From my personal point of view, the role of a program evaluator is to gather information about the thoughts and experiences of individuals impacted by the program and to use the findings to inform program improvement. However, participants in the evaluation may be reluctant to share their full thoughts due to factors such as power imbalances and a…

We describe how a practical instructional development process helped a first-year assistant professor rapidly develop, implement, and assess the impact on her Analytical Chemistry course caused by three changes: (a) moving the lab into the same semester as the lecture, (b) developing a more collaborative classroom environment, and (c) increasing…

I describe and evaluate a fun and simple role-playing exercise that allows students to actively work through the process of translation. This exercise can easily be completed during a 50-minute class period, with time to review the steps and contemplate complications such as the effects of various types of mutations.

Writing, a critical pedagogical tool, cultivates student learning and fosters deeper understanding of the material. When frequent, low-stakes (informal) writing activities help students write more freely, engage with the material and thus become active learners. Looking at students who are at opposite ends of a community college spectrum, this…

To engender and raise awareness to the geosciences, a geoscience research project and a corresponding geoscience internship program were designed around plume dispersion dynamics within and above the New York City subway system. Federal, regional, and local agencies partnered with undergraduate students from minority-serving institutions to…

We report the results of a pilot study aimed at developing, implementing, and assessing an educational module that integrates remote major research instrumentation into undergraduate classes. Specifically, this study employs Internet Web-based technologies to allow for real-time video monitoring and execution of cutting-edge experiments. The…

Exploring the Solar System in the elementary school curriculum has traditionally involved activities, such as building scale models, to help students visualize the vastness of space and the relative size of the planets and their orbits. Today, numerous websites provide a wealth of information about the sun and the planets, combining text, photos,…

Despite there being a significant amount of research investigating workplace learning, research exploring firefighter workplace learning is almost nonexistent. The purpose of this qualitative multi-case study was to explore how firefighters conceptualize, report, and practice workplace learning. The researcher also investigated how firefighters…

Long Island Sound is an estuary of national significance and provides important economic, recreational, and aesthetic value to the citizens of Connecticut and New York. Investigations have been conducted regarding living marine resources and nutrient loading. However, Long Island Sound is often overlooked as an educational resource. This guide is…

Early adolescents may lack the cognitive and metacognitive skills necessary for effective inquiry learning. In particular, they are likely to have a nonnormative mental model of multivariable causality in which effects of individual variables are neither additive nor consistent. Described here is a software-based intervention designed to…

A joint publication of the New York and New Jersey State Councils for the Social Studies, "Social Science Docket" presents K-12 teachers with resources covering the social science disciplines, including history, economics, political science, sociology, geography, anthropology, and psychology. Each issue includes theme-related and…

The Long Island Pine Barrens is Long Island's premier ecosystem. It overlies the greatest quantity of the purest drinking water remaining on Long Island and boasts the greatest diversity of plants and animals in New York State. This curriculum guide provides background and suggested inquiry-based in-class and field trip experiences to use with…

This booklet presents a step-wise sequence for incorporating environmental objectives into any instructional program. The process involves determination of awareness, selection of the environmental problem, identifying subject area units, writing environmental objectives, specifying skills, naming concepts and content, developing unit…

Describes activities and resources that mix fun with scholarship in a secondary, elective ornithology course: all-day and class-period field trips; use of field guides, textbooks, periodicals, films, puzzles, records, correspondence courses; bird-banding operations; wildlife rehabilitation centers; Federation of New York State Bird Clubs; New York…

Describes typical winter farm lessons for students visiting Stony Kill Farm Environmental Education Center located 70 miles north of New York City: butter and corncake making, soil erosion experiments, dissecting and growing seeds. Emphasizes major theme of conservation of farmland from destructive farming practices and careless development. (NEC)