promote the implementation and usage of a collaborative educational video annotation functionality to overcome these two challenges. Different use cases and requirements, as well as details of the…

This qualitative sociolinguistic research study examines Latino/a students' use of language in a science classroom and laboratory. This study was conducted in a school in the southwestern United States that serves an economically depressed, predominantly Latino population. The object of study was a 5th-grade bilingual (Spanish/English) class. The…

Learning geography online is becoming an option for more students but not without controversy. Issues of faculty resources, logistics, professional recognition, and pedagogical concerns are cited as barriers to teaching online. Offering introductory physical geography online presents special challenges. As a general education course, an…

Electronic Health Records (EHRs) are used increasingly in the hospital and outpatient settings, and patients are amassing digitized clinical information. On one hand, aggregating all the patient's clinical information can greatly assist health care workers in making sound decisions. On the other hand, it can result in information overload,…

Skills-based learning environments are used to promote the acquisition of practical skills as well as decision making, communication, and problem solving. It is important to provide feedback to the students from these sessions and observations of their actions may inform the assessment process and help researchers to better understand the learning…

Introducing students to the process of scientific inquiry is a major goal of high school and college labs. Environmental toxins are of great concern and public interest. Modifications of a vertebrate developmental toxicity assay using the frog Xenopus laevis can support student-initiated toxicology experiments that are relevant to humans. Teams of…

Morningside Academy is a third-level scientifically driven service organization (Johnston, 1996) consisting of a laboratory school and outreach to schools and agencies throughout the United States and Canada through its partnership with Morningside Teachers' Academy. The approach blends together a number of empirically validated practices to…

An online, lecture/laboratory course in Human Physiology was run in two sections in five consecutive summers. In each year, the two sections were identical in content, assignments, and assessments but were different in duration; the shorter section was 1 mo and the longer section lasted 2 mo. The shorter section had a higher enrollment and a…

Manycore systems have emerged as being one of the dominant architectural trends in next-generation computer systems. These highly parallel systems are expected to be interconnected via packet-based networks-on-chip (NoC). The complexity of such systems poses novel and exciting challenges in academia, as teaching their design requires the students…