Although most students in nonmajor biology courses will not enter careers in science, they will need a working understanding of biology and how it relates to their lives to make informed decisions on important topics that will affect their lives, including food, environment, energy, and health. This research seeks to improve on nonmajors'…

Quantitative reasoning, although included in most science courses, can be challenging to teach. In this article, we explore whether cooperative learning may help instructors teach quantitative reasoning and enhance students' understanding and learning experience. Our lesson was taught in a large introductory geoscience course. The lesson required…

This article presents ideas and narratives of an experiment on the concept of energy developed for an honors seminar on energy and a mechanics course. We argue that energy is an idea best taught in an interdisciplinary manner. While most physics courses explore ideas such as mechanical energy and conservation of energy, it is imperative that a…

The COVID-19 pandemic forced higher-education institutions to close campuses and pivot all face-to-face (F2F) instruction online. This transition to Crisis Distance Education (CDE) was unprecedented in scope and speed as it was implemented globally. We surveyed students in a large, introductory-level biology course to understand their opinions…

Online teaching and learning have become widespread in higher education over the past two decades, and accelerated during the pandemic. Although online learning is expanding and has many benefits, instructors teaching online courses must deal with a variety of demands in online learning environments. Formative assessment and sense of community…

Metacognition, the ability to think about and regulate one's thinking, is an important factor in effective student learning. One intervention to promote student metacognition is the exam wrapper--a reflection students complete after an exam noting how their performance related to their preparation. Results are mixed on the effect of the exam…

This article reports on students' experiences of the lectorial approach that was implemented for health science students studying sciences at a South Australian university. A lectorial, based on active student-centered learning, is a newly-designed teaching method for a large-scale class employing interactive activities to enhance student…

With calls to reassess higher education teaching methods, active learning practices have quickly become a popular alternative to traditional lectures, especially in STEM courses that traditionally rely heavily on large-lecture formats. In this regard, active learning environments stand to better prepare students for life after college; however,…

In very large lecture classes, student engagement is always a challenge, and many instructors use electronic student response systems (SRS) to promote student engagement and active learning. The conventional wisdom in using student response systems is that the technology matters less than the pedagogy; it is the added value of the instructor that…

In response to STEM education reform efforts, many instructors have incorporated active learning into their courses. However, the relationship between instructor justification to students about the use of active learning and student perception of why instructors use active learning is largely unknown. To investigate instructor active learning…

Engineering design is an ideal perspective for engaging students in college science classes. An engineering design problem-solving framework was used to create a general chemistry lab activity focused on an important environmental issue--dead zones. Dead zones impact over 400 locations around the world and are a result of nutrient pollution, one…

Improving students' understanding of how science works requires explicit instruction. Here, we test the efficacy of a module based on two previously published activities (the "Cube Puzzle" and the case study "Asteroids and Dinosaurs") that teach how science works to college science majors. Students also use the How Science…

With only minimal changes to the course structure, classroom clickers were introduced in introductory chemistry to allow students to regularly compare their perceived abilities with their actual abilities, a measurement also known as calibration. Students used the clickers to provide knowledge judgments, an indication of their confidence in…

Many large-lecture introductory science courses for nonscience majors do not have a lab component and hence do not provide much opportunity for students to engage in the practice of science. I have developed a new instructional activity called Dorm Room Labs that enables students to conduct hands-on activities as homework (or dorm room work) to…

A critical thinking assessment was used to compare biology students in a nonmajors course who participated in either a multisemester research program or in a one-semester lab study. Initially, it was thought the former would be more effective in promoting critical thinking improvement than the latter. Data from nine biology classes with pre- and…