CWP focuses on supporting schools with SRE via its programme Teaching SRE with Confidence, which includes in-class training.
A particularly interesting example of an Etext on "Separation science" by Tom Wenzel, Bates College, supports an inquiry-learning course and includes in-class cooperative learning exercises on chemical equilibria and chromatography [ 2].
This needs to go beyond workshops and include in-class training and on-site visits to help improve interactions with the children, said Smith.
In addition to meetings between mentor and mentee pairs, the program included in-class components for group mentoring, as will be described below.
The supporting activities include in-class instruction on financial ratios, a computer lab session on Excel, draft papers, peer reviews of writing, and paper revisions.
Course activities include in-class debates, a peer-review exercise supervised by a senior scientist, observing research with animals and human participants, and interpreting science ethics commentaries in national newspapers.
"Every day teachers across California use a variety of benchmarks, including in-class quizzes, tests, projects, and personal observation to fine-tune their approaches with their students," said Joshua Pechthalt, president of the California Federation of Teachers.
For instructors interested in including in-class concept questions in their courses, several resources are available at http://STEMclickers.colorado.edu.edu
Courses structured with frequent activities, including in-class exercises that promote active learning, have been shown to be particularly effective in reducing failure rates (Freeman et al., 2011).
Other graded assignments include in-class and online quizzes, written responses on in-class guided-inquiry assignments, and the completeness and quality of laboratory notebooks and other homework assignments.
