Teaching experiments have generated several hypotheses concerning the construction of fraction schemes and operations and relationships among them. In particular, researchers have hypothesized that children's construction of splitting operations is crucial to their construction of more advanced fractions concepts (Steffe, 2002). The authors…

The Young-Feynman two-hole interferometer is widely used to present electron wave-particle duality and, in particular, the buildup of interference fringes with single electrons. The teaching approach consists of two steps: (i) electrons come through only one hole but diffraction effects are disregarded and (ii) electrons come through both holes…

Teaching the acoustic properties of materials is a good way to teach physics concepts, extending them into the technological arena related to materials science. This article describes an innovative approach for teaching sound and acoustics in combination with sound insulating materials in secondary school (15-16-year-old students). Concerning the…

The aim of this study is twofold. The first is to investigate the ability of secondary school students to understand the different distribution schemes and thus, indirectly, to contribute to the educational discussion and approach to be used for distribution problems so as to lessen reliance on the ubiquitous cross-multiplication rule in…

Microscale chemistry has become accepted and introduced into teaching worldwide. It can be applied to all areas of chemistry and under most circumstances, including where the usual infrastructure is absent. Anyone considering its introduction must be prepared to do a lot of work on it to ensure its success as an educational innovation. (Contains 1…

The authors developed a demonstration with two similar setups that provide students with both the prior experience to form an expectation and the discrepancy to grab their attention. They follow the demonstration with a structured exploration format that gives students a method for experimenting to find the one built-in difference (i.e., the…

Laboratory education can play a vital role in developing a learner's autonomy and scientific inquiry skills. In an innovative, mutation-based learning (MBL) approach, students were instructed to redesign a teacher-designed standard experimental protocol by a "mutation" method in a molecular genetics laboratory course. Students could…

This study sought to evaluate whether a one-trial brief experimental analysis (OTBEA) would reliably and validly identify effective treatments to improve oral reading fluency for 6 elementary school students referred for reading problems. An OTBEA was conducted with each participant to assess the effects of skill- and performance-based treatment…

The Index of Learning Styles (ILS) generates reliable data. Its ability to characterize learning preference has been validated. However, the ILS has had very limited application in biology education. In 2009, students in an introductory biology laboratory completed the ILS. Overall academic performance (2009) was negatively associated with…

Introducing students to the process of scientific inquiry is a major goal of high school and college labs. Environmental toxins are of great concern and public interest. Modifications of a vertebrate developmental toxicity assay using the frog Xenopus laevis can support student-initiated toxicology experiments that are relevant to humans. Teams of…

This paper describes a randomised educational experiment (n = 47) that examined two different teaching methods and compared their effectiveness at correcting one science misconception using a sample of trainee primary school teachers. The treatment was designed to promote engagement with the scientific concept by eliciting emotional responses from…

This paper explores the hypothesis that embedding a laboratory activity into a virtual environment can provide a richer experimental context and hence improve the understanding of the relationship between a theoretical model and the real world, particularly in terms of the model's strengths and weaknesses. While an identified learning objective of…

A reality show about a college course--a chemistry class no less? That's what "ChemLab Boot Camp" is. The 14-part series of short videos is being released one episode at a time on the online learning site of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The novel show follows a diverse group of 14 freshmen as they struggle to master the…

Oxford College is a small liberal-arts intensive 2-year undergraduate division of Emory University, where inquiry-based courses are a required part of the general education program. We have developed an authentic research experience for undergraduates that mimics--as much as possible--a real undergraduate research experience. Our program provides…

The paper presents results of "non-traditional" teaching of the basic course of Physics in the first year of study at the Technical University in Zvolen, specifically teaching via interactive method enriched with problem tasks and experiments. This paper presents also research results of the use of the given method in conditions of…