Journal of College Science Teaching articles from March 2009

Journal of College Science Teaching archives from March 2009

The sleeping brain.(HEADLINE SCIENCE)
March 1, 2009... In research published this week in Neuron, Marcos Frank, Assistant Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, postdoctoral researcher Sara Aton, and colleagues describe for the first time how cellular...

Unrusted iron in the ocean.(HEADLINE SCIENCE)
March 1, 2009... Iron dust, the gold of the oceans and rarest nutrient for most marine life, can be washed down by rivers or blown out to sea or--a surprising new study finds--float up from the sea floor. The discovery, published online in Nature...

Designing peer review for pedagogical success: what can we learn from professional science?
March 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Peer review takes place in a variety of ways in college science, ranging from face-to-face in the classroom to anonymously over the internet. Goals include improving students' writing, deepening their conceptual...

On clickers, questions, and learning.(Viewpoint essay)
March 1, 2009... As I stood before a group of somewhat eager and very anxious pre-nursing /allied health students explaining my philosophy of learning, it became clear once again that the bell for round one of a now familiar bout was about to sound. This bout...

Student reactions to just-in-time teaching's reading assignments: gender makes a difference.
March 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A few years ago, I adopted the Just-in-Time Teaching (JiTT) warm-up exercises into my physics courses after learning about them at various conferences. Anecdotally, I found students to be more engaged in lectures...

MathBench Biology Modules: web-based math for all biology undergraduates.
March 1, 2009... Historically, biology has not been a heavily quantitative science, but this is changing rapidly (Ewing 2002; Gross 2000; Hastings and Palmer 2003; Jungck 2005; Steen 2005). Quantitative approaches now constitute a key tool for modern...

Ecohydrology as an undergraduate degree: challenges in developing an interdisciplinary major.
March 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Ecohydrology is emerging as an important interdisciplinary approach for understanding water resources management in the broader context of ecology (see for example Eagleson 2002; Rodriguez-Iturbe and Porporato 2004)....

The internet-telephone interview as a classroom teaching tool.(FAVORITE DEMONSTRATION)
March 1, 2009... One of my most valuable teaching tools is the in-class telephone interview, in which the interviewee's voice is amplified to the class and his or her web page or other documents are projected on screen and discussed. Scientists, scholars,...

Chimpanzee droppings lead scientists to evolutionary discovery.(Case study)
March 1, 2009... Case teaching notes Introduction/background This case study explores the evolution of HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) from SIV (simian immunodeficiency virus) and how scientists approach problems. The goal is for students to get a...

Team-based learning enhances performance in introductory biology.(RESEARCH and TEACHING)(Report)
March 1, 2009... Traditional lecture has been the instructional method of choice by faculty at many colleges and universities and is especially common in large introductory science courses. Unfortunately, lecturing alone is not the most effective way to promote...

Au courant connections.(up-to-date communications in science teaching)(Editorial)
March 1, 2009... My brother Mark always wanted to be a radio star. As a young adult, he moved to California where he was lucky enough to be hired as a disc jockey at a small station for the graveyard shift. He was a voice on the air, but only in the wee hours....

Are in-class peer leaders effective in the peer-led team-learning approach.(RESEARCH and TEACHING)(Report)
March 1, 2009... Peer-led team learning (PLTL) (www.sci.ccny.cuny.edu/~ chemwksp) has been widely adopted for enhanced learning in a variety of disciplines, most widely in introductory chemistry, but also in organic chemistry as in this study (for example,...

"What? Professors evaluating themselves? Are you out of your mind?": in defense of faculty self-evaluation.(SCST: SOCIETY for COLLEGE SCIENCE TEACHERS)(Viewpoint essay)
March 1, 2009... The other day, several colleagues and I were complaining about the way institutions evaluate college faculty. We grumbled about the weight they give to student evaluations and the problems associated with peer assessment. We agreed that...

"Is a bird an animal?" The necessity of science content knowledge.(POINT OF VIEW)(Viewpoint essay)
March 1, 2009... Question: How much content knowledge do our elementary science preservice students need to be able to teach science effectively? While teaching an elementary science methods class at a midsized university, I have often wondered what is more...