Science as Process in the Biology Classroom: Using Insects as Teaching Models

Abstract

For the past decade, the National Science Foundation (NSF), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), along with faculty scientists, administrators, and other stakeholders from around the United States, have been guiding a national reform movement in undergraduate biology education (Brewer and Smith 2011). As the discipline undergoes this national reform movement, life science faculty have been challenged to teach biology the way we practice biology; to foster in our students an appreciation for the scientific process that can be even more important and informative than any collection of memorized facts (Brewer and Smith 2011). With this challenge as the guidepost, biology educators and researchers have developed pedagogical methods designed to infuse core concepts and competencies into every course, research experience, and learning opportunity that students encounter during their undergraduate career as a major in the biological sciences. This same approach applies to entomology majors, introductory entomology courses, and other courses that focus on insect biology. These pedagogical methods can be applied across the curriculum in a way that addresses the learning ability (novice first-year learners through expert upper-level learners) of students enrolled in each course, and that challenges their scientific and critical thinking in a way that traditional course presentation methods may not. Tree pedagogical methods that have been widely implemented in response to the …