Text Search:
Applied Filters
    Teaching Tools and Strategies
    1213

    views

    131

    downloads

    0

    comments

    Undergraduates Learn Evolution Through Teaching Kindergartners About Blind Mexican Cavefish
    The development and implementation of a scientific outreach activity comes with a number of challenges. A successful outreach event must match the sophistication of content to the audience, be engaging, expand the knowledge base for participants,...
    Essay
    1704

    views

    369

    downloads

    0

    comments

    Online Adaptation of the Cell Engineer/Detective Lesson
    One of the most fundamental themes of biology is the relationship between structure and function, which is particularly evident when it comes to cells; however, the traditional cartoon depictions of cells that are often used to help teach the...
    Lesson
    3669

    views

    1005

    downloads

    0

    comments

    A Quick and Simple Natural Selection Role Play
    Teaching evolution remains a challenging task in biology education. Students enter the classroom with stubborn misconceptions and many traditional examples of the process of evolution may not resonate with students. This short role play activity...
    Lesson
    1694

    views

    285

    downloads

    0

    comments

    Using Comics to Make Science Come Alive
    Students often see science as a fragmented set of facts to be memorized, rather than concepts and processes that are relevant in their everyday lives. This is especially true for non-science majors, who represent the vast majority of all college...
    Teaching Tools and Strategies
    2789

    views

    271

    downloads

    0

    comments

    The Pipeline CURE: An Iterative Approach to Introduce All Students to Research Throughout a Biology Curriculum
    Participation in research provides personal and professional benefits for undergraduates. However, some students face institutional barriers that prevent their entry into research, particularly those from underrepresented groups who may stand to...
    Teaching Tools and Strategies
    5092

    views

    457

    downloads

    0

    comments

    Drawing flowcharts of lab protocols helps students prepare for biology labs
    With the publishing of the Vision and Change report, we know it is best practice to include authentic research experiences in our undergraduate science lab classes. One big challenge in teaching so-called "wet lab" classes is figuring...
    Lesson
    2141

    views

    496

    downloads

    0

    comments

    Necessary and Sufficient? Solving the Mystery of the Mitochondrial Pyruvate Transporter
    While there are several available lessons for teaching introductory biology students about diffusion, facilitated diffusion, and active transport, fewer materials exist to support upper-division students' understanding of the proteins that...

    Courses: Cell BiologyCell Biology

    Essay
    954

    views

    190

    downloads

    0

    comments

    Strategies for developing a science communicator through authentic science writing assignments
    To prepare biology undergraduates to be able to read and evaluate the primary literature, it is beneficial to teach students how to write documents in the style of professional science style manuscripts. By breaking manuscripts into individual...
    Lesson
    2971

    views

    612

    downloads

    0

    comments

    Using Synthetic Biology and pClone Red for Authentic Research on Promoter Function: Introductory Biology (identifying new promoters)
    Students often memorize the definition of a transcriptional promoter but fail to fully understand the critical role promoters play in gene expression. This laboratory lesson allows students to conduct original research by identifying and...
    Lesson
    2684

    views

    496

    downloads

    0

    comments

    Harnessing the Power of the Immune System: Influenza Vaccines
    Because most people have been infected by and/or immunized against influenza, students should know how the immune system responds to the infection and how vaccines protect against disease. Vaccines have played an instrumental role in disease...
    Lesson
    2462

    views

    743

    downloads

    0

    comments

    Green Design: How do Leaf Structures Optimize Photosynthesis and Promote Survival?
    One of the major learning objectives established by the American Society of Plant Biologists and the Botanical Society of America has students answer the question: How do plant structures enable life functions? This lesson helps students answer...
    Teaching Tools and Strategies
    1270

    views

    132

    downloads

    0

    comments

    Adaptation and Facilitation of Small Group Activities in an Online Introductory Biology Class
    In spring 2020, the sudden mid-semester closure of my campus in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic necessitated a rapid transition to emergency online learning. Consequently, I adapted the small group activities and facilitation methods of...
    Lesson
    5359

    views

    1393

    downloads

    0

    comments

    Teaching Cell Structures through Games
    As the basic unit of life, cells are a foundational concept for all of biology. Before students can appreciate how eukaryotic cells function either in isolation or in higher order and multicellular organisms, they must first have a basic...
    Teaching Tools and Strategies
    1483

    views

    234

    downloads

    0

    comments

    Preparing Student Study Guides through Peer Collaboration in the Technological Era
    Incorporating active learning exercises into large lecture courses is particularly challenging, especially when it comes to examination preparation materials. Traditionally, study guides are used as a tool to guide student learning and review...
    Lesson
    3631

    views

    600

    downloads

    0

    comments

    Teaching RNAseq at Undergraduate Institutions: A tutorial and R package from the Genome Consortium for Active Teaching
    Next-generation sequencing is radically changing the study of biology, but there are currently few resources aimed at teaching the required laboratory and data-analysis skills to undergraduate students. This gap is especially true at primarily...
    Lesson
    603

    views

    118

    downloads

    0

    comments

    Visits to the writing center and office hours provide students structured reflection and low-stakes feedback on scientific writing in an Introductory Biology course
    Effective written communication of scientific concepts is a critical, but difficult skill for undergraduate STEM majors to acquire. Oftentimes, the grades of lab reports are negatively impacted by sentence structure and the failure to adhere to...
    Lesson
    3493

    views

    852

    downloads

    0

    comments

    Furry with a chance of evolution: Exploring genetic drift with tuco-tucos
    Genetic drift is an important mechanism of evolution, yet undergraduates often fail to understand how it leads to evolutionary change due in part to its random nature. This lesson plan describes a simulation-based activity that allows students to...

    Courses: EvolutionEvolution

    Lesson
    1718

    views

    315

    downloads

    0

    comments

    Bad Cell Reception? Using a cell part activity to help students appreciate cell biology, with an improved data plan and no loss in coverage
    With a veritable myriad of cell parts to cover, it is easy for educators to become locked into marathon presentations that become taxing for both the instructor and the students. While we hope and expect that students master this material, the...
    Lesson
    3138

    views

    897

    downloads

    1

    comments

    Fruit Fly Genetics in a Day: A Guided Exploration to Help Many Large Sections of Beginning Students Uncover the Secrets of Sex-linked Inheritance
    Moving beyond the basic concepts of autosomal Mendelian inheritance to sex-linkage can be difficult for introductory biology students. Although crosses with Drosophila fruit flies have long been a mainstay of genetics units that teach these...

    Courses: GeneticsGenetics

    Lesson
    1419

    views

    224

    downloads

    0

    comments

    Training future faculty in 30 minutes a week: A modular framework to provide just-in-time professional development to graduate teaching assistants
    Despite increasing recognition of the need to train the teaching assistants (TAs) teaching the majority of STEM lab sections, very few programs report offering sustained teaching professional development opportunities. Here we present a year-long,...