When a college instructor goes out of town and must miss a lecture, the standard options are to cancel the class meeting or to enlist a colleague to fill in. In the former case a teaching opportunity is lost; in the latter the substitute may not lead the class in the same way as the instructor. Some students routinely skip lectures by a guest…

Technology expands instructional options for faculty, and this study examines the differential learning effects of offering a lecture on physics to students in a traditional classroom versus internet video formats. Based on an experiment conducted in a natural educational context, results indicate enhanced transfer of lecture information in the…

Podcasts covering essential first-semester general chemistry laboratory techniques and central concepts that aid in experimental design or data processing were prepared and made available for students to access on an as-needed basis on iPhones [arrow right] or iPod touches [arrow right]. Research focused in three areas: the extent of podcast…

A Synchronous Distance Education (SDE) course, jointly offered by Auburn University, Tuskegee University and Auburn University at Montgomery, introduced non-science majors to the concepts of nanoscience. Lectures originated from each of the three campuses during the semester, and video conferencing equipment allowed students at all three campuses…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of Interactive Lecture Demonstrations over traditional instruction on university students' understanding of heat and temperature. The participants were 327 first year undergraduate students from two science classes in two academic years from the same university in Thailand. One class…

As an alternative to reading quizzes, a team of biochemistry instructors implemented student reading questions (Henderson and Rosenthal 2006) as a new instructional strategy within their large-enrollment biochemistry courses. Unexpected positive outcomes of this instructional method were realized, as well as limitations of the method within this…

Despite efforts to engage students in the traditional lecture environment, faculty in Georgia Southern University's Physics Department became dissatisfied with lecture as the primary means of instruction. During the fall semester of 2006, our department began adapting the studio model to suit the needs of introductory calculus-based physics…

Compared to Ernst Mach's influence on the conceptual development of physics, his efforts to popularize science and his reflections on science literacy are known to a much lesser degree. The approach and the impact of Mach's popular scientific lectures are discussed in view of today's problems of understanding science. The key issues…

The main goal of this study was to explore whether the use of multimedia in genetics instruction contributes more to students' knowledge and comprehension than other instructional modes. We were also concerned with the influence of different instructional modes on the retention of knowledge and comprehension. In a quasi-experimental design, four…

In the past 30 years, university-level chemistry education in China has been experiencing significant changes because of the rapid expansion of its university education system. These changes are reflected in improvements to the existing education goals, classroom teaching methods, textbooks, teaching facilities, teacher profiles, lab activities,…

Many large scientific projects and scientific centres incorporate some kind of outreach programme. Almost all of these outreach programmes include public scientific lectures delivered by practising scientists. In this article, we examine such lectures from the perspectives of: (i) lecturers (7) who are practising scientists acknowledged to be good…

Student performance in lecture-based versus case study-based instruction was compared in this study. Case-based teaching that emphasized problem solving and discussion significantly improved student performance on exams throughout the semester and enhanced students' abilities to correctly answer application- and analysis-type questions. (Contains…

The use of toys in physics teaching is common. This brief review of the physics of toys intends to show that they are not only very useful in lectures and demonstrations in order to motivate students but also very interesting from a scientific point of view. However, since their physics is sometimes too cumbersome, the effect can be the opposite.…

This article describes an approach to teaching organic chemistry, which is to have students build their knowledge of organic chemistry upon a strong foundation of the fundamental concepts of the subject. Specifically, the article focuses upon a core set of concepts that I call "the six pillars of organic chemistry": electronegativity, polar…

Anyone who has taught a lecture to a large group of students has probably experienced undesirable student behaviors. The author, who has taught an introductory college biology course at Syracuse University for 45 years, relates that an important part of his teaching philosophy is that everyone should learn from everything that they do, and…