More Science Faculty 'Kick the Lecture Habit' in Favor of Case Studies Method; Professors Using Method Will Change the Way Undergraduates Nationwide Learn Science.

(From AScribe)

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Want to make college science faculty really nervous?

Tell them to stop lecturing and start telling stories, instead.

That's the advice that science faculty hear when they participate in one of the "Case Studies in Science" workshops at the University at Buffalo, directed by Clyde (Kipp) Herreid, Ph.D., SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences.

"It's quite a challenge and some of the professors get very nervous," admits Herreid.

"We've had professors crying in bathrooms," he says. "We've even had one or two leave the workshop in the middle."

But then an amazing thing happens: the professors get creative, transforming lecture notes on cellular respiration into a vivid crime scene complete with yellow police tape and spilled red paint for blood or turning a class in Newtonian mechanics into the story of a cheerleader chosen as part of a wager with the football team to find a way to lift a 300-pound football player.

By the end of the five-day workshop, the professors love case studies.

Luckily, so do the students.

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