Laboratory courses offer a unique opportunity, and sometimes challenge, to engage students in projects where they can experience ownership and authentic science practices. An important science practice is writing, which can lead to increased learning about concepts and science communication. Experiencing a sense of ownership in research can lead…

Through the method of tracing-and-mapping, this paper traces the history of how menstruation has been conceptualized in English education policies since 1928, as well as how such conceptualizations have positioned young people. It explains how education policy in England has conceptualized menstruation as a (cis girls') biological process; a…

Teaching Biology in an innovative way has always posed challenges due to its complex terminology and abstract concepts. This study explored the effects of reality pedagogy as an alternative instructional strategy on learner motivation and academic performance in learning biology at the ninth-grade level. To achieve this, a quasi-experimental…

The study aims at analyzing the effectiveness and practicality of BIL program to improve the generic skills in learning biology. This study was a pre-experimental study with one group pre-test and post-test design on 138 students divided into four groups at several universities in Mataram. The practicality of the program is measured using an…

Computational thinking is a contemporary science and engineering practice that has been introduced to the US science classrooms due to its emphasis in the "Next Generation Science Standards" (NGSS). However, including computational thinking into science instruction may be challenging. Therefore, for biological evolution (an essential…

Fieldwork is an important part of biology as well as science and biology education. However, teachers perceive several reasons for the limited use of fieldwork in schools. Further, outdoor education is often organised as a single fieldtrip guided by outdoor educators, and little research has been done on fieldwork as a regular part of formal…

College laboratories are generally perceived to be low-risk environments in comparison to industrial laboratories and plant operations. However, accidents in college chemistry laboratories have revealed the safety conditions to which both students and staff may be exposed. Improving the effectiveness of laboratory safety training programs and…

Purpose: Innovation is imperative to address a wide array of challenges in higher education. The term "microclass" is coined by the researcher to describe the division of a large class into smaller classes, which are handled by student facilitators who have undergone microteaching and performed similar teacher tasks to facilitate…

How pre-service teachers (PST) develop components of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) is an open question. Theoretically based on PCK and combined with student education in our outreach lab, we implemented a role-change approach in PST education. After theoretical and practical preparation, the PSTs change from the student role, to the tutor…

Introducing group work in college science classrooms can lead to noticeable gains in student achievement, reasoning ability, and motivation. To realize these gains, students must all contribute. Strategies like assigning roles, group contracts, anonymous peer evaluations, and peer ratings all encourage student participation. In a class using these…

This response to Samuelsson's typology for assessing deliberative democracy in classroom discussions views his analysis through an equity lens. It offers Young's model of communicative democracy as a resource and argues that incorporating that model's emphasis on greeting, rhetoric, and storytelling into the typology can help to promote more…

We argue that cultural capital plays an underexamined role in students' recognition as budding scientists by faculty. By triangulating interview data from undergraduates and faculty mentors in a multi-institutional biology research network, we identified a set of intersecting domains of capital that help render students recognizable to faculty. We…

In this study, we used a case study approach to obtain an in-depth understanding of the change process of two university instructors who were involved with redesigning a biology course. Given the hesitancy of many biology instructors to adopt evidence-based, learner-centered teaching methods, there is a critical need to understand how biology…

Background: For the past decade, science educators have been exploring the use of Socio-scientific Issues (SSI) as contexts for science teaching and learning, and research indicates that doing so can support significant learning gains. However, research related to how teachers take up the practice of SSI-based instruction is far more limited, due…

Recent science educational policy reform efforts call for a shift toward practice-focused instruction in kindergarten-Grade 12 science education. We argue that this focus on engaging students in epistemic practices of science opens up new possibilities for the design of learning environments that support the stabilization of learners'…