Blend the Lab Course, Flip the Responsibility

An upper-level special topics course in Applied, Environmental, and Medical Microbiology was offered for the first time. It was decided by the author to offer it as a blended course. There were some compelling reasons to do so: first and foremost, it allowed class time to be spent doing what one should in a lab-intensive course: remark on current state of knowledge and literature, describe experimental design, discuss potential outcomes, troubleshoot technical problems as they arise, and offer suggestions regarding students' research throughout the process. The ultimate goal and real value of the blended classroom in this instance was elevating the level of student responsibility and forcing them to view a science class as something more than a collection of facts: rather as a very active class, one that requires individual action. It was also designed to allow the students to participate in fundamental scientific research with the help of a mentor in a manner that was/is still practiced and in full view of peer review. The role of the faculty member changes to one of providing guidance instead of content in the classroom, and so it gives one more individual time with the students; this time can be used for diagnostic, formative, and summative assessment.

Pre-Service Teachers' Self-Efficacy and Attitudes toward Learning and Teaching Science in a Content Course

Science teaching is approached with hesitation by many PreK-8 teachers. This chapter explores the research on attitudes toward science and learning science as well as the perceived science efficacy of elementary pre-service teachers. It also describes a content-based, pedagogically rich life science course for pre-service preK-8 teachers that incorporates active and interactive teaching techniques in lieu of the traditional science methods course. Using evidence from this project and other research studies, the chapter argues for the inclusion and modeling of these approaches when preparing teachers of science and proposes that this non-traditional approach for teaching content-based courses for preparing teachers be considered in place of traditional science methods courses.

Pass, Fail, or Incomplete?

This chapter investigates the presence and status of environmental education principles, as well as factors for encouraging positive environmental behaviour in students, within three sixth-grade curricula in Nova Scotia, Canada: science, social studies, and health education. The results of the research show a strong reliance on knowledge-based connections to the environment and less importance shown to experiential learning, attitudes, and values. The results also reveal a significant decline in the time and resources allotted to environmentally focused education of these subjects. The effect is a diminished and marginalized environmental education presence in sixth-grade education in Nova Scotia within the context of the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development.

Self-Regulated Learning as a Method to Develop Scientific Thinking

The development of skills and the rationale behind scientific thinking has been a major goal of science education. Research has shown merit in teaching the nature of science explicitly and reflectively. In this chapter, the authors discuss how research in a self-regulated learning theory has furthered this finding. Self-regulation frames student learning as cycling through three phases: forethought (cognitive processes that prepare the learner for learning such as goal setting), performance (employment of strategies and self-monitoring of progress), and self-reflection (evaluation of performance with the goal). Because students have little interaction with the inherent guidelines that drive the scientific enterprise, setting goals toward more sophisticated scientific thinking is difficult for them. However, teachers can help students set goals for scientific thinking by being explicit about how scientists and science function. In this way, teachers also explicitly set a standard against which students can self-monitor their performance during the learning and self-evaluate their success after the learning. In addition to summarizing the research on learning and teaching of self-regulation and scientific thinking, this chapter offers recommendations to reform science teaching from the field of educational psychology.

A Comparative Study on Undergraduate Computer Science Education between China and the United States

With the rapid growth of the Internet and telecommunication networks, computer technology has been a driving force in global economic development and in advancing many areas in science, engineering, health care, business, and finance that carry significant impacts on people and society. As a primary source for producing the workforce of software engineers, computer scientists and information technology specialists, computer science education plays a particularly important role in modern economic growth and it has been invested heavily in many countries around the world. This chapter provides a comparative study of undergraduate computer science programs between China and the United States. The study focuses on the current curricula of computer science programs. It in part is based on the author's direct observation from his recent visits to several universities in China and the conversations he had with administrators and faculty of computer science programs at the universities. It is also based on the author's over two decades experience as a computer science educator at several public and private American institutions of higher educations. The education systems in China and the United States have different features and each of the systems has its strengths and weaknesses. This is likely also true for education systems in other countries. It would be an interesting and important task for us to explore an innovative computer science education program, which perhaps blends the best features of different systems and helps better prepare graduates for the challenges working in an increasingly globalized world. We hope the study presented in this chapter provides some useful insights in this direction.

3D Multi-User Virtual Environments in Science Education

The purpose of this chapter is to identify the potential and challenges in science education in the use of 3D MUVE science programs. These programs offer a number of instructional benefits in motivating and engaging students and in improving their science learning and scientific inquiry. 3D MUVE is a promising media in narrowing gender and racial achievement gaps and enabling an authentic and valid assessment of science education. Like all new instructional technologies, however, the wide use and implementation of 3D MUVE technology in mainstream science classroom is still facing a number of challenges, which are mainly related to technological complexity and cost, and design difficulty in incorporating some elements critical to inquiry-based learning into the 3D MUVE environment. To overcome these identified challenges and make optimal use of the opportunities, suggestions for integrating 3D MUVE into science curriculum and classroom are made and discussed, along with future research directions.

Linking Education to Creating a Knowledge Society

Due to the continued high price of oil and gas, the oil-rich State of Qatar has used its large budget surpluses in the last decade to finance human capacity development, including research, higher education, and the reshaping of its K-12 educational system. This chapter argues that the recent substantial educational reforms in the State of Qatar are closely intertwined with planned future economic transformation (diversification). Although Qatar possesses the world's third largest reserves of natural gas, this resource is ultimately finite and over-reliance on one major economic driver (hydrocarbons) for the bulk of GDP creates boom and bust cycles that have shaped Gulf politics and social development since the 1970s. This chapter examines Qatar's educational efforts to build a knowledge economy to transition away from a resource-rich export-based hydrocarbon economy towards economic activities linked to patents, research, trademarked technologies, skills, and knowledge products.

Active Learning, Mentoring, and Mobile Technology

Educators are creating authentic settings that utilize active learning, mobile technology, and mentoring in efforts to promote students' success in developing 21st Century skills, motivation, and interest in STEM domains and STEM careers. Each of these approaches has been found to promote and transfer knowledge, as well as to develop problem-solving and communication skills in STEM. Little information, however, is available about the interactive effect of mobile technology and active learning in promoting learning in settings that use a hierarchical model of mentoring to promote the transfer of skills and knowledge. This chapter presents findings of a program that used mobile technology in active learning environments for five interrelated levels of an active, authentic environment, facilitated by mobile technology and hierarchical mentoring. Positive outcomes were documented at each level of participation; use of the mobile technology integrated within active learning settings supported by hierarchical mentoring increased learning in STEM content, skills, and affect.

Sustainability in Higher Education through Basic Science Research

Basic research in Universities is essential for a sustainable development. Recent developments in higher education have seen the inclusion of curiculum redesigned to serve the concept of developming young minds in the intrepretation, execution, and use of basic science research. The challenge for educators is to “demystify” research and teach in ways that are professionally meaningful as well as intellectually acceptable. The objective of this chapter is to bring in various case studies to prove the essentiality of basic research in higher education with specific concern over pharmaceutical industrial growth plans. Data on R&D in higher education can be broken down by field of science (natural sciences, engineering, medical sciences, agricultural sciences, social sciences, and humanities), by type of costs (current expenditures, capital expenditures), and by source of funds (business enterprise, government, higher education, private non-profit, and funds from abroad). Measures of R&D performance in the higher education sector are often estimated by national authorities, and evaluation methods are periodically revised. It is necessary to review the design and conduct of higher education R&D surveys to improve the comparability of these indicators.

Mobile Technology in Higher Education

Innovative instructional strategies and approaches are in high demand in STEM higher education. Currently, interest lies in the integration of mobile technology within these settings to provide learning opportunities that are flexible and feasible enough to increase student understanding using critical inquiry. Although the positive impact of the use of mobile technology in many pilot settings is known, there are still numerous questions left unanswered in relation to the effectiveness of the use of mobile technology as it is replicated from developer across enthusiastic replicator use to required use. This chapter examines the replication and transferability patterns related to the use of a mobile technology device within and across multiple instructors, settings, context, and content areas. Key variables explored relate to student and instructor prior use and experience with the mobile technology, pedagogical goals, and similarly, content and context to original use.