10/23/09 - Poster presented at the Lilly Conference on College and University Teaching in September won the prize for the most effective poster presentation.
Engaging Students for Enhanced Learning in Introductory Biology
Sue Wick*, David Matthes, Robin Wright, Mark Decker, Deena Wassenberg, Rob Brooker, Brett Couch
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
*swick@umn.edu, 612-625-4718
Undergraduates in the College of Biological Sciences start their biology coursework with a two-semester lab course that emphasizes learning within permanent teams of students. Key features of the concept lab (which replaces lecture and discussion sections) are a specially designed active learning classroom, minimal lecture time, individual and team quizzes on pre-class reading, daily and weekly activities that challenge students to apply what they have read, and long-term projects that require mastery and integration of material from throughout the semester.
10/15/09 - Beginning in January 2010, Dr. Susan Wick, Dr. Deena Wassenberg, Dr. Ken Jeddeloh, and Jane Phillips will be working with the Austin Public Schools in concert with the College of Education and Human Development to provide elementary teachers experience and training in inquiry-based science for their classrooms. This is part of a larger effort by the Austin Public Schools funded by the Hormel Foundation to improve Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) education at all levels. The involvement of the Biology Program began in the summer of 2008 with a very successful workshop in biotechnology for middle and high school teachers. Success was measured by incorporation of workshop materials and curricula into the teachers’ classrooms.
10/15/09 - This summer (2009), Dr. Susan Wick, Jane Phillips, and Sandra Mackey, along with Dr. Emily Hoover from Horticulture and Sandy Tanck from the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, hosted an investigative plant biology workshop for elementary teachers. This is the seventeenth year the workshop has been offered. Teachers in this workshop can earn graduate credit (PBio 5960) for attending and engage in investigations, curriculum design, and developing assessment techniques for their classrooms. The group continues to meet during the academic year. In the following year (2010–2011), a subset of these teachers will work on advanced curriculum design and assessment issues with the goal to improve investigative science in elementary classrooms.
10/15/09 - Sehoya Cotner, Randy Moore and Mark Decker provided a workshop for high school teachers titled “Evolution, Controversy, and Standards” August 3–13, 2009. The workshop was supported by a an Improving Teacher Quality grant from the Minnesota Office of Higher Education.
10/15/09 - Robin Wright, Deena Wassenberg, Rob Brooker, and Mark Decker were invited to and attended the “Transforming Undergraduate Biology Education: Mobilizing the Community for Change” conference, sponsored by NSF and AAAS, in Washington DC July 15–17, 2009.
