In 2017, Longwood University launched the LIFE STEM Program, a holistic program girded by best practices in STEM teaching: cohorts of students, summer bridge program, genuine community building, intentional faculty-student mentoring, focused academic support and professional development, early research experiences, engagement with challenging…

Civic education is a moral development imperative of the Indonesian national curriculum and the United Nation's policy on education for sustainable development. It was within this context that we investigated the impact of ethical dilemma story pedagogy (EDSP) on student learning in a constructivist Indonesian STEM learning environment. EDSP uses…

This study aims to test the effectiveness of a socio-scientific issue (SSI) based instruction through STEM-6E (engage, explore, explain, engineer, enrich, and evaluate). Controversial science topics (e.g. genetically modified organisms) in many countries, especially Indonesia, can be approached via integrated STEM education. One hundred and nine…

This article is the result of a critical analysis of the incorporation of Digital Culture into methodologies and interactive approaches that drive collaborative and meaningful learning processes for higher education students. We will analyze a specific course, Science, Technology and Society in Arts, Languages and Culture, with students from the…

The answer to this month's question, "Can electromagnetic waves affect emotions," is yes. Wherever there are electromagnetic (EM) waves (basically everywhere!), there is the potential for them directly or indirectly to affect the emotions. But what about the likely motivation behind the originally-posed question? Can EM waves affect your…

In mathematics education, researchers have proposed a wide range of improvements of teaching practice in school, but only a few of these proposals have sustainably changed mathematics education in the desired form. This article takes off with the assumption that this gap between ideals and practice can be understood and challenged through a better…

School-industry collaboration can be an effective way to implement STSE issues to teaching. However, teachers' negative beliefs, lack of knowledge, resources, support and opportunities to collaborate with companies can impede the efficient implementation. In this case-study, 42 Finnish and Slovenian pre-service teachers' STSE beliefs were first…

This paper describes a service-learning course in Chemistry Honours at Rhodes University in South Africa. Students visit two schools in different settings, where they present a lecture-demonstration, entitled 'A Pollutant's Tale', and two hands-on experiments to school learners. The students are assessed on their learnings as seen through their…

Higher education institutions (HEIs) in Norway have been subjected to several reforms in recent decades. There are transformed relationships between institutions and their environment, and higher educations' third mission is emphasized. To improve our understanding of HEIs' third mission, this paper employs boundary object theory, enabling us to…

Background: Argumentation is an important discourse process in science that needs to be taught and learned as part of a repertoire of strategies to support the acquisition of scientific literacy. Research in science education indicates that beliefs or perceptions and the epistemological orientations of teachers influence their approaches to…

Problem-Based Learning (PBL) modules based on the topic of socio-scientific issues are behaved to be effective to improve argumentation skills. This aim of the research was to look at the effectiveness of PBL modules on the topic of socio-scientific issues, in order to empower argumentation skills for students with high and low achievements.…

Growing human populations place increasing demands on our planet, resulting in an array of challenges with both scientific and non-scientific dimensions. These challenges are collectively known as socio-scientific issues (SSIs). It is essential to understand how students learn to use values to reason about SSIs, particularly when dealing with…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to assess the socioscientific issue (SSI) method as a way of improving seventh graders' nutrition know-how on dietary supplements (DS), and to describe how students experience learning nutritional issues through the SSI method. Design/methodology/approach: Participants were seventh graders from three different…

Engineering ethics education typically focuses on decisions by individual engineers and case studies of disasters. This does not reflect the everyday decisions that practicing engineers must make, and neglects the fact that most engineers work on teams rather than alone. The focus on safety and disaster prevention leaves little time for discussing…

This study is framed in the social perspective of Epistemology of Science, and it aims to examine the epistemic operations performed by high school students while engaged in a role-play about food safety that requires them to engage in both argumentation and decision-making practices. The epistemic operations are examined on two different levels:…