CourseSource: Resources

Teaching Tools and Strategies

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Video Making Tips for Laboratory Instructors

Demonstration videos are an excellent way to introduce students to new laboratory techniques, but many available videos are of low quality, too long, lack human diversity, and the main narrator is someone other than the instructor of the course....

Courses: Introductory Biology Microbiology

microscopypipettingLab Equipment

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Who’s That Speci-Mon? Using Pokémon^TM to Understand Biological Terminology Using Greek and Latin Roots

We set out to create a fun and engaging activity using recognizable fictional characters, so students get a chance to practice using Greek and Latin roots to create binomial names. Students in biology courses are faced with a plethora of...

Courses: Anatomy-Physiology Evolution Introductory Biology

linguisticstaxonomyAnatomyGreek and Latin Roots

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Investigating Enzyme Structure and Function Through Model-Building and Peer Teaching in an Introductory Biology Course

A foundational knowledge of the relationship between structure and function is critical to understanding how enzymes work. The seemingly invisible nature of these molecular interactions makes it challenging for undergraduate students to...

Courses: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Introductory Biology

structure-functionEnzymeallosteric regulationcompetitive inhibitionfeedback inhibitionnoncompetitive inhibitionproductsubstrate

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Helping Students to Overcome STUMPS: Scientific terms undermined by meanings peripheral to science

Many terms and phrases that are ubiquitous in everyday use have very different meanings in science. As a result, biology students often hold prior conceptions that are difficult to change. In this essay, I refer to such problematic terms as...

Courses: Introductory Biology

Evolutionfitnessprocess of sciencetree of lifemetacognitionlanguagemisconceptionsTerminologyTheory

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Sex and gender: What does it mean to be female or male?

This lesson provides three activities to engage non-science major students in a discussion about sex, gender, gender identity, and sex determination. Students prepare for the lesson by reading a short article titled Sex and gender: What is the...

Courses: Anatomy-Physiology Introductory Biology

gendersex determinationgender identitysex

Science Behind the Lesson

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The Science Behind Parthenogenesis: Interesting things happen when meiosis goes “wrong”

Parthenogenetic reproduction is a fascinating, complex topic. This article accompanies “Why Meiosis Matters: The case of the fatherless snake.” It summarizes the basic information an introductory biology or genetics instructor...

Courses: Cell Biology Genetics Introductory Biology

meiosismitosissex determinationAsexual reproductionParthenogenesis

Teaching Tools and Strategies

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The 4-Minute Summary: Helping students recall, recap and explain the big picture... and much more!

Actively engaging students during a lecture class can come through many formats. The 4-Minute Summary is a versatile pedagogy that can be readily applied to any class format (e.g., traditional, flipped), any class size, and any...

Courses: Introductory Biology

active learningDiscussionLarge classSummary

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Gender and Classroom Participation: A Case for Quantitative Analysis

Teaching statistics to students using authentic research is one way to highlight the transferability and value of the material taught in the class. Below we describe an activity in Statistics for Biological and Health Sciences (STAT2510), an...

Courses: Science Process Skills

statisticsgenderpopulationProportionSampleEquality

Teaching Tools and Strategies

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A "How-to" Guide For Producing Recorded Interviews

Now that almost every student carries a camera in their pocket, student-created digital media items can be used to supplement curriculum material and as assessment. Although students can easily record interviews, events, and activities on their...

Courses: Introductory Biology

communicationemployabilitygathering data

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What do Bone and Silly Putty® have in Common?: A Lesson on Bone Viscoelasticity

Without the use of real-life examples and models, actively instructing and engaging students in complex physiology topics related to bone biomechanics can be challenging. In our large-enrollment Human Physiology & Anatomy courses at the...

Courses: Anatomy-Physiology

structure-functioninjuryAnisotropyHysteresisSkeletal SystemViscoelasticity

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Fatty Acid Induction of Lipid Droplets in Cancer Cells

There is a growing need for the development and communication of cell culture-based laboratory activities specifically designed for undergraduate students. This multi-week laboratory activity allows students to take part in the planning,...

Courses: Cell Biology Science Process Skills

Course based undergraduate researchCell ImagingLive Cell Staining

Science Behind the Lesson

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A Short Bone Biomechanics Primer: Background for a Lesson on Bone Viscoelasticity

The skeletal system is the first of the body systems that we discuss in-depth in our Physiology & Anatomy courses (PNB 2264/2265 and PNB 2274/2275) in the Department of Physiology and Neurobiology (PNB) at the University of Connecticut. As the...

Courses: Anatomy-Physiology

structure-functionbiomechanicsAnisotropyViscoelasticity

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Evaluating the Quick Fix: Weight Loss Drugs and Cellular Respiration

One key to student success in introductory and cell biology courses is a foundational knowledge of cellular respiration. This is a content area in which students often harbor misconceptions that make cellular respiration particularly challenging...

Courses: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Cell Biology Introductory Biology

data analysisCellular RespirationElectron Transport ChainEnergy transformationsMitochondriaOxidative phosphorylationWeight loss drugs24-dinitrophenol (DNP)

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Investigating Cell Signaling with Gene Expression Datasets

Modern molecular biology is a data- and computationally-intensive field with few instructional resources for introducing undergraduate students to the requisite skills and techniques for analyzing large data sets. This Lesson helps students: (i)...

Courses: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Cell Biology

genomicstranscriptionsignaling

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Student-Generated Analogies for Learning about Information Flow

Using analogies is a standard practice for both teaching and communicating ideas in science. Here we upend the traditional lesson, where the instructor provides a fully constructed analogy and explains it, by having the students develop a complex...

Courses: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Cell Biology Genetics Introductory Biology

critical thinkingcentral dogmaanalogical reasoning

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Central Dogma, Dictionaries, and Functions: Using Programming Concepts to Simulate Biological Processes

Technologies like next-generation sequencing, proteomics, and high-throughput phenotyping have transformed the way we do biology. There is a continued need for scientists with computational skills to analyze biological data while understanding the...

Courses: Bioinformatics

computationpythonJupyter notebookFunctionscentral dogmaDictionaries

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Pesticides in My Smoothie Bowl?

Teaching resources, especially active learning pedagogy, are scarce for toxicology compared to what is available for other disciplines. Ecological and human health risk assessment are important aspects of toxicology and are routinely used by...

Courses: Toxicology

data analysistoxicologychemical toxicityecological risk assessmenthuman risk assessmentpesticide

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Learning About Protein Localization: A Lesson for Analyzing Figures in a Scientific Publication

In order to function correctly, proteins must be localized to a specific subcellular location. We have designed this lesson to use data from the primary literature to teach students about the mechanisms cells use to direct proteins to the...

Courses: Cell Biology Science Process Skills

colocalizationimmunofluorescenceProtein localizationsignal sequencessubcellular fractionationwestern blotting

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"Got Algae?" A Sorting Game for Introducing the Weird and Wonderful Diversity of Algae

Algae are a fascinating and diverse organismal group, with global ecological importance, a storied evolutionary history and deep connections to both contemporary and historical human societies. Yet non-experts who teach algal diversity face a lack...

Courses: Ecology Ecology Evolution Plant Biology

phylogenyBiodiversityphotosynthesisalgaeseaweedmonophyly

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A Muscular Dystrophy Case Study Illustrating the Phenotypic Effects of Mutation

Mutations in genes can lead to a variety of phenotypes, including various human diseases. Students often understand that a particular mutation in a single gene causes a disease phenotype, but it is more challenging to illustrate complex genetic...

Courses: Developmental Biology Genetics