Recent research and reform efforts in science education have consistently stressed the importance of coherent science instruction, in which learning opportunities are connected and contextualized by meaningful phenomena, focus on a small set of core ideas over time, and generate a need-to-know about new ideas through a set of connected lessons.…

Students' skills in structure elucidation of organic molecules are developed by training them to understand advanced spectroscopic measurements and elucidate structures of small organic molecules from mass spectrometry (MS) and infrared (IR), ultraviolet (UV), and [superscript 1]H and [superscript 13]C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)…

Many universities throughout the world apply student-centered approaches. Common to these is that projects, problems, challenges etc. stem from "real life". Mathematics is an effective tool to solve problems, but in this paper, we discuss how we reconcile the fact that mathematics is both a pure and an applied discipline with…

If people want to be healthy they need to eat. However, food poverty (the inability to afford or access food to make up a healthy diet) is just one of the consequences of climate change. For many children in UK schools, food poverty is their everyday experience. The UK's food poverty rate is suggested to be among the highest in Europe; despite the…

Teachers are the most important school resource. In every country, teachers' salaries and training represent the greatest share of expenditure on education; and this investment in teachers can have significant returns. Research shows that being taught by the best teachers can make a real difference in the learning and life outcomes of otherwise…

During four intensive summer weeks, 28 students were exposed to the daily life of top political leaders (ministers and city mayors), acting as their political advisors. Real-life assignments were planned in cooperation with liaisons from the personal offices of these political leaders. The cases brought the hectic, complicated and uncertain life…

Scientific research is usually presented as the driver that provides progress and meaning to the academic ecosystem. Higher education on the other hand, is typically imagined as something that naturally follows scientific research. In the academic ecosystem, education often retains a more marginalized position than scientific research and in many…

Mathematical models and mathematical modeling play different roles in the different areas and problems in which they are used. The function and status of mathematical modeling and models in the different areas depend on the scientific practice as well as the underlying philosophical and theoretical position held by the modeler(s) and the…

We will present a framework for establishing distance education in schools by combining Networked Learning and media ecologies seen as both environments and as relations between media. Our model for such a framework is called "The Flexible Meeting Place" and can be used in schools that lack teachers in certain subjects, and also in…

Chemical engineering is mostly taught using traditional classroom teaching and laboratory experiments when possible. Being a wide discipline encompassing topics such as analytical chemistry, process design, and microbiology, it may be argued that brewing of beer has many relations to chemical engineering topic-wise. This work illustrates how…

A virtual learning environment can engage university students in the learning process in ways that the traditional lectures and lab formats cannot. We present our virtual learning environment "StudentResearcher," which incorporates simulations, multiple-choice quizzes, video lectures, and gamification into a learning path for quantum…

The presented design case gives examples of designing an Augmented Reality learning scenario about the Solar System with 6th grade. The case connects the physical and virtual worlds in Augmented Reality, like 3D planetary globes floating above the textbook. This way, students can interact with digital information embedded in the physical…

In 1820 the Danish scientist Hans Christian Ørsted discovered the relationship between electricity and magnetism by his famous wire-compass experiment. Ørsted was one of the foremost scientists of the nineteenth century, and he was also one of the leading figures in Denmark in the 19th century with a vital influence in the fields of aesthetics,…

The purpose of the paper is to present the framework and design of modules aiming to teach socio-scientific issues and the related pedagogy to pre-service teachers. Specifically, the work presented in this paper is part of the PreSEES project, a Comenius/LLP project with the main aim of engaging elementary and secondary pre-service teachers in…

This article provides an overview of the main sociological approaches applicable to the study and analysis of teaching, teachers and teacher education. Analytical perspectives from sociology are then compared to research on teachers from two other disciplines, education economics and educational psychology, which have produced the lion's share of…