Learning the wealth of information in metabolic pathways is both challenging and overwhelming for students. A step-by-step guided discovery approach to the learning of the chemical steps in gluconeogenesis and the citric acid cycle is described. This approach starts from concepts the student already knows, develops these further in a logical…

Today's "out-of-school learning" is dominated by PC games, videos, and TV. These media provide children with optimal conditions for nurturing their visuospatial intelligence. In "chemistry" and biochemistry, over the past 125 years, thinking has shifted from the "logical-mathematical" to the "logical-visuospatial." In chemistry visuospatial…

Integration of molecular modeling into General Chemistry lab encourages students to dually process molecular concepts both verbally and pictorially. When students are tested utilizing questions not previously encountered the dual processing of information can contribute to a transfer to knowledge. General Chemistry students utilized molecular…

In this paper, the authors argue that chemical knowledge in the classroom will be enriched by the application of characterizations of models drawn from a range of disciplinary backgrounds. This discussion highlights two important issues relating to chemical knowledge in the classroom: (1) the status of chemical knowledge in the classroom,…

The purpose of this study was to identify misconceptions concerning chemical equilibrium concepts and to investigate the effectiveness of instruction based on the constructivist approach over traditional instruction on 10th grade students' understanding of chemical equilibrium concepts. The subjects of this study consisted of 71 10th grade…

Peer Led Team Learning (PLTL) is an effective and interactive approach to teaching mathematics and science. This approach involves the course instructor and peer leaders working with teams of students in weekly workshops. In this article, the authors state that peer leaders play a key role in the success of the peer learning teaching method. They…

The conference report includes an explanation of the conference plan, a description of the highlights, and descriptions of each session. Among the session topics are: faculty development; instructional improvement in the community college, with emphasis on developmental education; conditions that enhance learning; improving the lecture; evaluating…

The primary purpose of this study was to understand what happens when some aspects of the constructivist approach, namely prediction, explanation, student-centered, and teacher-centered discussions, are applied to science teaching. The study involved 363 junior high school students in Taiwan. It combined the effectiveness of four alternative…

A study described, analyzed, and interpreted the ways an effective high school teacher used literacy activities (reading, writing, and discussion) to teach chemistry to first-year chemistry students. The teacher selected was considered effective by peers and students and professed to intentionally use literacy activities as a means of teaching…

This study investigated how academic norms, expectations and rules affect the experiences of graduate students, particularly in regards to reported academic misconduct at disciplinary and departmental levels. The study used a hierarchical linear analysis with data from a nationwide survey of 2,000 graduate students in chemistry, civil engineering,…

Incident identification graphs can be used to diagnose areas of difficulty in a subject's problem-solving schema at the episodic level. In this study, 22 subjects (2 experts and 20 novices) categorized into five problem-solving groups (expert, high algorithmic/high conceptual, low algorithmic/high conceptual, high algorithmic/low conceptual, and…

Undergraduates from chemical engineering, applied chemistry, and environmental science courses, together with first-year postgraduate research students in electrochemical technology, are provided with an experiment that demonstrates the reduction of dissolved oxygen in aerated seawater at 25°C. Oxygen reduction is examined using linear sweep…

This curriculum consists of a one-week course of study designed to introduce students in grades 4-6 to (or increase their awareness of) toxic substances commonly found in the home. It includes an introduction/conceptual framework, four lessons, a unit evaluation, and appendices. Each lesson consists of a statement of purpose, objectives,…

To develop practical Web-based instruction (WBI) design guidelines for faculty and instructional support staff, the author analyzed three different WBI design cases based on interviews with three experts. On the surface, the WBI design processes that each expert used look more alike than different, entailing similar major steps. The underlying…

This unit introduces analytic solutions of ordinary differential equations. The objective is to enable the student to decide whether a given function solves a given differential equation. Examples of problems from biology and chemistry are covered. Problem sets, quizzes, and a model exam are included, and answers to all items are provided. The…