CBE Life Sciences Education Research Articles

Recent Research in Science Teaching and Learning

Recent Research in Science Teaching and Learning

Gregory Florant

Note from the Editor Educator Highlights for CBE—Life Sciences Education show how professors at different kinds of institutions educate students in life sciences with inspiration and panache. If you have a particularly creative teaching portfolio yourself, or if you wish to nominate an inspiring colleague to be profiled, please e-mail Laura Hoopes at lhoopes@pomona.edu.

David Wells

Note from the Editor Educator Highlights for CBE—Life Sciences Education show how professors at different kinds of institutions educate students in life sciences with inspiration and panache. If you have a particularly creative teaching portfolio yourself, or if you wish to nominate an inspiring colleague to be profiled, please e-mail Laura Hoopes at lhoopes@pomona.edu.

Working Together to Address Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

Working Together to Address Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

Phoebe Lostroh

Note from the Editor Educator Highlights for CBE—Life Sciences Education show how professors at different kinds of institutions educate students in life sciences with inspiration and panache. If you have a particularly creative teaching portfolio yourself, or if you want to nominate an inspiring colleague to be profiled, please e-mail Laura Hoopes at Pomona College, lhoopes@pomona.edu.

All I Really Needed to Know I Learned during Gastrulation

Note from the Editor Points of View (POV) address issues faced by many people within the life science education community. CBE—Life Sciences Education (CBE-LSE) publishes the POV Feature to present two or more opinions published side-by-side on a common topic. We consider POVs to be “Op-Ed” pieces designed to stimulate thought and dialogue on significant educational issues. They are not meant to be exhaustive treatments of a subject. In this issue, we ask the question, “What are key concepts in developmental biology?” We present three POVs. The first is by CBE-LSE Editor-in-Chief, William Wood, and it is in part based on his experience teaching developmental biology to undergraduates at the University of Colorado, Boulder, including his collaborative experiments in the classroom with Jennifer Knight, the first results of which have been published in CBE-LSE ( Knight and Wood, 2005 ). The second, a partially tongue-in-cheek list of key concepts to convey to students about embryonic development, is by Scott Gilbert (Swarthmore College), author of the leading textbook worldwide for teaching developmental biology, Developmental Biology, 8th ed. (Sinauer Associates, Inc.). The third is by Jeff Hardin (University of Wisconsin–Madison), who has produced Web-based educational materials for teaching developmental biology that are used nationally and internationally for conveying dynamic events during early development (see the WWW feature in this issue by Stark for more details), and who deals with the vexing problem of trying to convey the essential four-dimensional nature of embryonic development to introductory students. This list of key principles in animal development was presented as “life lessons” at the Society for Developmental Biology national meeting in 2005, and it has been edited somewhat for inclusion here. For the video presentation, visit http://sdbonline.org/fly/gilbert/gilbert01.htm .

The Missing Dimension in Developmental Biology Education

Note from the Editor Points of View (POV) address issues faced by many people within the life science education community. CBE—Life Sciences Education (CBE-LSE) publishes the POV Feature to present two or more opinions published side-by-side on a common topic. We consider POVs to be “Op-Ed” pieces designed to stimulate thought and dialogue on significant educational issues. They are not meant to be exhaustive treatments of a subject. In this issue, we ask the question, “What are key concepts in developmental biology?” We present three POVs. The first is by CBE-LSE Editor-in-Chief, William Wood, and it is in part based on his experience teaching developmental biology to undergraduates at the University of Colorado, Boulder, including his collaborative experiments in the classroom with Jennifer Knight, the first results of which have been published in CBE-LSE ( Knight and Wood, 2005 ). The second, a partially tongue-in-cheek list of key concepts to convey to students about embryonic development, is by Scott Gilbert (Swarthmore College), author of the leading textbook worldwide for teaching developmental biology, Developmental Biology, 8th ed. (Sinauer Associates, Inc.). The third is by Jeff Hardin (University of Wisconsin–Madison), who has produced Web-based educational materials for teaching developmental biology that are used nationally and internationally for conveying dynamic events during early development (see the WWW feature in this issue by Stark for more details), and who deals with the vexing problem of trying to convey the essential four-dimensional nature of embryonic development to introductory students.

Teaching Concepts Versus Facts in Developmental Biology

Note from the Editor Points of View (POV) address issues faced by many people within the life science education community. CBE—Life Sciences Education (CBE-LSE) publishes the POV Feature to present two or more opinions published side-by-side on a common topic. We consider POVs to be “Op-Ed” pieces designed to stimulate thought and dialogue on significant educational issues. They are not meant to be exhaustive treatments of a subject. In this issue, we ask the question, “What are key concepts in developmental biology?” We present three POVs. The first is by CBE-LSE Editor-in-Chief, William Wood, and it is in part based on his experience teaching developmental biology to undergraduates at the University of Colorado, Boulder, including his collaborative experiments in the classroom with Jennifer Knight, the first results of which have been published in CBE-LSE ( Knight and Wood, 2005 ). The second, a partially tongue-in-cheek list of key concepts to convey to students about embryonic development, is by Scott Gilbert (Swarthmore College), author of the leading textbook worldwide for teaching developmental biology, Developmental Biology, 8th ed. (Sinauer Associates, Inc.). The third is by Jeff Hardin (University of Wisconsin–Madison), who has produced Web-based educational materials for teaching developmental biology that are used nationally and internationally for conveying dynamic events during early development (see the WWW feature in this issue by Stark for more details), and who deals with the vexing problem of trying to convey the essential four-dimensional nature of embryonic development to introductory students.

Morris Maduro

Note from the Editor Educator Highlights for CBE—Life Sciences Education show how professors at different kinds of institutions educate students in life sciences with inspiration and panache. If you have a particularly creative teaching portfolio yourself, or if you wish to nominate an inspiring colleague to be profiled, please e-mail Laura Hoopes at lhoopes@pomona.edu .

Focus: Issues in Developmental Biology Education

Welcome to this special focus section of CBE—Life Sciences Education. A large portion of this issue deals with aspects of teaching and learning in a particular subdiscipline of the life sciences: developmental biology. The field of developmental biology has progressed rapidly over the past two decades. The modern synthesis of molecular and genetic approaches in model organisms, comparative and evolutionary insights from genomics, use of increasingly sophisticated microscopy techniques, and application of this knowledge to human biology have thrust developmental biology to the forefront of not only science journals but also the public consciousness. A stream of recent Nobel prizes in Physiology or Medicine awarded for work in developmental biology attests to its importance as a central aspect of modern life science. Issues such as therapeutic and reproductive cloning and stem cell biology grab headlines. Clearly, thinking well about how to communicate the fundamental features of developmental biology to the students of today and tomorrow is important. This issue of CBE-LSE contributes to what we hope will be an increasing focus on developmental biology education in the twenty-first century. Given the ascendancy of developmental biology in the current era, several key questions arise: To what extent is developmental biology a field separate from cell biology? Is it, as one of my colleagues likes to say, simply “cell biology over time,” or is it a truly separate way of knowing, with its own educational challenges that are genuinely unique to the subject? Are there special visual and conceptual challenges in teaching developmental biology that distinguish it from other subdisciplines in biology? Given the inherent ethical ramifications of developmental biology applied to humans, to what extent should ethics be incorporated into majors science courses in developmental biology? The Points of View feature in this issue by Gilbert et al. addresses some of these issues. Given the public importance of developmental biology, another issue facing developmental biology instructors is that of increasing scientific literacy in this area. The interview with Morris Maduro by Hoopes and the articles by Gehring and Eastman and by Madhuri and Broussard deal with this issue. Anyone who has peered through a microscope at developing embryos cannot help but be struck by how arresting they are visually. The WWW feature by Stark, the article on teaching Caenorhabditis elegans lineage analysis by Lu et al., and the essay on using photomicrographs by Watson and Lom examine resources and methodologies for teaching this visual aspect of developmental biology. Finally, plant development is often left out of developmental biology discussions. The article by Spiro and Knisely provides one practical example of how to teach plant development. Other features, articles, and essays in previous issues of CBE-LSE have also dealt with the teaching and learning of developmental biology, including the following: WWW Features by Robert Blystone and Dennis Liu Deformed amphibian research at Hartwick College [CBE-LSE 2(2003): 14–15; http://www.lifescied.org/cgi/content/full/2/1/14#SEC1] C. elegans movies [CBE-LSE 2(2003): 14–15; http://www.lifescied.org/cgi/content/full/2/1/14#SEC2] Potent cells [CBE-LSE 6(2007): 90–94; http://www.lifescied.org/cgi/content/full/6/2/90] Video Views and Reviews by Christopher Watters Mitosis and early development [CBE-LSE 1(2002): 111–114; http://www.lifescied.org/cgi/content/full/1/4/111#SEC3] Angiogenesis (the development of blood vessels) [CBE-LSE 2(2003): 9–13; http://www.lifescied.org/cgi/content/full/2/1/9#SEC4] Cytokinesis: a phenomenon overlooked too often [CBE-LSE 4(2005): 10–18; http://www.lifescied.org/cgi/content/full/4/1/10#SEC1] Gastrulation [CBE-LSE 4(2005): 273–278; http://www.lifescied.org/cgi/content/full/4/4/273] Neurulation and the fashioning of the vertebrate central nervous system [CBE-LSE 5(2006): 99–103; http://www.lifescied.org/cgi/content/full/5/2/99] Book Reviews Fink, R. D. A shelf of stem cells [CBE-LSE 3(2004): 20–21; http://www.lifescied.org/cgi/content/full/3/1/20] Vasquez, J. From genes to embryo and beyond [CBE-LSE 6(2007): 27–28; http://www.lifescied.org/cgi/content/full/6/1/27] Articles and Essays Fink, R. Cloning, stem cells, and the current national debate: incorporating ethics into a large introductory biology course [CBE-LSE 1(2002): 132–144; http://www.lifescied.org/cgi/content/full/1/4/132] Gilat Brill, G., and Yarden, A. Learning biology through research papers: a stimulus for question-asking by high-school students [CBE-LSE 2(2003): 266–274; http://www.lifescied.org/cgi/content/full/2/4/266] Knight, J. K., and Wood, W. B. Teaching more by lecturing less [CBE-LSE 4(2005): 298–310; http://www.lifescied.org/cgi/content/full/4/4/298] Lu, F.-M. et al. WormClassroom.org: an inquiry-rich educational web portal for research resources of Caenorhabditis elegans [CBE-LSE 6(2007): 98–108; http://www.lifescied.org/cgi/content/full/6/2/98] Salli, U. et al. Stem cell biology should be taught in high schools [CBE-LSE 6(2007): 283–284; http://www.lifescied.org/cgi/content/full/6/4/283] We hope you enjoy this focus on issues in developmental biology education, and we welcome your suggestions regarding other potential special topics for future issues of CBE-LSE.

Grappling with the Literature of Education Research and Practice

The absence of a central database and use of specialized language hinder nonexperts in becoming familiar with the science teaching and learning literature and using it to inform their work. The challenge of locating articles related to a specific question or problem, coupled with the difficulty of comprehending findings based on a variety of different perspectives and practices, can be prohibitively difficult. As I have transitioned from bench to classroom-based research, I have become familiar with how to locate, decipher, and evaluate the education research literature. In this essay, I point out analogies to the literature of science research and practice, and I reference some of the literature that I have found useful in becoming an education researcher. I also introduce a new regular feature, "Current Insights: Recent Research in Science Teaching and Learning," which is designed to point CBE--Life Sciences Education (CBE-LSE) readers to current articles of interest in life sciences education, as well as more general and noteworthy publications in education research.

H. Craig Heller

Note from the Editor Educator Highlights for CBE—Life Sciences Education show how professors at different kinds of institutions educate students in life sciences with inspiration and panache. If you have a particularly creative teaching portfolio yourself, or if you wish to nominate an inspiring colleague to be profiled, please e-mail Laura Hoopes at lhoopes@pomona.edu .

Understanding Interventions that Encourage Minorities to Pursue Research Careers: Major Questions and Appropriate Methods

There is a long history of intervention programs to increase the numbers and enhance the participation of students in scientific research and the pursuit of scientific careers. Many federal agencies have supported these kinds of programs with a goal of enhancing the diversity of the scientific workforce. Most of these programs operate under the assumption that actively engaging students in research and related professional activities will stimulate their interest in and understanding of science and encourage them to pursue research careers. However, there has been little formal investigation of the shortand long-term effects of such programs and the efficacy of the various program elements. Even though there have been several evaluations of both the federal programs themselves (e.g., National Research Council, 2005) and of individual institutional programs subject to evaluation (e.g., Building Engineering & Science Talent, 2004), there has been little primary research focused on the variables that make particular interventions work for minority students—and why other programs are not successful. Since 2005, the National Institute of Health’s (NIH) National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) and its Division of Minority Opportunities in Research (MORE) have made two sets of grant awards in response to the NIH’s Request for Applications (RFA) under the Efficacy of Interventions to Promote Research Careers program (RFA-GM05-009) and have recently received applications for a fourth round of awards (RFA-GM-08-005). These RFAs were established specifically to “support research that will test assumptions regarding existing or potential interventions that are intended to increase the preparedness for careers in biomedical research, with a particular interest in those interventions specifically designed to increase the number of underrepresented minority students entering careers in biomedical and behavioral research” (page 1). Undertaking research to study the efficacy of specific interventions in any human population is fraught with many challenges. With increasing expectations for accountability, people who may not have conducted this kind of research previously now must become familiar with new protocols (e.g., statistical), new research regulations (e.g., seeking authorization from Institutional Review Boards to work with human subjects), a different research literature, and new venues for communicating their findings. Many scientists may not have had to confront such a large number of variables, many of which cannot be actively controlled, before engaging in this kind of research. As a result, many scientific researchers are not fully prepared to do the kind of research that has been called for by the NIH RFAs. In an effort to promote the submission of high-quality grant proposals—and to encourage expanded and imaginative research in this area—the MORE Division asked the National Academies to organize a workshop that would examine the current state of research about interventions that could significantly influence the participation of underrepresented minorities in pursuing research careers in the biomedical and behavioral sciences and other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. The ultimate goals of this workshop were to help researchers develop appropriate kinds of research questions that measure the contributions of various factors to the success of DOI: 10.1187/cbe.07–06–0034 Address correspondence to: Jay B. Labov (jlabov@nas.edu).

Make Microarray Data with Known Ratios

Make Microarray Data with Known Ratios

Putting the Horse Back in Front of the Cart: Using Visions and Decisions about High-Quality Learning Experiences to Drive Course Design

Envision the following two scenarios about two instructors faced with the task of teaching a course in the life sciences. The first scenario goes something like this: Chris has been a college professor for 4 years, and for three of them, has taught an 80-student section of a middletier course in cell and molecular biology, a course required of all biology majors. Another section of the course has been taught for the past 12 years by a more senior colleague. When Chris first started teaching, he and his colleague sat down together and decided on a common list of content topics that they would cover and chose the same textbook. They agreed that they would work independently on the teaching strategies they would use for each topic. Chris planned to use some approaches he observed while serving as a teaching assistant at his doctoral institution. Now, 3 years into the course, despite good student ratings of his teaching efforts, Chris is somewhat dissatisfied with what he has accomplished. He thinks his attempts to make the subject matter relevant by bringing “hot topics” from the biomedical research–relevant news into his lectures have been only mildly successful at stimulating student interest. In addition, students seem to do poorly on exam questions in which he asks them to connect these topics from current research findings to the material they read in the textbook and that is covered in lectures. The undergraduate interns working in his research lab seem to be far more engaged in learning about cell biology, and he wonders if there isn’t some way to capture this interest for the general population of students in his class. But redesigning the course will be time-consuming and may run into resistance from his senior colleague. Pat has been teaching for 6 years at a large research university—she was hired to coordinate the introductory biology laboratory experience and to teach one of the largeenrollment sections of this two-semester course. Pat is one of six instructors who teach the multisection course each semester. The instructors meet regularly, and once a year they have a retreat at which they discuss the course; the instructors routinely agree that it is in the best interests of the students for them to use the same textbook in all sections of the course and to cover the same scope of topics in the same sequence. Pat feels that this has led her to compromise on the teaching strategies she would like to use in her section but feels that her role as primary decision-maker for the lab curriculum has helped to allay her concerns. The design of all of the labs includes opportunities for students to depart from “cookbook” approaches—once they have learned a basic procedure and run a prescribed experiment, students spend the rest of the lab period and sometimes the next lab designing and running an experiment to test their “next questions.” However, she’s begun to hear more and more frequently from the other course instructors that no matter what they seem to do, the students tell them on course evaluations that they don’t feel that their learning experiences in the lab connect well, if at all, to those in the lecture. Unfortunately, Pat has to admit that her students have expressed the same concerns. Each of these scenarios describes a conscientious instructor who is operating in a situational context that drives the most common approach to course design. This most common approach basically entails the creation of a list of topics and then the development of a set of lectures to cover the progression of ideas falling under the scope of those topics. The topics are commonly chosen to reflect the material presented in a textbook, to prepare students for following courses, or to reflect time-honored traditions—or the interests of the instructor—and are limited simply by the number of such topics that will fit in the allotted meeting time for the course. The sequencing of the chosen topics likewise typically mirrors that of the textbook chapters. The goal of having students “understand the material” is the tacit assumption underlying this approach (Fink, 2003). In addition, Pat and Chris appear to have incorporated learning goals DOI: 10.1187/cbe.07–03–0017 Address correspondence to: Deborah Allen (deallen@udel.edu). CBE—Life Sciences Education Vol. 6, 85–89, Summer 2007

Leadership Summit to Effect Change in Teaching and Learning: Undergraduate Education in Agriculture

Leadership Summit to Effect Change in Teaching and Learning: Undergraduate Education in Agriculture

On Hiring Science Faculty with Education Specialties for Your Science (Not Education) Department

On Hiring Science Faculty with Education Specialties for Your Science (Not Education) Department

Walking the Walk

Walking the Walk

How Teaching Matters

Harold Wenglinsky's paper “How Teaching Matters: Bringing the Classroom Back into Discussions of Teacher Quality” (www.ets.org/research/pic) analyzes how the attributes and classroom practices of teachers affect the performance of eighth-grade students on standardized tests in science. By correlating student performance on the 1996 eighth-grade National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) science test with NAEP surveys of the attributes and classroom practices of the same students' teachers, Wenglinsky identified two teacher attributes and two teacher practices that are highly correlated with superior student achievement. The two teacher attributes are as follows. 1) Academic preparation of teachers. Students taught by teachers who majored or minored in science or science education in college performed 39% of a grade level above students of teachers who did not have this educational background. 2) Teacher professional development in laboratory skills. Students in classes of teachers whose postcollege professional development included laboratory training performed 44% of a grade level above students whose teachers did not have such training. The two teacher practices are as follows: 1) Teacher implementation of subject-appropriate and validated, hands-on classroom and laboratory exercises. Students exposed to such exercises weekly were 40% of a grade level ahead of students who participated in such activities monthly or less. 2) Weekly point-in-time short-answer and multiple-choice tests. Students whose teachers used such assessments were 92% of a grade level ahead of those whose teachers used such tests less frequently. According to Wenglinsky, students in classes of teachers who possess both attributes and use both practices were more than a grade level ahead of students in classes of teachers possessing neither attribute and using neither practice. Regrettably, Wenglinsky did not publish these findings in a peer-reviewed journal, so that these attributes and practices are infrequently cited. Two of the four attributes and practices identified by Wenglinsky (i.e., teacher laboratory skills and implementation of hands-on classroom exercises) are the central focus of Columbia University's Summer Research Program for Science Teachers (www.scienceteacherprogram.org) and of other Science Work Experience Programs for Teachers. Data to be published elsewhere show that teacher participation in Columbia's program has a very positive impact on their students' success in passing a New York State Regents exam in science. If Wenglinsky is correct, science teachers who participate in professional development programs that focus on improving their laboratory skills, and that encourage them to implement more hands-on exercises and weekly point-in-time short-answer and multiple-choice tests in their classes, will be more successful in raising the achievement level of their students than teachers who participate in programs that focus on other aspects of science, education, or both. Confirmation of this postulate could greatly simplify the task of improving middle and high school science education. For this reason alone, it is important to test Wenglinsky's conclusions rigorously and soon. Although they surely reflect an oversimplification of the measures needed to improve U.S. secondary science education, they are so congruent with the focus of Columbia's Summer Research Program, and with the very positive impact it has on interest and achievement in science of students of teachers who participate in it, that I felt it important to bring this article and these ideas to the attention of the readership of CBE—Life Sciences Education.

From faculty for undergraduate neuroscience: encouraging innovation in undergraduate neuroscience education by supporting student research and faculty development.

The organization Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience (FUN; www.funfaculty.org) was established in 1991 by a group of neuroscientists dedicated to innovation and excellence in undergraduate neuroscience education and research (Ramirez and Normansell, 2003 ). The founders experienced a need for a community of neuroscience educators because no formal division existed within the Society for Neuroscience (SfN; www.sfn.org) to support undergraduates or the faculty who focus on undergraduate neuroscience education. An educator's ability to incorporate current research and techniques in crowded undergraduate curricula becomes even more critical as our understanding of how nervous systems develop, function, adapt, and malfunction continues to expand. Teaching faculty must meet the significant challenges of communicating a broad and fast-paced discipline to a growing undergraduate audience. Moreover, as research experiences for undergraduates are increasingly encouraged and expected, providing undergraduates with meaningful research experiences is an additional, ongoing challenge for educators in the face of smaller budgets for research and education. To help undergraduate neuroscience faculty meet these challenges, FUN has emerged as a professional organization dedicated to the support and development of undergraduate neuroscience educators. The need for an organization that specifically supports excellence in undergraduate neuroscience has grown as an increasing number of interdisciplinary undergraduate neuroscience programs are formalized at colleges and universities. As evidence of the growing interest, FUN's membership has been increasing steadily and currently includes more than 500 individuals at more than 300 colleges and universities. FUN's members represent a broad range of scientific disciplines, including biology, psychology, chemistry, computer science, and philosophy; they work and teach at a variety of institutions, ranging from private, small liberal arts colleges to regional, state, and research universities.