Education & Training
Insights into nature of science and evolution education
Dr Lawrence C. Scharmann, Professor of Education at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, has been working with non-major biology and science teacher students to enhance the teaching and learning of evolution. His students note that science theories are powerful tools and when they are presented with new ones, they do not have to give up other tools, such as their religious […]
A conceptual approach for interpreting the expanding instances of the internationalisation of education
The internationalisation of education (IE) has accelerated across the past two decades. Although there are now a range of representations and discussions of IE, lacking is a historically-informed framework to connect domains and levels of IE practices. Dr Paul Tarc from Western University argues for a conceptual approach to IE, one that includes theorising past and present enabling conditions of international education […]
Equitable access to quality education in elementary school mathematics
In a study contrasting an assessment-heavy approach that concentrates on ‘getting the answer right’ with one that promotes the development of mathematical thinking in the elementary school classroom, Professor Brian Hudson, from Karlstad University and the University of Sussex, examines what constitutes educational quality in terms of mathematics education. This research demonstrates that in order to ensure fair and impartial […]
Recurrent education aiding women in engineering careers
The Department of Civil Engineering at the National Institute of Technology, Gunma recently published a survey showing that their female graduates are less likely to progress in civil engineering careers than their male counterparts. Ritsuo Sakimura, a professor at the college, wanted to tackle this problem head-on. By collaborating with a female graduate who had found employment at a surveying […]
Engineering capstone courses help students transition from school to work
Capstone design courses offer students the opportunity to work in teams on authentic engineering projects to prepare for the transition from school to work. However, few studies have examined that transition to understand new graduates’ experiences as they become working engineers. The Capstone To Work project addresses the gap by following graduates from four institutions through their first year of […]
Human learning: A story of identity and communication
Anna Sfard is a Professor Emerita at the University of Haifa, Israel. In her role as a learning scientist, she investigates relations between thinking and communication. Linking learning with the notion of identity, her work has already provided several innovative acumens including understanding how identities encompass culture in learning processes; the identification of emotions as a principal factor responsible for the […]
STEM field-to-field transitions for a better workforce
A new scheme called OPEN-NJ at Montclair State University (MSU) means more students will be able to gain interdisciplinary research skills by transitioning from Biology to Chemistry or Biochemistry subjects for graduate-level study. Students in New Jersey with an interdisciplinary education are at an advantage when entering the STEM workforce because the state is home to some biochemical industry giants. […]
Concept mapping as a learning strategy: Impact on undergraduate biology students’ achievement, self-efficacy, and metacognition
Concept mapping is an active learning technique that involves representing connections between ideas in a diagrammatic way. Director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at Morgan State University, Dr Catherine Martin-Dunlop has been carrying out research into the learning strategy to confirm whether it could be the key to improving the academic performance, self-efficacy and metacognitive skills of, […]
Flipping the script: Leveraging leadership development training in young athletes
A free online captain’s training course is teaching high school athletes how to become effective team leaders. By introducing a “flipped classroom” approach to supplement the course, Jedediah E. Blanton and his colleagues at the University of Tennessee have helped students transfer these leadership assets to their teams, and to other areas of their life. Drawing upon over ten years of […]
Increasing personalisation in scientific college courses
In the U.S., women and minorities are severely underrepresented in the science, technology, engineering, and maths (STEM) workforce. Nationwide, and only 40% of students who enrol in a STEM course complete their training. Dr Aditi Pai is exploring the challenge of making undergraduate biology more engaging with the aim of increasing student success. Instead of the traditional approach which uses textbook […]