Research into seed germination classroom activities has been common in the last few decades. Didactic proposals have generally focused on the implementation of guided activities in a specific educational stage and context, and an evaluation of the results. However, it is not evident that students approach seed and germination concepts with a…

Ohm's law and Kirchhoff's rules refer to stationary states and do not provide any indications of the always-present transition processes that connect these states and cause their respective setting. Through the use of suitable simulation programs these transition processes are accessible to classroom activities and allow a deeper and more coherent…

Deception detection is a topic covered in many psychology and communication courses. We designed and implemented an engaging class activity to facilitate the students' learning of several key concepts related to sender and receiver variability in lie detection. The pedagogical effectiveness of the activity was measured. In line with previous…

The authors develop a two-stage classroom experiment to illustrate convergence to long-run equilibrium in a market where price-taking firms are capacity-constrained. Once equilibrium in the first stage is established, capacity constraints are introduced by imposing discontinuities in the fixed costs of several firms. The experiment demonstrates…

Samples of a composite hydrogel incorporating clay (Laponite XLG and S-482) nanoparticles were prepared using N-isopropylacrylamide. The hydrogels were formed via a radical-initiated addition polymerization using potassium persulfate and N,N,N',N'-tetramethylethylenediamine. Students then measured the force required to stretch the gels and…

We have developed an OD3R method that can be applied on Biochemistry learning. This OD3R consists of 5 phases: orientation, decision, do, discuss, and reflect to connect lessons in the class with practice in the laboratory. Implementation of OD3R method was done in 2 universities in Yogyakarta to increase critical thinking skill and practical…

This study examines the effectiveness of classroom experiments conducted before the relevant theories were taught. The experiments were used to provide students with first-hand experience of decision-making under various rivalry settings and to demonstrate several key predictions of oligopoly models. Statistical methods were used to analyze the…

A medium-scale quantitative study (n = 90) found that 10-11-year-old pupils dealt with theory and evidence in notably different ways, depending on how the same science practical task was delivered. Under the auspices of a 2×2 part-randomised and part-quasi experimental design, pupils were asked to complete a brief, apparently simple task involving…

The authors ask whether writing a report on a classroom experiment increases a student's performance in an end-of-course test. To answer this question, the authors analyzed data from a first-year undergraduate course based on classroom experiments and found that writing a report has a large positive benefit. They conclude, therefore, that it is…

We describe a classroom exercise to allow students to explore foraging strategies in higher vertebrates. The exercise includes an initial interactive session in which students act as predators and are guided through foraging simulations, and a subsequent student-led session where classmates are employed as experimental subjects. Students rated the…

In this article, we describe the design principles undergirding "productive failure" (PF; M. Kapur, 2008). We then report findings from an ongoing program of research on PF in mathematical problem solving in 3 Singapore public schools with significantly different mathematical ability profiles, ranging from average to lower ability. In…

An interdisciplinary undergraduate-level robotics course offers students the chance to integrate their engineering knowledge learned throughout their college years by building a robotic system. Robotics is thus a core course in system and control-related engineering education. This paper summarizes the experience of developing robotics courses…

Using dictator games in experimental analysis, this lesson report demonstrates the process and results of a postgraduate class project in which university students were instructed to scientifically investigate and explore one of German society's most hotly-contested issues: the level of discriminatory tendencies of non-Muslims towards Muslims. The…

This classroom activity connection demonstrates the differences between the effects of NaCl (a salt of monovalent metal ions) and CaCl[subscript 2] (a salt of polyvalent metal ions) on swollen superabsorbent polymer gels. Being ionic compounds, NaCl and CaCl[subscript 2] both collapse the swollen polymer gels. The gel contracted by NaCl reswells…

Students often prefer to study animals rather than plants, because they see plants as passive, less interesting organisms. This paper proposes a simple hands-on laboratory exercise for high-school students (grade 12) to arouse their interest in learning about plants and to demonstrate to them that plants are active organisms capable of defending…