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    Lesson
    2711

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    282

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    1

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    The Leaky Neuron: Understanding synaptic integration using an analogy involving leaky cups
    Students have difficulty understanding synaptic integration in neural circuits, and how spatial and temporal summation combine in a target neuron to reach threshold.  This Lesson uses small cups of water to represent excitatory postsynaptic...

    Courses: NeurobiologyNeurobiology

    Teaching Tools and Strategies
    810

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    143

    downloads

    0

    comments

    Graphical Organizers as Course Road Maps: Using a geologic timescale in a history of life course
    Both major and non-major biology students lack understanding of important evolutionary events, how they are spaced in time, and how they relate back to the earth system. Graphical organizers like concept maps and timescales are popular tools that...

    Courses: EvolutionEvolution

    Lesson
    243

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    21

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    0

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    Protein Import Into the ER: Understanding Experimental Methods for Old and New Cellular Discoveries
    Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL) is an effective approach for group work in STEM courses. POGIL-style lessons foster active learning because they require students to communicate and co-construct knowledge to solve problems. Here,...
    Lesson
    4064

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    482

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    0

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    A Classroom Intervention to Reduce Confirmation Bias
    STEM students are often unable to recognize cognitive bias in their own disciplines, and simply describing cognitive bias to students has shown to be insufficient to improve critical thinking. However, habitual metacognitive techniques show...
    Teaching Tools and Strategies
    5664

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    820

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    Science “Fails”: A Bank of Historical Examples for Learning From Failure in Science
    Learning from failure is critically important to the processes of scientific inquiry, discovery, and invention. However, students are not routinely taught how to reflect on, learn from, and ultimately embrace failure, and relatively few curricular...
    Lesson
    2041

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    368

    downloads

    0

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    Drawing “Octo-Pines”: Ice-Breaker Active-Learning Activities to Introduce Drawing-to-Learn in Biology
    Drawing has been advocated as a technique to develop visual literacy and observational skills in biology students. To increase student motivation and confidence to draw in our course, we developed an introductory active-learning lesson with a...

    Courses: EcologyEcology EvolutionEvolution

    Lesson
    415

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    33

    downloads

    0

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    Osmosis Through the Lens of Sexual Health
    Osmosis contributes to a range of biological phenomena, from functioning of nephrons in animals to stomatal opening and closing in plants; yet, scientifically simple ideas about osmosis are common. These ideas limit learners’ comprehension...
    Teaching Tools and Strategies
    2825

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    394

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    0

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    The Flight Physics Concept Inventory: Reliably Evaluating Aerodynamic Lift, Drag and Associated (Naïve) Concepts of Flight in Class and In-Game
    Students often struggle to transfer conceptual understanding from isolated instruction to a coherent mental model. This is especially true for the context of flight physics, fluid dynamics, or the concepts of aerodynamic lift, drag, stall, center...
    Teaching Tools and Strategies
    2343

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    191

    downloads

    0

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    A Pandemic Pivot: Podcast as an Active Engagement Tool in the Classroom and Beyond
    Higher education in STEM undoubtedly integrates the use of technology as a primary mode for content delivery to undergraduate students. This became especially salient throughout the shift to online education during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite...
    Lesson
    1280

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    405

    downloads

    0

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    Teaching the Biological Relevance of Chemical Kinetics Using Cold-Blooded Animal Biology
    This lesson plan was created to support non-chemistry major students in making connections between chemical kinetics and biological systems. Chemical kinetics is often viewed by students as an abstract topic, and one that is limited only to...
    Lesson
    2893

    views

    505

    downloads

    0

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    GMC: Genes, Mutations and Cancer - Group Concept Map Development
    It has been shown that active learning strategies used in the classroom can increase student learning and retention of information. We generated an active learning exercise that can be used in the classroom to explore the relationship between...
    Lesson
    6402

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    670

    downloads

    0

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    An Active Learning Workshop to Teach Active Learning Strategies
    College instructors who learn how to teach actively at the beginning of their careers do not have to modify deeply set habits that rely on lectures. Instead, they develop their teaching while they learn evidence-based practices. We developed a...
    Lesson
    3505

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    1299

    downloads

    0

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    A CRISPR/Cas Guide RNA Design In Silico Activity
    CRISPR biotechnologies inspired by the Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat RNA-guided nuclease adaptive bacterial immune system have revolutionized biology research and become ubiquitous tools for hypothesis and...
    Lesson
    984

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    397

    downloads

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    Why Do I Need a Lab Notebook? Teaching Responsible Conduct of Research with CURE Lab Notebooks
    There are few instructional tools about data acquisition and management available for undergraduate students. I created this lesson as a Fellow of the Ethics Network for Course-Based Opportunities in Undergraduate Research (ENCOUR) to fill this...
    Teaching Tools and Strategies
    2496

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    321

    downloads

    0

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    A How to Guide and Template for Designing a Puzzle Based Escape Room Game
    Educational games are one active and effective way of engaging students with material while also providing additional motivation to tackle challenging concepts. A particularly popular game concept is the escape room, where students need to work in...
    Lesson
    4908

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    495

    downloads

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    Does Organelle Shape Matter?: Exploring Patterns in Cell Shape and Structure with High-Throughput (HT) Imaging
    Organelle structure has been studied and visualized for decades; however, publicly available databases that use improved high-throughput microscopy of gene-edited cell lines have recently revolutionized the amount and quality of information now...
    Lesson
    4808

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    770

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    Teaching Cancer Biology Through a Lens of Social Justice
    The biology classroom is not separate from the greater context of society; social issues can and should be presented in connection with the content. Here we present an example of antiracist teaching using the molecular/cellular biology of cancer...

    Courses: Cell BiologyCell Biology

    Lesson
    1221

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    556

    downloads

    0

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    Understanding Gastric Acid Secretion: An Active Learning Approach
    The human digestive system is a diverse network of cells, tissues, and organs that is regulated by systemic (e.g., nervous and endocrine systems) and local factors (e.g., secretions, pH, and the microbiome). Given the volume of content and the...
    Lesson
    1613

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    445

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    Using Structured Decision Making to Explore Complex Environmental Issues
    Environmental issues are inherently complex, often requiring multiple interested parties to come together before agreeing on a solution. Structured decision making is a tool used by federal and state management agencies to find solutions that...

    Courses: EcologyEcology

    Lesson
    1281

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    169

    downloads

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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: BioinformaticsBioinformatics