Today's engineering laboratory education often lacks opportunities for students to practice critical thinking through real-world problems. This particular objective is even harder to achieve through online laboratory experiments. In this article, we summarize our innovation in using a real-world challenge, analyze big data, to empower student data…

This article explores how integrating computational tools into a general chemistry laboratory course can influence student perceptions of programming and investigates relationships among student perceptions, prior experience, and student outcomes.

A two-week experiment is presented in which students can observe the impact of nanoparticles on the concentration of chlorophyll in plants. First-year students in an introductory nanotechnology laboratory course and a general chemistry laboratory course synthesized silver nanoparticles and then exposed stalks of "Egeria densa" ("E.…

Inquiry-based pedagogies have a strong presence in proof-based undergraduate mathematics courses, but can be difficult to implement in courses that are large, procedural, or highly computational. An introductory course in statistics would thus seem an unlikely candidate for an inquiry-based approach, as these courses typically steer well clear of…

Students in first-year chemistry classes come from a variety of backgrounds, with many students unaware of the qualities and behaviors of a professional scientist. Throughout their degree, students will gradually develop their cognitive skills, but they may not be adequately taught or assessed on their professional behavioral skills as a scientist…

The aims of teaching laboratories is an important and ever-evolving topic of discussion amongst teaching staff at teaching institutions. It is often assumed that both teaching staff and students are implicitly aware of these aims, although this is rarely tested or measured. This assumption can lead to mismatched beliefs between students and…

The purpose of this synthesis of literature was to identify and analyze existing research that used experimental or quasi-experimental design in school-based agricultural education. This study utilized published articles in the "Journal of Agricultural Education" from the years 2006 through 2016. The study identified 35 articles that met…

This study is an attempt to identify the level of awareness of safety measures practiced in school laboratories among pre-service Science teachers at Najran University. It also aims to identify the sources of safety measures awareness and the statistically significant differences among the sample responses due to specialization and grade…

Research has shown that the objectives for laboratory teaching--just as with other teaching methods--are often not achieved and that many laboratory sessions are ineffective and yet expensive in terms of pupil and teacher time, and facilities. There are several reasons for this, but one reason is that instructions for many lab activities are too…

Integrating teaching and research can benefit both instructors and students by providing an enriching, stimulating experience that combines the instructors' interests with topics that are relevant and motivating to students. In keeping with National Science Foundation review criteria, the integrated course captures both intellectual merit, that is…

Peer instruction has been used extensively in lecture courses; however, there is little evidence of its use in laboratory courses. The purpose of the present study was to describe the implementation of the peer instruction method in a physiology laboratory course in China. Second-year medical students attended a 6-wk physiology laboratory course…

As social and postmodern ontologies continue to shape our definition of space, undergraduate instructors have struggled to incorporate these paradigms in the geography classroom. Recent research suggests that practical applications using field work, qualitative research, and geographic information science can augment students' understanding of…

The monitoring of metals in commercial products is essential for protecting public health against the hazards of metal toxicity. This article presents a guided inquiry (GI) experimental lab approach in a quantitative analysis lab class that enabled students' to determine the levels of aluminum in deodorant brands. The utility of a GI experimental…

An educational researcher sought to collaborate with a classroom instructor to introduce problem-based learning as a new teaching intervention. First, a classroom instructor was approached to consider how a problem-based learning instructional approach might fit with their existing curriculum plan. The researcher and the classroom teacher used a…

This work describes a 10-week laboratory project studying wild-type and mutant bacterial alkaline phosphatase, in which students purify, quantitate, and perform kinetic assays on wild-type and selected mutants of the enzyme. Students also perform plasmid DNA purification, digestion, and gel analysis. In addition to simply learning important…