As the United States strives to achieve energy independence, students need to be literate about energy and environmental issues. In this article, the authors present a lesson about the nation's electricity resources that is part 1 of a free, comprehensive unit on coal and energy that is available online (http://tinyurl.com/coalenergyunit). The…

Students in information technology (IT) need realistic, hands-on experience to master IT skills. When students have the opportunity to train with a hands-on curriculum and prepare to certify in the IT field, they become more deeply engaged in both their education and their career path. This article discusses LabSim, an IT certification training…

In the natural world, learning emerges from the joy of play, experimentation, and inquiry as part of everyday life. However, this kind of informal learning is often difficult to integrate within structured educational curricula. This report describes an educational program that embeds naturalistic learning into formal high school, college, and…

Contemporary instructional approaches expect students to be active producers of knowledge. This leads to the need for creation of instructional tools and tasks that can offer students opportunities for active learning. This study examines the effect of a computational experiment as an instructional tool-for Grade 12 students, using a computer…

Understanding the ways in which scientific knowledge develops, or the epistemology of science, is believed to be a crucial component of scientific literacy. This construct is more formally known as Nature of Science (NOS) within the science education community. The merits of three different approaches to NOS teaching and learning in the context of…

In France, project activities figure predominantly in technology education. The general idea behind learning based on project activity is to allow the pupil to get involved in the activity in question, with the pupil tackling real situations rather than ones of an abstract nature. But too often, we notice that the pedagogical strategies used by…

Project-based learning (PBL) and cooperative learning are, in various aspects, very superior education methodologies compared to other traditional ones. They are highly appropriate methodologies for elective courses, as they exert a strong attraction on the students, quite apart from their educational advantages. This paper describes how PBL and…

Engineering technology students can attain a meaningful mathematics learning if they are allowed to actively participate in hands-on activities. However, the current dissemination of knowledge in the classroom still focuses on teacher-centered paradigm of teaching. A study to explore lecturers' views regarding a newly developed integral calculus…

We transformed our first-year curriculum in biology with a new course, Biological Inquiry, in which greater than 50% of all incoming, first-year students enroll. The course replaced a traditional, content-driven course that relied on outdated approaches to teaching and learning. We diversified pedagogical practices by adopting guided inquiry in…

In New Zealand and internationally claims are being made about the potential for information and communication technologies (ICTs) to transform teaching and learning. However, the theoretical underpinnings explaining the complex interplay between the content, pedagogy and technology a teacher needs to consider must be expanded. This article…

The study reported in this article draws upon data collected for the programme "Increasing the Efficiency of Mathematics and Science instruction" (SINUS-Transfer), a professional development project in Germany. This programme's approach requires teachers to improve their teaching in a cooperative manner and with regard to pedagogical…

This article discusses an exploratory study that examined whether a wiki-based project could foster student-centered learning. Student teachers were divided into five groups to tackle a group project which involved creating digital learning materials on wiki that could teach information technology (IT) to secondary school students. As assessment…

Students are relying on technology for learning more than ever, and educators need to adapt to facilitate student learning. High-fidelity patient simulators (HFPS) are usually reserved for the clinical years of medical education and are geared to improve clinical decision skills, teamwork, and patient safety. Finding ways to incorporate HFPS into…

Paramedic students need to acquire knowledge and skills necessary to perform basic as well as complex clinical skills, to ensure patient safety, and to manage sophisticated equipment. Time and resource pressures on students, teaching staff and institutions have led health professional educators to develop and embrace alternative opportunities such…

Creativity is a talent that undergirds invention and innovation, making it an important skill in today's society. Although students are often told to "be creative," they many times do not know how and have little practice in this skill. This document presents an analysis of 33 creative products made by adult participants at a state conference for…