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.…

Research-based learning motivates students to identify with different subjects. The orientation program MINTgrün at Technische Universität Berlin offers two study semesters for open choices of teaching modules, including a series of specially designed laboratories covering topics like robotics, construction, environmental research, programming,…

At the State University of New York at Oswego (SUNY Oswego), a faculty member and advisement coordinator, both of the biological sciences department, and the biological sciences librarian have worked together since 2013 to present a workshop called Writing for the Biological Sciences. Offered once per semester, the workshop is sponsored by the…

Online prelaboratory videos and quizzes were prepared for all experiments in CHEM 231, Organic Chemistry I Laboratory. It was anticipated that watching the videos would help students be better prepared for the laboratory, decrease their anxiety surrounding the laboratory, and increase their understanding of the theories and concepts presented.…

Engaging undergraduates in research is essential for teaching them to think like scientists, and it has become a desired component of classroom and laboratory instruction. Research projects that span an entire semester expose students to a variety of concepts and techniques and allow students to use experiments to learn scientific principles,…

This study is done to have preservice science teachers chance to implement inquiry before expecting them to implement inquiry in their classrooms and to develop the preservice science teachers' inquiry skills and self-efficacy of science. The study group is composed of preservice science teachers who chose the 2nd grade Biology Laboratory course…

California State University, Northridge's Hybrid Lab course model targets high failure rate, multisection, gateway courses in which prerequisite knowledge is a key to success. The Hybrid Lab course model components incorporate interventions and practices that have proven successful at CSUN and other campuses in supporting students, particularly…

The Science Writing Heuristic (SWH) laboratory approach is a teaching and learning tool which combines writing, inquiry, collaboration and reflection, and provides scaffolding for the development of critical thinking skills. In this study, the California Critical Thinking Skills Test (CCTST) was used to measure the critical thinking skills of…

Background: The sophistication of students' conceptions of science learning has been found to be positively related to their approaches to and outcomes for science learning. Little research has been conducted to particularly investigate students' conceptions of science learning by laboratory. Purpose: The purpose of this research, consisting of…

Certain racial and ethnic groups, individuals with disabilities, and those from low socioeconomic backgrounds remain underrepresented (UR) in the biomedical sciences. This underrepresentation becomes more extreme at each higher education stage. To support UR scholars during the critical transition from baccalaureate to PhD, we established an…

This paper deals with a novel method for improving the traditional "verification" laboratory in science education. Drawing on the idea of integrated instructional units, we describe an instructional sequence which we call the Babushka concept. This concept consists of three integrated instructional units: a start-up lecture, a laboratory…

Designing and evaluating teacher development programs for graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) who teach in the laboratory is a prominent feature of chemistry education research. However, few studies have investigated the impact of a GTA teacher development program on the verbal interactions between participating GTAs and students in the…

An instrumentation-based laboratory curriculum combining traditional unknown analyses with student-designed projects has been developed for an introductory analytical chemistry course. In the first half of the course, students develop laboratory skills and instrumental proficiency by rotating through six different instruments performing…

This laboratory session provides hands-on experience for students to visualize the beating human heart with ultrasound imaging. Simple views are obtained from which students can directly measure important cardiac dimensions in systole and diastole. This allows students to derive, from first principles, important measures of cardiac function, such…

The authors examined college students' perceptions about their middle school and high school preparation for college science courses as well as what led them to study or not study science in college. Analysis of a survey using mixed methods revealed that the more laboratory techniques students felt proficient in conducting and the more science AP…