Undergraduate organic chemistry laboratory courses act as a baseline for introductory scientific experimentation. These courses provide students with the knowledge and skills for their future careers. The traditional lab is conducted by providing a structured protocol of the experiment for the students to follow and reproduce the assigned task…

Diffraction refers to a kind of optical phenomena which occurs when light approaches an element (object or aperture) whose features are in the range of the illuminating wavelength (small apertures, sharp edges). It can be explained by means of the undulatory nature of light or also geometrically by using simple ray optics. Diffraction phenomena…

Research into seed germination classroom activities has been common in the last few decades. Didactic proposals have generally focused on the implementation of guided activities in a specific educational stage and context, and an evaluation of the results. However, it is not evident that students approach seed and germination concepts with a…

Bounded rationality is a key concept with implications across all areas of economics. To help students better understand the nature, causes and forms of bounded rationality in individual choice, the authors present a flexible classroom experiment. Beyond providing students with some first-hand evidence of bounded rationality, the experiment shows…

The authors present two classroom experiments on technology licensing. The first classroom experiment introduces the concept of royalty stacking. Students learn that noncooperative pricing of royalties for complementary intellectual property rights leads to a double-marginalization effect. Cooperation solves the problem and is welfare-improving.…

The author investigates the learning efficiency of economic experiments, an innovative instructional tool that re-creates the outside world within the classroom. This tool enables the instructor to create an economic environment whereby students experience how their decisions and interactions create the market forces predicted by the economic…

This paper provides details on a classroom experiment that focuses on returns to foreign assets given uncertain future exchange rates. Students are assigned the role of foreign analysts and decide how much to invest abroad given their expectations about future exchange rates. The experiment allows students to practice calculating the returns to…

A laboratory experiment characterized by a whole-class data-pooling approach to generate a data set that can be used to test a model of the influence of ionic strength on electrolyte solubility is described and discussed. The design of the experiment makes efficient use of the laboratory period and releases time for instructional and dialogic…

In this article, the authors describe a classroom experiment on exchange rates appropriate for undergraduate courses in macroeconomics, international economics, and money and banking. Student teams compete by managing virtual portfolios of six foreign currencies over a period of several weeks. Trading requires a few minutes in class. Students gain…

Deception detection is a topic covered in many psychology and communication courses. We designed and implemented an engaging class activity to facilitate the students' learning of several key concepts related to sender and receiver variability in lie detection. The pedagogical effectiveness of the activity was measured. In line with previous…

The authors develop a two-stage classroom experiment to illustrate convergence to long-run equilibrium in a market where price-taking firms are capacity-constrained. Once equilibrium in the first stage is established, capacity constraints are introduced by imposing discontinuities in the fixed costs of several firms. The experiment demonstrates…

Although modeling is an integral process in applied mathematics, students rarely encounter modeling opportunities in their calculus courses. We introduce a laboratory experience as a starting point for calculus students to investigate multivariable functions. A layered system of coffee and milk serves as a physical model for temperature gradients…

This paper presents a personal account of the use of Google Classroom as a Learning Management System in the Chemistry theory and laboratory courses with the undergraduate students. Some useful features of the application are presented, with the focus on its affordances to create engaging learning environments. In its professed role in augmenting…

The authors propose a classroom experiment implementing a simple version of a New Keynesian model suitable for courses in intermediate macroeconomics and money and banking. Students play as either the central bank or members of the private sector. The central banker sets interest rates to meet twin objectives for inflation and the output gap or to…

In this article, the authors describe a classroom experiment aimed at familiarizing students with different types of price discrimination (first-, second-, and third-degree price discrimination). During the experiment, the students were asked to decide what tariffs to set as monopolists for each of the price discrimination scenarios under…