3D printing technology is a powerful educational tool that can promote integrative STEM education by connecting engineering, technology, and applications of science concepts. Yet, research on the integration of 3D printing technology in formal educational contexts is extremely limited. This study engaged preservice elementary teachers (N = 42) in…

Understanding the relationship between molecular structure and function represents an important goal of undergraduate life sciences. Although evidence suggests that handling physical models supports gains in student understanding of structure-function relationships, such models have not been widely implemented in biochemistry classrooms.…

The purpose of the study was to explore the development of discourses that emerge as a result of inservice teachers being engaged in a richly situated technological task that incorporated geometric spatial sense development and the engineering design processes. Typically, learning has been approached as a discrete set of tasks to be mastered…

Digital fabrication and "3D Making" are prominent recent additions to school curricula, hastened by the increased affordability of Computer Assisted Design software and devices such as 3D printers. It is increasingly argued that classroom use of these technologies can re-orientate schools towards forms of skills and knowledge appropriate…

In this paper, we present the details of the development of a smartphone spectrometer for education using a 3D printer and characterized the performance by comparison with a paper craft spectrometer. The optical design and the narrow slit used in the build resulted in the formation of accurate images of the slit on the image sensor leading to a…

The quality of students' writing skills continues to concern educators. Because writing is essential to success in both college and career, poor writing can have lifelong consequences. Writing is now primarily done digitally, but students receive limited explicit instruction in digital writing. This lack of instruction means that students fail to…

For centuries, cadaveric material has been the cornerstone of anatomical education. For reasons of changes in curriculum emphasis, cost, availability, expertise, and ethical concerns, several medical schools have replaced wet cadaveric specimens with plastinated prosections, plastic models, imaging, and digital models. Discussions about the…

This paper presents a comprehensive review and a specific example implementation of a minimally invasive technique that can be used to make quantitative measurements of a subject's Electro-Dermal Activity (EDA) in educational technology studies. The Q sensor is a low-cost wireless sensor that can be worn on the wrist to measure a subject's…

"Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions" is an 1884 novella written by English schoolmaster Edwin Abbott. He describes what it would be like to live in a two-dimensional (2D) world--Flatland. It is fascinating reading that underscores the challenge of teaching three-dimensional (3D) mathematics using 2D tools. Real-world applications of…

3D printers can do a lot more than just printing nice little giveaways such as keyring pendants or chess pieces. During a project at the Holbein-Gymnasium Augsburg in Bavaria, Germany, students developed a number of helpful tools for chemistry lessons and tested them in classes. Full details of these are now available for free to any teacher who…

One goal of the NIH SEPA (Science Education Partnership Awards) program is to create partnerships among biomedical researchers, teachers and schools. The MSOE Center for BioMolecular Modeling (CBM) has leveraged the support from a series of SEPA awards to create a multifaceted outreach program that connects biomolecular researchers and their…

This study of minority students entering their first year of an urban historically Black college (HBCU) investigated the utility of commercial subliminal audio aids to improve academic performance, along with a method of automatic delivery of said messages. Recruited from graduates of an eight-week summer program, 324 developmental students were…

Picture this: a PhD chemist, PhD science educator, and a preservice Latina elementary educator walk into an aftercare program for primary and intermediate students from a rural school. These students are identified as low income and at risk and therefore eligible to participate in this school-provided aftercare. While across the state, these same…

Using a phenomenological study of educational games, this article describes how computer-based digital tools were used to simultaneously record computer applications (such as games), voice and sounds, participant facial expressions, and gestures to enliven phenomenological interviews and provide rich, thickly described data. In a study,…

Recently devices such as the optical mouse of a computer, webcams, Wii remote, and digital cameras have been used to record and analyze different physical phenomena quantitatively. Devices like tablets and smartphones are also becoming popular. Different scientific applications available at Google Play (Android devices) or the App Store (iOS…