Preparing GTAs for Active Learning in the General Chemistry Lab: Development of an Evidence-Based Rehearsal Module for a Mixed-Reality Teaching Simulator

Journal of Science Education and Technology - There is an assumption that graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) have mastery of the chemistry content they are teaching and preparation to instruct...     

“Students speaking to you”: teachers listen to student surveys to improve classroom environment

Learning Environments Research - While positive teacher–student relationships are at the heart of teaching and learning, it is no easy task to improve these relationships and cultivate caring...     

The small size of the small scale market: The early-stage labor market for highly skilled nanotechnology workers

We examine the labor market for the highly trained in nanotechnology and the response of universities toward providing training. We draw comparisons with the labor market and university response in bioinformatics. The demand analysis is based on position announcements in Science in 2002 compared to 2005. We also analyze online position announcements in late 2005 and early 2006. Our analysis leads us to conclude that at the present time the market is small and growing for positions in academe and at FFRDCs, small and stable for positions at firms. Our analysis of training leads to the conclusion that the pipeline is being filled primarily through a principal investigator approach, where a student is attached to one faculty member's lab, rather than to a formal program. The fundamental difference between nanotechnology and bioinformatics in this respect may be due to differences in the opportunities available to universities and faculty.     

Career readiness: An analysis of text complexity for occupational reading materials

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and the broader college and career readiness agenda encourage educators, researchers, and other stakeholders to focus on preparing students for life after high school. A key emphasis is literacy, as the ability to read and comprehend written language is critical to success in college and careers. Understanding the level of reading comprehension needed for college and careers has important instructional implications. This study examined text complexity levels of various career texts using the Reading Maturity Metric and compared them to expectations in the CCSS. Text samples were selected for jobs from the five job zones in the Occupational Information Network database. Text complexity demands for all careers were generally in the CCSS range of college and career readiness and increased as job zone and required preparation increased. Results could provide specific career-related targets to make the CCSS reading requirements more relevant for students.     

聚合物人造肌肉

一类新颖的致动设备(例如致动器、发动机、发电机等)正在步入商业化.它们基于在受到电刺激时会改变形状的聚合物.     

Innovative Arts Programs Require Innovative Partnerships: A Case Study of STEAM Partnering between an Art Gallery and a Natural History Museum

ABSTRACT

The arts animate learning because they are inherently experiential and because of their potential to develop creative and critical thinking skills in students. These same skills are valued in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education, but the arts have not been consistently included in STEM lessons. We transformed our STEM programming into STEAM programming (STEM plus arts) by creating an innovative partnership between two informal learning environments, the Braithwaite Fine Arts Gallery and the Garth and Jerri Frehner Museum of Natural History at Southern Utah University. The partnership resulted in a STEAM learning program that integrated art and science for K-12 students. We incorporated an art exhibition, a hands-on lesson in art, and an immersive lesson in science that culminated in a student project that merged concepts from both art and science. Through programs each fall from 2012 through 2014, we helped over 6,000 students from southern Utah use concepts from art to deepen their understanding of caterpillar defenses, fish ecomorphology, and pollinator biology.     

Interactive Broadcast Television in Australia

Interactive television is being used increasingly as a delivery format for distance education and open learning courses. In most applications, the delivery is to a closed audience within the framework of formal programmes of study. This paper reports on programmes in Western Australia where interactive educational television is being used in broadcast modes. The paper discusses the impact of the ensuing interactivity on the quality of the broadcast programmes from an instructional perspective.