A new challenge in science education at the university level is the implementation of effective field components within online courses. In nationwide online graduate geoscience courses composed of practicing teachers (N = 130), Google Earth laboratory exercises were incorporated to provide virtual field experiences. Student opinions of these…

In this inquiry-based activity, students catalog external and internal characteristics of four different classes of animals during dissection exercises. On the basis of their accumulated data, students compare and contrast the animals, devise a phylogenetic tree, and provide reasonable characteristics for extinct transitional organisms. (Contains…

This is a series of short cases useful for a variety of courses, including physiological psychology, neuroscience, cognitive psychology, cognitive science, and cognitive neuropsychology/neuroscience. Each of these cases depicts a breakdown in language that may be traced to damage in an area or areas that are related to language processing, and…

This study examined the nature of college students' interest or lack of interest in science and the factors to which they attributed their interest or lack of interest. Twenty-four college students were interviewed to gain an understanding of their ideas and experiences of science; their overall interest in science; their interest levels in four…

In this article, the authors report the results of a preliminary study of preservice teachers' ability to transfer their knowledge between their chemistry and Earth science courses. They examined whether they could answer the transfer questions correctly, how they explained their answers, and what information from their coursework they used to…

The authors sought to better approximate the practice of "real" science in our classrooms by having students study a newly built storm-water remediation wetland on campus. The wetland was meant to gather and clean storm water running off of student parking lots--thus students had ownership in the problem and potential solution. Participating…

Within the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education community there are repeated calls for the reform of undergraduate teaching. Resulting change efforts often focus on developing and disseminating specific instructional ideas and practices to individual faculty. However, in this paper, the authors argue that these efforts…

This study compares a traditional paper presentation approach and a case study method for the development and improvement of oral communication skills and critical-thinking skills in a class of junior forensic science majors. A rubric for rating performance in these skills was designed on the basis of the oral communication competencies developed…

Active learning is a teaching methodology with a focus on student-centered learning that engages students in the educational process. This study implemented active learning techniques in an orthopedic assessment laboratory, and the effects of these teaching techniques. Mean scores from written exams, practical exams, and final course evaluations…

Engaging students in authentic scientific research has become an important component of undergraduate science education at many institutions. The purpose of this paper is to explore authentic research experiences as contexts for learning. The authors review empirical studies of undergraduate research experiences in order to critically evaluate the…

Development of a research instrument to measure student achievement requires planning and reliability and validity testing before the instrument is used to collect data. These steps are often overlooked in research studies, but when the instrument is to be used across a wider population, the inclusion of these steps is vital to address the…

Students in a general education science course made significant gains in scientific reasoning skills when they were taught using carefully designed hands-on activities and writing assignments. The activities required students to make use of scientific skills such as graphing, predicting outcomes under changing conditions, or designing experiments,…

The purpose of this study was to assess some of the effects of a nontraditional, experimental learning approach designed to improve rapid acquisition and long-term retention of quantitative communication skills (QCS) such as descriptive and inferential statistics, hypothesis formulation, experimental design, data characteristics, and data…

Universities are continually adding entrepreneurship courses to their curriculum. Duhaime and Hitt (2000) found 82% of schools offered entrepreneurship courses at the undergraduate level and 69% of masters programs had offerings in entrepreneurship. A much smaller number of programs offer courses that require that the students actually start the…

This paper explores the issues surrounding the relationship among content, content pedagogical, and pedagogical knowledge uses in the areas of mathematics and reading. In this era of teacher accountability, it is prudent to examine the types of knowledge teachers must possess to reach an increasingly diverse student population. (Contains 2…