General Chemistry is a course where students are expected to nurture the development of their fundamental concepts in chemistry. Students begin general chemistry with alternative conceptions about the topics and fragmented knowledge structures. Majority of students who successfully complete the general chemistry course sequence continue to hold…

Problems with understanding concepts and mechanisms connected to plant movements have been diagnosed among biology students. Alternative conceptions in understanding these phenomena are marginally studied. The diagnosis was based on a sample survey of university students and their lecturers, which was quantitatively and qualitatively exploratory…

Purpose: As online learning has become more prevalent, how learners interact with each other in those learning environments has become more salient. To develop effective levels of interaction, students must feel comfortable to express their ideas and views. For this reason, this paper aims to look at how individual students' levels of social…

The flipped classroom aims to improve learning by engaging students in educational activities outside of traditional lessons. Flipped classrooms have steadily gained popularity in the last decade and are a topic of discussion in teaching and learning forums. However, its adoption in mathematics and statistics has been subdued. Most higher…

We describe an active learning exercise to teach students about social stigma. After lecturing on the topic, the instructor distributes a worksheet and shows several clips from the movie "Shrek," pausing after each clip to lead a discussion of the concepts. We provide information about the movie scenes, the student worksheet, and…

In this paper, we report a teaching experiment regarding the theory of polynomial approximations at the university mathematics teaching in Sweden. The experiment was designed by applying Variation theory and by using the free dynamic mathematics software GeoGebra. The aim of this study was to investigate if the technology-assisted teaching of…

The impact of lecture instruction on student conceptual understanding in physics has been the subject of research for several decades. Most studies have reported disappointingly small improvements in student performance on conceptual questions despite direct instruction on the relevant topics. These results have spurred a number of attempts to…

Science education research has built a strong body of work on students' understandings but largely overlooked the nature of science knowledge itself. Legitimation Code Theory (LCT), a rapidly growing approach to education, offers a way of analyzing the organizing principles of knowledge practices and their effects on science education. This…

As has been shown by previous research, students may possess various misconceptions in the area of thermal physics. In order to help them overcome misconceptions observed prior to instruction, we implemented a one-hour lecture-based intervention in their introductory thermal physics course. The intervention was held after the conventional lectures…

In large lecture courses, it can be challenging for instructors to address student misconceptions, supplement background knowledge, and identify ways to motivate the various interests of all students during the allotted class time. Instructors can harness instructional technology such as screencasts, recordings that capture audio narration along…

This paper shows what research about student perceptions of lecture courses can indicate about student approaches to learning and the outcomes of learning. The amount that students will learn from a lecture course depends on: 1) student approach to learning, 2) perception of what is to be learned, and 3) level of information processing. It was…

Surveyed students taking a natural resource conservation course to determine the effects of computer software that provides tools for creating and managing visual presentations to students. Results indicated that 94% of the respondents believed computer-aided lectures helped them and recommended their continued use; note taking was more effective,…