The year 2020 will forever be remembered as a season of pandemic teaching due to rising COVID-19 infections. Institutions of higher learning abruptly changed from in-person to online in attempts to minimize COVID-19 spread. Due to this, we created and taught online cell biology labs in response to the COVID-19 campus shutdown. Our virtual cell…

Creativity has been conceptualized as involving 2 distinct components; divergent thinking, the search for multiple solutions to a single problem, and convergent thinking, the quest for a single solution either through an analytical process or the experience of insight. Studies have demonstrated that these abilities can be improved by cognitive…

In his introduction to the science shows feature in "Primary Science" 115, Ian B. Dunne asks the question "Why have science shows?" He lists a host of very sound reasons, starting with because "science is fun" so why not engage and entertain, inspire, grab attention and encourage them to learn? He goes onto to state that: "Even in today's…

Creating inquiry activities is inherently difficult. Asking meaningful questions requires both background knowledge on the part of the students and complexity on the part of the phenomena. Yet numerous strategies can help teachers conduct inquiry activities. In this article, the authors share a taxonomy of teaching strategies used to create…

The laboratory the author had been assigned for his RET (Research Experience for Teachers) at Vanderbilt University is new and different from the one he had previously experienced. This summer he was assigned to the Microfluidics and Lab-on-a-chip laboratory to help research dielectrophoresis. As this is an emerging technology, there was not a lot…

Educators have indicated that creative teaching is the most important educational activity; nevertheless, most existing education systems fail to engage students in effective creative tasks. To address this issue, this study proposes a mind map based collaborative learning approach for supporting creative learning activities and enhancing…

This study investigated the effect of metaconceptual teaching interventions on students' understanding of force and motion concepts. A multimethod research design including quasi-experimental design and case study designs was employed to compare the effect of the metaconceptual activities and traditional instruction and investigate students'…