Science and Mathematics Education Commons^™

Implementation Of Flipped Classrooms In A Non-Major Biology Course, Leah Good

Scholars Week

With major calls for reform in STEM education from professional organizations (e.g. AAAS, NIH, NSF), studies have found that faculty in higher education can improve student learning by changing their teaching from teacher-centered to student-centered. Change in teaching practice can be difficult, however, especially without significant training. One method of introducing student-centered teaching practices into the classroom is through the use of a flipped classroom model, where students engage in learner-centered activities within the classroom and receive passively-transmitted information outside the classroom. The focus of my study was two-fold, (a) to determine if the flipped classroom method affects student learning …

Math As Text, Rhetoric As Reason: Can The Humanities Save Math Education?, Elizabeth Melendez

KSU Journey Honors College Capstones and Theses

As a student I had always struggled hopelessly with math. I noticed many of my classmates and associates outside of school shared similar experiences with this subject. However, a unique convergence of fortuitous circumstances shed some much needed light on my difficulties with math. Using a creative and communicative approach, I was able to analyze my experience from a rhetorical perspective, which allowed me to see more clearly, not just the problem I was having with math, but the overall problems many seem to have with math education. My findings were astonishing and became the subject of my research for …

Concepts About Sedimentology And Stratigraphy In Undergraduate Geoscience Courses, Bailey Z. Kreager

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This two-part study examines sedimentologic and stratigraphic concepts in undergraduate geoscience courses. The first part seeks to identify the various types of interactive engagement strategies used in undergraduate science courses, how they are used and in what fields. It also looks at areas in which the geosciences have excelled in interactive engagement strategies. Published studies describing interactive engagement strategies in college-level courses were collected and coded, which identified six emergent types of interactive engagement strategies: (1) Polling, (2) Full-Class Discussion and Activities, (3) In-Class Group Work, (4) Out-Of-Class Group Work, (5) Online Work, and (6) Other types. Interactive engagement strategies …

Physics Comic Book: A Classroom Resource For Engaging Students, Jacob Bukkila

Undergraduate Research Symposium

For most students going through school, physics can be an intimidating course. Large and complicated textbooks are daunting, the material itself can sometimes be conceptually difficult, and on top of all that, physics uses the language of math to communicate ideas. Additionally, societal expectations have turned women away from the sciences, creating an unequal distribution of gender in science occupations. For these reasons, students are often intimidated by physics. The purpose of this project is to make physics more accessible to every student, especially women, through the use of a comic book. Comic books provide a multitude of advantages for …

21st Century Reasoning Modalities In Interdisciplinary Stem Education, Bryan Gallant

GS4 Student Scholars Symposium

The overarching goal of the Institute for Interdisciplinary STEM Education (iå_STEMe) at Georgia Southern University is to improve student engagement and learning outcomes in STEM courses through immersion in authentic, real-world, problem-based and place-based educational settings. To accomplish this goal, iå_STEMe has partnered with 10 middle and high schools located in Georgia to incorporate a series of reasoning modalities developed to meet the requirements of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) to develop STEM literate citizens capable of making informed decisions, and to open up opportunities to fill the growing need for STEM professionals. The reasoning modalities developed are Complex …

Building Exemplary Teaching Practices: Following The Paths Of New Science Teachers, Elizabeth B. Lewis, Ana Rivero, Aaron A. Musson, Jia Lu, Lyrica Lucas

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Presentations

There are few comprehensive studies of beginning science teachers that describe enacted teaching practices in terms of inquiry-based instruction, classroom discourse, assessment, and curricular choices, and explore how these factors interact with teaching self-efficacy. We conducted a 3-year, longitudinal study of four cohorts of master’s level science teacher education program graduates. We coded and analyzed 319 science lessons of new teachers from student teaching to third year post-program to describe teachers’ enacted practices and gathered annual teaching self-efficacy reports to examine teachers’ beliefs. Our analysis resulted in key findings relevant to future programmatic improvements. First, when we reviewed specific inquiry-based …

The Impact Of A Story-Based Lesson On Student Learning And Attitudes, Janice Marie Fulford

Research and Creative Activities Poster Day

Recent work by Stephen Klassen draws attention to specific structural elements that are thought to give stories their explanatory power in the context of physics. In this poster we report results of a study based on Klassen’s pioneering work but in the context of evolution. A mixed-method research study was conducted over two semesters at a Midwest university to determine if a story developed from the history of research on industrial melanism over the course of a three day lesson would result in improved student understanding of the concept of natural selection.

The study involved a direct comparison of two …

Why Are Students Doing Research? Examining The Motivation Of Students Involved In Undergraduate Research Programs, Andrew Layne Mcdevitt

Theses and Dissertations

Use of self-determination theory (SDT) within the science classroom focuses primarily on ways to integrate intrinsic motivation into students' identity. Experiential learning plays a large role in promoting learning by shaping students' interests, identity, and intrinsic aspirations. This phenomenological research study sought to understand how experiential learning experiences helped influence career aspirations of graduate students within ecological disciplines. By determining how their experiences met three basic psychological needs outlined by SDT (competence, autonomy, and relatedness), we were able to examine which regulators drove motivation.

In the qualitative pilot study, participants developed a genuine enjoyment and appreciation for their discipline as …

The Scientific Teaching Practices Survey For Undergraduate Stem Courses, Mary F. Durham, Jenny K. Knight, Brian Couch

Discipline-Based Education Research Group Speaker Series

The National Academies Summer Institutes on Undergraduate Education (SI) is a faculty development workshop in which STEM instructors are trained in the Scientific Teaching (ST) pedagogy and encouraged to implement its practices at their home institutions. While participants generally report positive experiences at the SI, it remains unclear how these experiences affect instructors’ teaching practices and associated student outcomes. As part of a larger effort to evaluate the SI, we developed a survey to gauge the frequencies of ST practices that could occur in undergraduate STEM courses. The ST Practices Survey is derived from the observable teaching practices described in …

Assessing Student Comprehension In Introductory Biology: A Comparison Of Free-Response And Multiple-True/False Exam Formats, Macy A. Potts, Brian Couch, Joanna K. Hubbard

UCARE: Research Products

Question format is an important consideration when designing instruments to gauge student comprehension. In many lecture-style courses, instructors must decide how to effectively test a large group of students. Two common types of question formats used for introductory biology exams are free-response (FR) and multiple-true/false (MTF). FR questions include a question prompt which students respond to with essay-style answers. Conversely, MTF questions include an opening question stem with accompanying statements to be marked as either true or false. The goal of this study was to determine the advantages and disadvantages of FR and MTF question formats for assessing student comprehension …

Binning For Equity And Access: Formative Assessment–Focused Teacher Professional Development For Middle School Mathematics Classrooms, Brent Duckor, Carrie Holmberg, Joanne Becker

Faculty Publications

While research has shown for over a decade that teachers who engage in formative assessment (FA) practices may have the most powerful impact on student learning (Black & Wiliam, 1998; Hattie, 2012) less is known about the development of teachers’ knowledge and use of formative assessment as they plan, enact, and reflect on their practice. Our qualitative case study focuses on how in-service middle school math teachers take up the specific moves (Author, 2014a) associated with formative assessment practice as they plan, enact, and reflect on their practices as part of a FA-focused professional development cycle of inquiry. The study …

Stem Stories, April 2016, #2, Mir Ashfaquzzaman

STEM Stories

Project Profile - Biogeochemical Evolution of the Atmosphere (BETA) Project

Using Just-In-Time Teaching In A Flipped Undergraduate Biological Systems Engineering Course, Jeyamkondan Subbiah

Discipline-Based Education Research Group Speaker Series

This study analyzed the role of the evidence-based instructional practice of Just-in-time (JIT) teaching integrated with the flipped classroom in an undergraduate biological systems engineering course. In the present paper we provide a detailed overview of the course design, development, and implementation of JIT in a flipped approach to instruction by communicating the technologies used, pedagogy employed to integrate online and in-class activities, and the collaboration between the instructional design support and instructor. Based on the results, we provide recommendations for engineering faculty that want to explore the flipped approach to teaching, examples for online learning activities and how to …

Using Interactive Engagement Strategies To Enhance Learning In College Science Courses, Bailey Z. Kreager, Leilani Arthurs

Discipline-Based Education Research Group Speaker Series

The number of decreasing science majors in U.S. institutions of higher education is connected to the quality of science instruction (Seymour, 1994; Daempfle, 2003) and resulted in nation-wide efforts to improve the quality of college-level science education (National Committee on Science Education Standards and Assessment et al., 1996; NGSS Lead States, 2013). This talk presents historical trends in the adoption of interactive engagement (IE) strategies in college-level science courses and presents one such IE strategy, lecture tutorials (LTs), in the context of sedimentology and stratigraphy.

To determine historical trends in the adoption of IE strategies, peer-reviewed journal articles accessible via …

Motivation For Mathematics: The Development And Initial Validation Of An Abbreviated Instrument, Kenneth Lee Butler

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study outlines the development and initial validation of an abbreviated instrument intended to measure motivation for mathematics of university students in developmental algebra courses. I look across many of the predominant theories on motivation with the aim of representing several of these theories as latent constructs in a single instrument that is short enough to be administered in a reasonable amount of time, but inclusive enough that it could incorporate subscales representing multiple distinct latent factors. This study answers a call by researchers expressing a need to investigate relationships between disparate theories on motivation and is a response to …

Eighth-Grade Students' Use And Justification Of Multiple Represenations, Maria Nielsen

Honors Projects

The purpose of this study is to explore students’ use of multiple representations in the classroom and their reasoning for representation choice. The participants of this study were 22 eighth-grade students. All students took a short pretest consisting of three items. The items addressed mathematics content covered during regular instruction. Students were asked to answer each question using different representations. Usual instruction included frequent probing and encouragement of students' representation use while problem solving. Students were asked to explain their reasoning when problem solving and share their representations with others. Following the unit of instruction, students completed a posttest composed …

Sound And Waves: An Integrated K–8 Hands-On Approach Supporting The Ngss And Ccss Ela, Chih-Che Tai, Karin Keith, Laura Robertson, Renee Rice Moran

ETSU Faculty Works

Leave with ideas to build confidence and understanding about using hands-on activities and literacy strategies as tools to understand the nature of wave movement.

The Cantor Set Before Cantor, Nicholas A. Scoville

Topology

A special construction used in both analysis and topology today is known as the Cantor set. Cantor used this set in a paper in the 1880s. Yet it appeared as early as 1875 in a paper by the Irish mathematician Henry John Stephen Smith (1826 - 1883). Smith, who is best known for the Smith normal form of a matrix, was a professor at Oxford who made great contributions in matrix theory and number theory. In this project, we will explore parts of a paper he wrote titled On the Integration of Discontinuous Functions.

Topology From Analysis, Nicholas A. Scoville

Topology

Topology is often described as having no notion of distance, but a notion of nearness. How can such a thing be possible? Isn't this just a distinction without a difference? In this project, we will discover the notion of nearness without distance by studying the work of Georg Cantor and a problem he was investigating involving Fourier series. We will see that it is the relationship of points to each other, and not their distances per se, that is a proper view. We will see the roots of topology organically springing from analysis.

The Singing Cymbal: Is It Really Photon Momentum?, Thomas R. Moore, Samantha Collin, Nikki Etchenique

Student-Faculty Collaborative Research Publications

A simple demonstration that is occasionally used in the classroom to show that light carries momentum involves making an orchestral cymbal audibly ring using light from a common photoflash. A metal plate or a piece of foil can also be used, however, it appears that many people use a cymbal because the sound is easily heard at a reasonable distance. It is such an impressive example of the effects attributable to photon momentum that it is posted on the CERN website for educational under the name “singing cymbal.” Although it is an impressive demonstration, a series of simple classroom experiments …

Academic Factors That Predict Community College Students’ Acceptance Of Evolution, Meredith Anne Dorner

Educational Studies Dissertations

There is great disagreement in the United States about with how evolution education should be dealt, as the acceptance of evolution is controversial among the general public of the United States. Furthermore, although a plethora of research has been conducted to understand which factors influence the understanding and acceptance of evolution among high school and university students -- and the general public -- there are few studies focusing on community college students. In an effort to help fill this gap in the literature, this dissertation investigates the relationship between the acceptance of evolution and academic factors among community college students. …

Connecting Connectedness, Nicholas A. Scoville

Topology

No abstract provided.

The Exigency Of The Euclidean Parallel Postulate And The Pythagorean Theorem, Jerry Lodder

Geometry

No abstract provided.

Analysis Of Scientific Argumentation In Two Physical Chemistry Classrooms Using The Pogil Approach, Alena C. Moon

Open Access Dissertations

The benefits of facilitating argumentation in science education have been well reported (Jimenez-Aleixandre & Erduran, 2007). Engaging in argumentation has shown to model authentic scientific inquiry as well as promote development of content knowledge. However, less emphasis has been placed on facilitating argumentation in upper level undergraduate courses, though it is important for evaluating undergraduate curricula to characterize upper level students’ scientific reasoning. This work considers two implementations of the POGIL physical chemistry curriculum and evaluates the classroom argumentation. The researchers aimed to consider the content of the arguments and dialectical features characteristic of socially constructed arguments (Nielson, 2013). To …

Undergraduate Students' Goals For Chemistry Laboratory Coursework, Brittland K. Dekorver

Open Access Dissertations

Chemistry laboratory coursework has the potential to offer many benefits to students, yet few of these learning goals are realized in practice. Therefore, this study seeks to characterize undergraduate students’ learning goals for their chemistry laboratory coursework. Data were collected by recording video of students completing laboratory experiments and conducting interviews with the students about their experiences that were analyzed utilizing the frameworks of Human Constructivism and Self-Regulated Learning. A cross-sectional sampling of students allowed comparisons to be made among students with varying levels of chemistry experience and interest in chemistry. The student goals identified by this study were compared …

Social Justice And Writing In A Math Classroom, Jesica Chaya

Honors Senior Capstone Projects

By intertwining new math concepts with important and relevant social issues, teachers can empower students to recognize the applicable nature of math to problems that their generation will be dealing with for years to come. In doing this, they can also change students’ perceptions of what succeeding in a math class looks like and address a rising necessity for writing across the curriculum by connecting these social justice based plans with writing assignments that encourage and reinforce vocabulary and a deep understanding of the material.

Stem Stories, April 2016, #1, Mir Ashfaquzzaman

STEM Stories

Institution Spotlight - Tallgrass Prairie Center

Probing Question Order Effect In Chemistry Concept Inventories, Molly Undersander, Travis J. Lund, Laurie S. Langdon, Marilyne Stains

UCARE: Research Products

The design of assessment tools is critical to evaluate accurately students’ understanding of chemistry. Although extensive research has been conducted on various aspects of assessment tool design, few studies in chemistry have focused on the impact of the order in which questions are presented to students on the measurement of students’ understanding and students’ performance. This potential impact has been labeled the question order effect in other literature. The set of studies described in this article tested whether question order effects were present within a concept inventory on acid-based chemistry. In particular, we tested whether the order of two conceptually …

Computational Modeling Intervention: Using Dynamical Models To Teach Complex Biological Processes, Audrey J. Crowther, Tomáš Helikar, Nicholas Galt, Joseph Dauer, Heather Berganr, Bryan Kowal

UCARE: Research Products

The Unites States, while being one of the richest countries in the world, ranks 17th in science proficiency out of 31 countries. New techniques for teaching are needed if the US wants to keep up with increasing global competition. Often the problem with traditional methods for teaching biological processes is that they present the material as linear or causal, when in fact there is a much wider network at play. For example, cellular respiration is often represented as a linear process that always starts with glucose and always ends with ATP and water. However, there are several entry and exit …

Weartec Students’ Preferences And Perceptions Of Formal Vs. Informal Education, Sarah Houston, Gwen Nugent

UCARE: Research Products

This research investigated students’ preferences and perceptions between in-class instruction and informal instruction through the NSF-funded WearTec study, whose goal was to increase interest in STEM fields within 4^th-6^th graders through the use of wearable technologies, primarily girls. Students who participated in both the formal and informal education programs in the WearTec study were the students who were selected to participate in this research. A mixed method analysis was used with quantitative data from student surveys and qualitative data from student interviews that asked questions related to the student survey responses. Results showed that many of the …