This study investigates the effect of group collaborative argumentation on the quality of decision-making on waste incineration of socioscientific issues (SSI). To achieve this, fifty-nine high school students engaged with a lecture-style class that did not use any argumentation activities. They then completed an individual survey aimed at…

To broaden perspectives presented in undergraduate courses, instructors often invite guest speakers, yet there is limited research on students' perceptions of guest speakers and the potential influence they may have on student learning. In this exploratory study, we describe how senior undergraduate students, in a natural resource management…

Purpose: Climate change is the greatest threat to global health today and it challenges professionals in many disciplines. Most American university programs lack courses covering the rising deaths and illnesses from climate change. Consequently, graduates in health and other disciplines are underprepared for providing services in a world affected…

Multiple national reports have pushed for the integration of quantitative concepts into the context of disciplinary science courses. The aim of this study was to evaluate the quantitative and statistical literacy of biology students and explore learning gains when those skills were taught implicitly in the context of biology. I examined gains in…

Undergraduate biology majors require biological literacy about the critical and dynamic relationships between plants and ecosystems and the effect human-made processes have on these systems. To support students in understanding systems relationships, we redesigned an undergraduate botany course using an ecological framework and embedded systems…

Students in upper-level courses are expected to observe disciplinary conventions in writing assignments. Common recommendations for teaching conventions require substantial time for instructor feedback and in-class instruction. As an alternative, we tested the effectiveness of a checklist in improving students' performance of these conventions.…

This study examined the extent to which school outdoor activities could enhance senior secondary (SS) two students' achievement in ecology. Non randomized pre test post test control group Quasi-experimental design was adopted. A sample of 160 SS II students from 4 co-educational schools in Jalingo metropolis, Taraba State Nigeria was used. A 40…

This paper describes strategies used by novice biology teachers to exert sociolinguistic control over conversations when teaching unfamiliar subject-matter content. These discourse control strategies were identified in a year-long study of teacher subject-matter knowledge and its effects on teaching, and are illustrated in three lessons taught by…

This study investigated the effects of computer-assisted instruction (CAI) on students' achievement in ecological concepts. Quasi-experimental design, specifically the pre-test post test non-equivalent control group design was adopted. The sample consisted of sixty-six (66) senior secondary year two (SS II) biology students, drawn from two…

We describe a classroom exercise to allow students to explore foraging strategies in higher vertebrates. The exercise includes an initial interactive session in which students act as predators and are guided through foraging simulations, and a subsequent student-led session where classmates are employed as experimental subjects. Students rated the…

The perception of science as boring is a major issue for teachers at all instructional levels. Tertiary classes especially suffer from a reputation for being dry, instructor-centered, and irrelevant to the lives of students. However, previous research has shown that science can be interesting to students if it is presented in such a manner as to…

In this study, we used targeted active-learning activities to help students improve their ways of reasoning about carbon flow in ecosystems. The results of a validated ecology conceptual inventory (diagnostic question clusters [DQCs]) provided us with information about students' understanding of and reasoning about transformation of inorganic and…

These proceedings contain papers of the 3rd International Baltic Symposium on Science and Technology Education (BalticSTE2019) held in Šiauliai, Lithuania, June 17-19, 2019. This symposium was organized by the Scientific Methodical Center "Scientia Educologica" in cooperation with the Institute of Education, Šiauliai University. The…

Since 2005, there has been rapid adoption of the use of podcasting in schools. In this flood of adoption, content has been recorded and distributed, but predominantly not internally structured or pedagogically integrated. This research aims to remedy pedagogical deficiencies in lecture podcasting by making use of chapter feature technology to…

Learning is best served when students are mentally and physically (actively participation) in the process. Most college and university instructors consist of lectures, discussions, instructional videos, computer simulations, online teaching, guest speakers, but also include active learning components of laboratories, greenhouses, and field trips.…