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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...

    Keywords: Zoologydrawingdrawing-to-learnice breaker

    1972

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    Evaluating Representation in Science Through a Peer-Reviewed Research Study
    The demographic representation of scientists featured in biology curricular materials do not match that of the undergraduate biology student population or of the U.S. population. In this lesson, we...

    Keywords: societyRepresentationSTEM equity

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    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...

    Keywords: photosynthesisepidermal layerleaf anatomymesophyllpalisade parenchymaplant anatomyplant structure functionspongy parenchymaStomata

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    Tying it All Together: An Activity to Help Students Connect Course Experiences to Posted Learning Outcomes
    Instructors of undergraduate courses in Biology and other Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines face an ongoing challenge to foster higher-order thinking and learning...

    Keywords: metacognitionreflectiongoalsOutcomes

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    Understanding Protein Domains: A Modular Approach
    An understanding of protein structure, function, and interaction is central to biochemistry. One angle into this topic is to engage students in considering protein domains as modules that develop...

    Keywords: Protein Structure

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    Making toast: Using analogies to explore concepts in bioinformatics
    Contemporary biology is moving towards heavy reliance on computational methods to manage, find patterns, and derive meaning from large-scale data, such as genomic sequences. Biology teachers are...

    Keywords: bioinformaticsworkflowgenome

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    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...

    Keywords: bacteriasynthetic biologygene regulationtranscriptionstudent researchcentral dogmacloningpromoterreporter gene/protein

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    An Active Textbook Converts "Vision and Tweak" to Vision and Change
    Multiple reports over more than a century have documented the problems with the way introductory biology has been taught in most colleges and universities. An influential recent report, Vision and...

    Keywords: Vision and Changeactive learningintroductory biologyFlipped classroomUndergraduatecore competenciescore conceptsactive textbookcurriculum reform

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    Exploration of the Human Genome by Investigation of Personalized SNPs
    Students often shy away from tedious bioinformatics approaches to exploring their genomes. However, in our expanding digital world these skills are some of the most relevant and valuable. To...

    Keywords: UCSC genome browsersingle nucleotide polymorphismGenome wide association studiesGenomic organization

    1966

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    871

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    Infectious Chocolate Joy with a Side of Poissonian Statistics: An activity connecting life science students with subtle physics concepts
    Introductory physics courses are required for many programs in the life sciences, yet traditional curricula fail to help students meaningfully connect physical concepts with biological...

    Keywords: quantitative biologyHIVmultiplicity of infectionPoisson DistributionPhysics for biologists

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    Why do Some People Inherit a Predisposition to Cancer? A small group activity on cancer genetics
    Before undergraduate students take a genetics course they generally know cancer has a genetic basis and involves the proliferation of cells; however, many are uncertain about why only a subset of...

    Keywords: cancerInheritance patternsProbability calculationProto-oncogeneTumor Suppressor Gene

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    An Original-Design Board Game to Increase Student Comprehension of Cellular Respiration Pathways
    Cellular respiration is a daunting topic for many students in introductory biology courses. Students are challenged at conceptual and factual levels, since instruction covers multiple metabolic...

    Keywords: GlycolysisCellular RespirationFermentationKrebs CycleOxidative phosphorylationpyruvate oxidation

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    Cell Signaling Pathways - a Case Study Approach
    Signaling and gene expression are fundamental to cell biology and developmental biology. Although these topics are highly interrelated, they typically appear in separate units in a course. We use a...

    Keywords: signal transductiongene expressionCell communicationgenetic disordersregulation of enzyme activity

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    Student-Driven Design-and-Improve Modules to Explore the Effect of Plant Bioactive Compounds in Three Model Organisms
    Engaging and supporting introductory level students in authentic research experiences during required coursework is challenging. Plant bioactive compounds attract students' natural curiosity as...

    Keywords: statisticsLabCUREInquiryresearch skillscaterpillardaphniadrugsscience process

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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...

    Keywords: critical thinkingcentral dogmaanalogical reasoning

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    Debating Conservation: Developing Critical Thinking Skills in Introductory Biology Classes
    Role-playing activities in the classroom promote students’ critical thinking, research, and communication skills. We present an activity where students debate a current controversy in...

    Keywords: Restorationtrophic cascadeecosystem function

    2018

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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....

    Keywords: biasprocess of sciencemetacognitionConfirmation BiasCognitive Bias

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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...

    Keywords: colocalizationimmunofluorescenceProtein localizationsignal sequencessubcellular fractionationwestern blotting

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    Translating Co-Translational Translocation
    Understanding the process of proteins targeting to specific locations within a cell is a fundamental part of cell biology. Synthesis of proteins by co-translational translocation, which also...

    Keywords: Topologyco-translational translocationendoplasmic reticulumprotease protection assaysecretory proteinssignal sequencetransmembrane proteins

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    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...

    Keywords: Mendelian Geneticsfruit fly biologysex-linked inheritance

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