There is the question of whether learning differs when students speak versus type their responses when interacting with intelligent tutoring systems with natural language dialogues. Theoretical bases exist for three contrasting hypotheses. The "speech facilitation" hypothesis predicts that spoken input will "increase" learning,…

To test the extent to which learners performing a simple keyboard passage would be affected by directing their focus of attention to different aspects of their movements, 16 music majors performed a brief keyboard passage under each of four focus conditions arranged in a counterbalanced design--a total of 64 experimental sessions. As they…

A course design for first-year science students is described, where the focus is on the skills necessary to do science. The course uses original research projects, designed by the students, to teach a variety of skills including reading the scientific literature, hypothesis development and testing, experimental design, data analysis and…

This study examines prevention system transformation as part of a community-randomized controlled trial of Communities That Care (CTC). Using data from surveys of community leaders, we examine differences between CTC and control communities 4.5 years after CTC implementation. Significantly higher levels of adopting a science-based approach to…

Science instruction literature provides us with goals for laboratory instruction and guidelines for designing and implementing science labs in the post-secondary setting. How well are we doing in our attempt to provide a meaningful and positive learning experience for our students? This paper describes the results of a study to determine whether…

Phenomena that occur in microdroplets are described to the undergraduate chemistry community. Droplets having a diameter in the micrometer range can have unique and interesting properties, which arise because of their small size and, especially, their high surface area-to-volume ratio. Students are generally unfamiliar with the characteristics of…

We investigated the role that tangibility plays in a problem-solving task by observing logistic apprentices using either a multitouch or a tangible interface. Results showed that tangibility helped them perform the task better and achieve a higher learning gain. In addition, groups using the tangible interface collaborated better, explored more…

A number of interesting demonstrations of circular and satellite motion have been described in this journal. This paper presents a variation of a centripetal force apparatus found in G.D. Freier and F.J. Anderson's "A Demonstration Handbook for Physics," which has been modified in order to demonstrate both centripetal force and satellite motion.…

A well-known classroom demonstration involves the rolling of hollow and solid objects down an incline. The fact that the objects roll at different rates can be used as a starting point in introducing students to rotational dynamics and rotational kinetic energy. In this paper we describe a simple quantitative version of the demonstration that is…

The titration of HCl with NaOH has traditionally been used to introduce beginning chemistry students to the concepts of acid-base chemistry and stoichiometry. The demonstration described in this article utilizes this reaction as a means of providing students an opportunity to observe the dynamic motion associated with a swirling vortex and its…

This article describes experiments for an undergraduate instrumental analysis laboratory that aim to observe individual double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) molecules using fluorescence microscopy and atomic force microscopy (AFM). dsDNA molecules are observed under several different conditions to discuss their chemical and physical properties. In…

Although green chemistry principles are increasingly stressed in the undergraduate curriculum, there are only a few lab experiments wherein the toxicity of reagents is taken into consideration in the design of the experiment. We report a microscale green organic chemistry laboratory experiment that illustrates the utility of metal triflates,…

This research examined how differences in category structure affect category learning and category representation across points of development. The authors specifically focused on category density--or the proportion of category-relevant variance to the total variance. Results of Experiments 1-3 showed a clear dissociation between dense and sparse…

This thesis outlines how meV-resolution inelastic x-ray scattering and causality-enforcing mathematics can be used to measure the dynamical density-density linear response function for liquid water with Angstrom spatial resolution and 50fs temporal resolution. The results are compared to high-resolution spectroscopic and scattering experiments and…

Ion implantation is widely used in the microelectronics industry for fabrication of source and drain transistor regions. Unfortunately, implantation causes considerable damage to the substrate lattice rendering most of the implanted dopant electrically inactive. Rapid thermal annealing (RTA) heals the damage by rapidly heating the substrate with a…