Science Survey Course Research Articles

The Changes In Calendars In The Ancient World As A Tool To Teach The Development Of Astronomy

When teaching an introductory science survey course to college students learning astronomy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, we have devoted four hours to teaching the history of astronomy as a fruitful strategy to introduce important concepts surrounding the development of general scientific knowledge throughout history. In order to illustrate the impact of improved accuracy of astronomical measurements, we propose using the example the development of the calendars and, in particular, the widespread Hebrew calendars used throughout the adjacent Millennia of B.C. and A.C. The changes in the several determinations of the Hebrew calendar are demonstrated based on Babylonian and Jewish documents as well as works by al-Khwarizmi from the 9th century AD, found in the Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Library, in Patna India. Our experience suggests that the teaching of calendar development and evolutions demonstrates the interconnectedness between scientific endeavors and social-religious traditions.

Development Of The EGGS Exam Of GeoloGy Standards To Measure Students’ Understanding Of Common Geology Concepts

Geoscience education researchers have considerable need for criterion-referenced, easy-to-administer, easy-to-score, conceptual surveys for undergraduates taking introductory science survey courses in order for faculty to monitor the learning impacts of innovative teaching. In response, this study establishes the reliability and validity of a 28-item, multiple-choice, pre- and post- EGGS Exam of GeoloGy Standards. EGGS addresses 11 concepts derived from a systematic analysis of the overlapping ideas from national science education reforms: NGSS, AAAS Benchmarks, Earth Science Literacy Principles, and NRC National Science Education Standards. Leveraging best-practices for creating and field-testing items, EGGS emphasizes natural student language over technical scientific vocabulary, leverages illustrations over students’ reading ability, specifically targets students’ misconceptions, and covers the range of topics most geology educators expect general education students to know. EGGS is argued to be valid and reliable with college introductory science survey students based on standard measures, including clinical interviews with students and expert review.

Promoting Postformal Thinking In A U.S. History Survey Course: A Problem-Based Approach

This article presents a problem-based learning (PBL) model for teaching a college U.S. history survey course (U.S. history since 1890) designed to promote postformal thinking skills and identify and explain thinking systems inherent in adult complex problem-solving. We also present the results of a study in which the outcomes of the PBL model were compared to the outcomes of the same course taught with traditional lecture and discussion. The PBL model was more effective in scaffolding learning so that students recognize and practice postformal thinking dynamics and in facilitating self-reported student perceptions of increased course engagement and content relevance. We offer recommendations for implementing PBL in social science survey courses.

Blazing The Trail For Astronomy Education Research

<p>Education research has long considered student learning of topics in astronomy and the space sciences, but astronomy education research as a sub-field of discipline-based education research is relatively new. Driven by a growing interest among higher education astronomy educators in improving the general education, introductory science survey course for non-science majoring undergraduates (“ASTRO 101”), contemporary astronomy education research is led by scholars with significant expertise in astronomy content. In this review, we outline the recent history of the growing field of discipline-based astronomy education research by analyzing graduate degrees earned, faculty involved, and major milestones, such as the appearance of archival, peer-reviewed professional journals. Astronomy education research as a field of discipline-based education research has made notable strides in the past few decades that distinguish it from the K-12 education research realm, and, in spite of some setbacks, continues to move forward as a growing and vibrant community of scholars.</p>

Choosing the One for 101: A Review of Primary Textbooks for Introductory Political Science Survey Courses

Choosing the One for 101: A Review of Primary Textbooks for Introductory Political Science Survey Courses

An interactive environment for beginning Java programmers

Building upon years of evolution in object-oriented programming language design, Java has emerged as the language of choice among many educators for teaching introductory computer science. A clean, type-safe language, Java provides a garbage collected heap and a comprehensive exception-handling mechanism. However, in spite of this support, many students in introductory computer science courses still find programming to be an overwhelming source of frustration. Linguistic concerns and programming mechanics demand so much attention that deeper concepts are often postponed for later courses, leaving students in introductory courses with the mistaken impression that computer science is a shallow discipline, concerned only with transcribing ideas into code, and not with the ideas themselves. JPie is a tightly integrated programming environment for live software construction in Java. JPie treats programming as an application in its own right, providing a visual representation of class definitions and supporting direct manipulation of graphical representations of programming abstractions and constructs. Exploiting Java’s reflection mechanism, JPie supports the notion of a dynamic class that can be modified while the program is running, thereby eliminating the edit–compile–test cycle. Following years of experience using Java as the vehicle for teaching introductory computer science, we have designed JPie to provide a more natural and fluid software development process that both raises the level of abstraction and eliminates many of the common pitfalls that beginning Java programmers face. This paper studies JPie from an educational perspective. We systematically review key programming abstractions and explain how JPie supports them in ways that keep beginning programmers focused on important ideas. Our experience using JPie in an introductory computer science survey course for non-majors is briefly discussed.

Planning for Inclusion: Using Universal Instructional Design to Create a Learner-Centered Community College Classroom

A popular freshman social science survey course, Introductory Psychology, serves to illustrate one application of Universal Instructional Design (UID) principles. A seven-step lesson planning process is used to teach a unit on personality theories. Multiple modes of representation allow students multiple means of expression, and provide students with different ways to become engaged. Included in the lesson plan is a survey of nine sample adaptations or instructional design decisions to consider. In addition, learner-centered assessment strategies are discussed with a focus on adapting the multiple-choice exam with UID principles. The author concludes that Universal Instructional Design principles prove to be a powerful pathway for affirming student diversity, promoting a genuine sense of community, and improving student retention, achievement, and motivation.

Science of computing suite (SOCS)

Over the last ten years, our department's breadth-first introductory course has evolved independently of other survey courses in computer science. Due to its success, we duplicated the ideas into our course for non-majors, and this has also proven successful. None of the published resources match our vision for these courses, and so the department has developed its own. In this paper, we describe the design of the majors course, and we introduce a variety of resources developed for both courses. These resources, which could be useful in many other courses also, are freely available through the Web.

The Place of Introductory Sociology in General Education

OR more than one hundred years, general survey courses in science have come and gone and have taken many forms in our liberal-arts colleges. The first wave of them was associated with the science of the nineteenth century. Then came broad introductory courses in sociology. In recent decades we have seen a wave of social-science survey courses. From the observations and speculations of moral philosophers, historians, and philosophers of history, there gradually emerged a notion of society and of human groups as aggregates with characteristics sufficiently variable from society to society and sufficiently determinable and important to be studied. This idea was then linked witlh the magic associated with the terms and methods of the physical and biological scientists, and Vico in I725 called it the new Others labeled it the science of society (Condorcet), and the science of man (St. Simon). In an 1836 essay, J. S. Mill noted this need for a generalizing science. Calling it political economy, he offered as synonyms philosophy, natural history of society, speculative politics, and econ omy, among others. What Mill calle, political economy was then ordinar ily spoken of as social science, an political economy was narrower. Between 1840 and I890 ther flowered in this country a an! intellectual development termed th science movement. Thi involved agitation for an! intellectual reforms, a popular con troversial literature, college textbook from about i85o on, and the America: Social Science Association of i865I909. The latter was the societ from which arose directly or indirectl; such powerful recent professiona bodies as the American Prison Associ ation, the National Conference c Social Work, the American Historico Association, the American Economi Association, the American Politica Science Association, and the Amen' can Sociological Society. The chic historians of this change say: Witl the absorption of the Social Scienc Movement into the other sci ences and the establishment of Soci ology as its chief successor . . . th movement as such came to an en soon after igoo.1

A study of student opinion concerning survey courses in natural science

Science EducationVolume 37, Issue 3 p. 187-192 Article A study of student opinion concerning survey courses in natural science† E. E. Black, E. E. Black Colorado State College of Education, Greeley, ColoradoSearch for more papers by this authorH. F. Glidden, H. F. Glidden Colorado State College of Education, Greeley, Colorado E. E. Black, Graduate Student, Colorado State College of Education, H. F. Glidden, Associate Professor of Science, Colorado State College of Education.Search for more papers by this author E. E. Black, E. E. Black Colorado State College of Education, Greeley, ColoradoSearch for more papers by this authorH. F. Glidden, H. F. Glidden Colorado State College of Education, Greeley, Colorado E. E. Black, Graduate Student, Colorado State College of Education, H. F. Glidden, Associate Professor of Science, Colorado State College of Education.Search for more papers by this author First published: April 1953 https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.3730370308Citations: 2 † It is hoped this paper may serve as a supplement to several major studies previously presented. Science Education, February 1948, presented the study, “Investigation of Student Opinion Concerning Survey Courses in Science,” by W. W. E. Blanchett, Fort Valley State College, Fort Valley, Georgia. The same author presented in Science Education, March 1948, his findings in the article, “Subject-Matter Topics Contained in Textbooks for Use in Survey Courses in the Natural Sciences”. This dealt with the comparison of the textbook content and content designated as desirable by students. AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume37, Issue3April 1953Pages 187-192 RelatedInformation

Planned graduate training in internal medicine.

Director of the Graduate Division and of the Basic Science Survey Course for Residents in Internal Medicine, Northwestern Medical School. Assistant Attending Physician. Section on Cardiovascular-Renal Medicine and formerly Director of Clinics, Evanston Hospital, Evanston, Illinois

The physical science survey course in general education

The physical science survey course in general education

The Southern Political Science Association: An Inventory

The occasion of this meeting in Lexington and the fact that the Southern Political Science Association is approaching the age at which a youth is traditionally believed to be converted into manhood led me in preparing this paper to seek to enter into the spirit of celebration and bring before our membership some of the significant events of the twenty years of our organization. Particularly did I feel this might be of interest to the members of the Association who have joined our ranks in recent years and have had no opportunity to learn much of our infancy and adolescence. My enthusiasm for this subject received a setback when, after a trip to Chapel Hill to look into the records of our annual meetings, I found them so filled with gaps that it had taken our secretary many weeks to prepare a list of past presidents or even to determine who are now members of the Executive Committee. This very fact, however, persuaded me to carry out my original plans, even though my total accomplishment should be to call attention to our paucity of early records, in the hope that original and older members might be able to fill some of the gaps in our archives. This Association was organized in Atlanta early in 1929. At the organization meeting only a few institutions were represented; in reality, departments of political science in southern universities were then as scarce as Republicans in a south Georgia rural county, though the first separate Department of Government in the South had been established at Louisiana State University in 1908. Political science, where offered at all, was often taught as history with a low numerical designation or was hidden away in the social science survey courses which were then coming into vogue. I am not an original member of this Association so I feel free to praise

Investigation of student opinion concerning survey courses in science

Investigation of student opinion concerning survey courses in science

Brewer, Waldo Lyle. Factors affecting student achievement and change in a physical science survey course. New York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1943. 78 p. $1.60

Science EducationVolume 29, Issue 1 p. 53-53 Book Review Brewer, Waldo Lyle. Factors affecting student achievement and change in a physical science survey course. New York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1943. 78 p. $1.60 First published: February 1945 https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.3730290112AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume29, Issue1February 1945Pages 53-53 RelatedInformation

A Useful Book in its Field: Factors Affecting Student Achievement and Change in a Physical Science Survey Course

(1944). A Useful Book in its Field: Factors Affecting Student Achievement and Change in a Physical Science Survey Course. The Journal of Higher Education: Vol. 15, No. 5, pp. 283-284.

Factors Affecting Student Achievement and Change in a Physical Science Survey Course

Factors Affecting Student Achievement and Change in a Physical Science Survey Course

Factors affecting student achievement and change in a physical science survey course

Science EducationVolume 27, Issue 1 p. 28-31 Article Factors affecting student achievement and change in a physical science survey course W. Lyle Brewer, W. Lyle Brewer Western Washington College of Education, Bellingham, WashingtonSearch for more papers by this author W. Lyle Brewer, W. Lyle Brewer Western Washington College of Education, Bellingham, WashingtonSearch for more papers by this author First published: February 1943 https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.3730270109Citations: 4AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume27, Issue1February 1943Pages 28-31 RelatedInformation

The Survey Course in Social Science: An Appraisal

T nHAT THE survey course in social science is making its way in colleges and universities has been demonstrated in the preceding paper. There is, however, still a recalcitrant opposition which, partly on educational grounds and partly because the shift to the survey course involves so much inconvenient readjustment and upsets so many vested interests, is still insistent on maintaining the departmentalized curriculum intact. Even among the supporters of the survey course idea there is still much confusion about the differing aims of the various types of survey now being experimented with, and the issues as between the survey and the courses which it replaces are not clear cut. It is hoped in this paper to clarify some of these issues and define the role of the social science survey course in the curriculum a little more exactly. This may help to get consideration of it, by sociologists at least, on its real merits. For the survey is a valuable educational instrument and not just a device created by soft-headed educationists and administrators to keep overworked professors still busier, and to convince the public that X University is more progressive than most. We must begin by agreeing on a definition of what a social science survey course is, because in its present unstandardized state of development many different types of courses pass under that name. For the purposes of our discussion it will be defined as a course offered to college freshmen or sophomores in which the subject matter is drawn from all three of the academic fields of political science, economics, and sociology, and may also be taken from history, anthropology, human geography, social psychology, or any other social science. It is further assumed in the definition that (I) the students enrolled will not have had any previous work at college level in any social science covered in the survey course content and (2) that some effort has been made to interweave or, to use the fashionable term, to integrate, the materials from separate disciplines in relation to some general conceptual scheme. The previous paper has suggested some of the integrating ideas and principles that have been employed in survey courses to date.

The training and experience of instructors in survey courses in physical science

The training and experience of instructors in survey courses in physical science