TOPIC: Rubrics (and more rubrics!)
WHEN: December 5, 2008
PRESENTER: Dr. David Langley, Center for Teaching and Learning
TOPIC: SafeAssign as a tool to detect plagiarism
WHEN: November 21, 2008
DESCRIPTION: Keith will walk us through the options for using SafeAssign and answer questions. All who have struggled with setting up SafeAssign or having it work correctly, please bring your questions!
PRESENTER: Keith Brown, Senior Educational Technology Consultant, Office of Information Technology, Digital Media Center
TOPIC: Scalable approaches that instill a strong learning work ethic in freshmen taking a large science class
WHEN: November 14, 2008
DESCRIPTION: Dr. Cyr has been closely involved in curriculum revision in introductory biology courses at Penn State and is prepared to talk to us about retention, test scores, testing taxonomies, TA effects, technology effects, and student perceptions in the core courses.
PRESENTER: Dr. Richard Cyr, Pennsylvania State University
TOPIC: Career interests of biology students: how biology faculty can aid students’ career exploration
WHEN: October 31, 2008
PRESENTERS: Kathryn Hanna, Biology Program and Mark Sorenson-Wagner, IT Student Support Services
TOPIC: Moodle: its strengths and weaknesses, comparisons with WebVista
WHEN: October 24, 2008
PRESENTER: Kurtis Scaletta, Sr. Instructional Technology Consultant, Digital Media Center, Office of Information Technology
TOPIC: Teaching Biology with Writing, Part 2
WHEN: October 10, 2008
DESCRIPTION: Brett will continue this topic by sharing some of the writing activities he has used in Biol 2003/2004.
PRESENTER: Dr. Brett Couch, Biology Program
TOPIC: A Novel Environment – Environmental Topics Explored through Popular Literature
WHEN: Friday, October 3, 2008
DESCRIPTION: Deena will give an informal presentation of her freshman seminar, explain the goals and content, and will solicit ideas for improvement of the course.
PRESENTER: Dr. Deena Wassenberg, Biology Program
TOPIC: Teaching Biology with Writing
WHEN: September 26, 2008
DESCRIPTION: Brett will share some of the insights he gleaned from taking the campus workshop on Teaching with Writing, and will have participants do some hands-on activities with writing in Biology.
PRESENTER: Dr. Brett Couch, Biology Program
TOPIC: Adventures and learning in the Galápagos Islands—check out the boobies!
WHEN: September 19, 2008
PRESENTERS: Randy Moore, Sehoya Cotner (Biology Program) and some of the students who went to the Galápagos this past May
Biology of the Galápagos 2008 Slideshow
TOPIC: Lessons learned while teaching freshman biology in the active learning classroom
WHEN: September 12, 2008
PRESENTER: Murray Jensen, Department of Postsecondary Teaching and Learning
Background information about the room
TOPIC: First annual active learning & technology showcase
WHEN: May 16, 2008
DESCRIPTION: You’ll learn about three innovative approaches currently in use in CBS courses—and have a chance to try them out yourself!
11:00 – 12:00 Interactive demonstrations
12:00 – 1:00 Lunch, discussion, and hands-on “test drives” of the technology
TOPIC: Inquiry in the science lab and classroom: What counts as inquiry? What does it look like in practice?
WHEN: May 2, 2008
RESOURCE: Didactic to Inquiry-Based Instruction
PRESENTERS: Vanessa Pompei and Deena Wassenberg, Biology Program
TOPIC: Sex, Lies, & Finches: Stories from the History of the Evolution-Creationism Controversy
WHEN: April 25, 2008
DESCRIPTION: Think you’ve heard all the interesting stories about the people and places of the evolution-creationism controversy? On Friday we’ll discuss some of the more unusual aspects of the controversy, including forgotten people and places that had a dramatic impact and those whose personal lives played important roles in their ascent to fame. Instead of hearing about the Beagle and the Galápagos, we’ll show you important places that most people have never seen, and tell you about famous preachers and scientists in the controversy who feuded, became rich, went broke, went to prison, and committed suicide.
PRESENTERS: Randy Moore and Mark Decker, Biology Program
TOPIC: Reports from the American Physiological Society (APS) Teaching Section, Experimental Biology 2008, San Diego
WHEN: April 18, 2008
DESCRIPTION: The presenter will be reporting back from the Experimental Biology meetings held in San Diego April 4-6, 2008, and she will be discussing some of the latest scientific and pedigogical research in the area of physiology.
PRESENTER: Melissa Palmer, Biology Program
TOPIC: Dealing with student misconceptions about natural selection
WHEN: April 11, 2008
DESCRIPTION: The presenters will be talking about how prevalent misconceptions about natural selection are in biology majors (using the attached paper as a jumping off point) and some of our experiences with how challenging overcoming these misconceptions can be.
BACKGROUND ARTICLE: Ross H. Nehm and Leah Reilly, Biology Majors’ Knowledge and Misconceptions of Natural Selection, BioScience, March, 2007
PRESENTERS: Deena Wassenberg and Vanessa Pompei, Biology Program
TOPIC: What is experiential education? Why do employers value internships and experiential learning?
WHEN: April 4, 2008
DESCRIPTION: What is classified as experiential education? What makes for a good experiential learning situation? How can it enhance a traditional academic sequence and aid career development? When it comes to assessment practices that employers trust to indicate a graduate’s knowledge and potential to succeed in a job, why do they rate supervised internships, community-based projects, and comprehensive senior projects at the top of the list? We will look at these issues and others related to experiential education, especially internships.
BACKGROUND ARTICLE:
How should colleges assess and improve student learning? Employers’ views on the accountability challenge. Association of American Universities and Colleges, January 8, 2008.
PRESENTER: Kathryn Hanna, Biology Program
TOPIC: Do open-book online quizzes improve student preparation and participation?
WHEN: March 28, 2008
DESCRIPTION: The paper presented in last week’s seminar revealed that repeated recall (quizzing) slows forgetting, yet students seldom report practicing self-testing as a strategy when studying for exams. This week’s paper looks at the effects of regular quizzes in WebCT on student engagement both in and out of the classroom. Specifically, the author tests the hypothesis that if students take online quizzes, they are more likely to (1) participate (ask questions) during class and (2) come to class prepared (complete most of the assigned reading).
RESOURCE:
Marcell, M. 2008. Effectiveness of Regular Online Quizzing in Increasing Class Participation and Preparation. International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning 2: 1-9.
PRESENTERS: Rogene Schnell, Instructional Designer and Melissa Palmer, Biology Program
TOPIC: What is the effect of repeated studying and repeated testing on learning? Is one more important than the other?
WHEN: March 14, 2008
DESCRIPTION: In hallway conversations, we often bemoan the fact that students don’t remember concepts and facts from previous courses (or even last week!) The authors of this paper looked at two aspects of learning, repeated studying and repeated testing, to determine the effect and importance of each in learning. We will look at their data and conclusions, then talk about how this information might inform the design of our courses.
RESOURCE:
Karpicke, J. D. and H. L. Roediger III. 2008. The Critical Importance of Retrieval for Learning. Science. 319:966-968.
PRESENTER: Jane Phillips, Biology Program
TOPIC: When science and religion clash in the mind of a student, how should the instructor respond?
WHEN: March 7, 2008
DESCRIPTION: Teaching science, including biology, can lead to conflicts for students as they integrate their increased understanding of the natural world with their religious beliefs. Evolutionary biology is the most obvious example, but many other areas can create tensions including cosmology, geology, and biotechnology. Instructors often deal with such situations by either announcing to students that perception of a conflict between science and religious beliefs is unwarranted, or simply by ignoring the possibility of conflict. Are either of these strategies appropriate? What happens when students refuse to accept contemporary scientific understanding; are we doing students a disservice by not confronting belief systems that prevent them from accepting scientific understanding?
We will explore these issues through reference to recommendations others have made about how to handle such situations with students (references below). The Brumfiel article consists of an article about intelligent design, an editor’s summary of the article (which contains some suggestions about helping students), and letters to the editor in response to the editor’s comments; the latter two components are the most important. The Saperstein article describes one perspective on how to answer objections by fundamentalist Christian students. I also hope to share personal experiences and perspectives.
RESOURCES:
Saperstein, A.M. 2007. Teaching Science to Biblical Literalists. Academe 93(1):43-45.
Brumfiel, G. 2005. Who has designs on your students’ minds (PDF). Nature 434:1062-1065.
PRESENTER: Mark Decker, Biology Program
TOPIC: Welcome Week 2008
WHEN: February 29, 2008
DESCRIPTION: This presentation will discuss the Welcome Week program being implemented in August of 2008. Welcome Week is a six-day, on-campus experience prior to the start of the fall semester, required of all first-year students. This new program is designed to complement the Freshman Orientation experience, and provide opportunities to enhance academic and personal success for first-year students. Draft of the schedule (PDF)
PRESENTERS: Beth Lingren Clark, Director of Orientation & First-Year Programs
and Jenny Porter, Associate Director of Orientation & First-Year Programs
TOPIC: Opportunities for outreach: learn about our summer (and some academic year)
programs with K-12 teachers and students
WHEN: February 22, 2008
PRESENTERS: Jane Phillips and Ken Jeddeloh, Biology Program
TOPIC: Is the term “prokaryote”, as used to discuss biological diversity or evolutionary history, outdated?
WHEN: February 15, 2008
DESCRIPTION: According to a recent article in Microbe, our current understanding of the molecular Tree of Life makes the term prokaryote obsolete and misleading, especially when used in classes.
PRESENTERS: Jane Phillips and Sue Wick, Biology Program
TOPIC: What are editors of science education journals looking for?
WHEN: February 8, 2008
DESCRIPTION: This presentation will explore, from an editor’s point of view, what journals dealing with science (especially biology) education are looking for in manuscripts that are submitted.
PRESENTER: Randy Moore, Biology Program
TOPIC: Study Abroad: Biology of the Galápagos
WHEN: January 25, 2008
DESCRIPTION: This presentation will describe the inaugural offering of Biology of the Galápagos, which is scheduled for summer, 2008. We’ll discuss what the course will involve, costs, and the anticipated research projects that students will conduct in the Galápagos, as well as plans for future courses. Although both boats for summer, 2008 are full (student interest far exceeded the availability of spaces), we’ll have information about enrolling for the summer, 2009 course.
PRESENTERS: Sehoya Cotner and Randy Moore, Biology Program
TOPIC: Improving our ready resources: A brainstorming session
DATE: October 19, 2007
DESCRIPTION: We are in the process of updating and improving the teaching and learning resources on the CBS website. We would like your ideas of what is missing, what would be helpful, and how to make the resources most accessible to you. We will show you what is already there, then open the floor to brainstorming ideas.
PRESENTERS: Jean Underwood and Jane Phillips
TOPIC: Scaffolding learning in our courses and curriculum
WHEN: September 21, 2007
DESCRIPTION: An issue with both problem-based and inquiry-based learning is how to give appropriate guidance and instruction for successful learning. This conversation will focus on the role and use of scaffolding learning experiences in our courses and curriculum. (Note: The paper referenced below was written in response to another paper that you might want to read, but this paper was chosen not because of its response, but because of its comprehensive review of scaffolding.)
READING:
Hmelo-Silver, et al. 2007. Scaffolding and Achievement in Problem-based and Inquiry Learning: A Response to Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark (PDF) (2006). Educational Psychologist 42(2): 99-107
PRESENTER: Jane Phillips, Biology Program
