Providing Undergraduate Science Partners for Elementary Teachers: Benefits and Challenges

Undergraduate college “science partners” provided content knowledge and a supportive atmosphere for K–5 teachers in a university–school professional development partnership program in science instruction. The Elementary Science Education Partners program, a Local Systemic Change initiative supported by the National Science Foundation, was composed of four major elements: 1) a cadre of mentor teachers trained to provide district-wide teacher professional development; 2) a recruitment and training effort to place college students in classrooms as science partners in semester-long partnerships with teachers; 3) a teacher empowerment effort termed “participatory reform”; and 4) an inquiry-based curriculum with a kit distribution and refurbishment center. The main goals of the program were to provide college science students with an intensive teaching experience and to enhance teachers'' skills in inquiry-based science instruction. Here, we describe some of the program''s successes and challenges, focusing primarily on the impact on the classroom teachers and their science partners. Qualitative analyses of data collected from participants indicate that 1) teachers expressed greater self-confidence about teaching science than before the program and they spent more class time on the subject; and 2) the college students modified deficit-model negative assumptions about the children''s science learning abilities to express more mature, positive views.     

Feature Article—Continuing Education Module—Reimagining Postpartum Support

This article introduces the author''s emerging new paradigm (“perinatal participation”) that re-imagines postpartum support by helping expectant parents have more peace of mind, confidence, self-compassion, and emotional wellbeing over the course of their perinatal journeys, with special focus on feeling more prepared for all that happens after baby arrives. The author''s work rests on the shoulders of her 1992 book, Mothering the New Mother: Women''s Feelings and Needs After Childbirth. Perceiving a new urgent need to support expectant parents three decades later (the need to alleviate the high stress levels in expectant parents she was talking to) the author explored filtering the expectant and new parent''s experience through what she calls a “peace-of-mind lens.”     

Correlation between MCAT Biology Content Specifications and Topic Scope and Sequence of General Education College Biology Textbooks

Most American colleges and universities offer gateway biology courses to meet the needs of three undergraduate audiences: biology and related science majors, many of whom will become biomedical researchers; premedical students meeting medical school requirements and preparing for the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT); and students completing general education (GE) graduation requirements. Biology textbooks for these three audiences present a topic scope and sequence that correlates with the topic scope and importance ratings of the biology content specifications for the MCAT regardless of the intended audience. Texts for “nonmajors,” GE courses appear derived directly from their publisher''s majors text. Topic scope and sequence of GE texts reflect those of “their” majors text and, indirectly, the MCAT. MCAT term density of GE texts equals or exceeds that of their corresponding majors text. Most American universities require a GE curriculum to promote a core level of academic understanding among their graduates. This includes civic scientific literacy, recognized as an essential competence for the development of public policies in an increasingly scientific and technological world. Deriving GE biology and related science texts from majors texts designed to meet very different learning objectives may defeat the scientific literacy goals of most schools’ GE curricula.     

Accompanying the Path of Maternity: The Life History of a Colombian Doula

Doulas have fundamentally improved the health-care experience of pregnant women internationally. Women who recognize the importance of not being alone during pregnancy have embraced this role for centuries. However, less is known about doulas practicing in countries experiencing health inequities like Colombia. Miller''s methodology and Atkinson''s interview domain was used to answer the question “What life experiences led a Colombian woman to become a doula?” A central theme emerged, “A calling from within: Growing up to accompany the transition from woman to mother.” The path to becoming a doula evolved from life experiences involving health inequities, and a sense of femininity, maternity, and the women''s role in rural Colombia.     

“Don't Tell Me,I'll Find Out” Robert Karplus—A Science Education Pioneer

Robert Karplus (1927–90), who began his career as a brilliant theoretical physicist, switched to science education in the early 1960s. He made many substantial contributions to this field in addition to developing a complete K–6 hands-on science curriculum. Karplus provided his curriculum with a sound epistemological foundation, based on the work of Piaget. He developed an effective classroom teaching strategy, the learning cycle. He and his team used a scientific approach to curriculum development. They focused on teacher development. Karplus was committed to science for ALL students. Through science activities he sought to share the joy of discovery. A recent book collects some of his important papers and enables you to examine his work for yourself and see what you discover.     

Mutation-Based Learning to Improve Student Autonomy and Scientific Inquiry Skills in a Large Genetics Laboratory Course

Laboratory education can play a vital role in developing a learner''s autonomy and scientific inquiry skills. In an innovative, mutation-based learning (MBL) approach, students were instructed to redesign a teacher-designed standard experimental protocol by a “mutation” method in a molecular genetics laboratory course. Students could choose to delete, add, reverse, or replace certain steps of the standard protocol to explore questions of interest to them in a given experimental scenario. They wrote experimental proposals to address their rationales and hypotheses for the “mutations”; conducted experiments in parallel, according to both standard and mutated protocols; and then compared and analyzed results to write individual lab reports. Various autonomy-supportive measures were provided in the entire experimental process. Analyses of student work and feedback suggest that students using the MBL approach 1) spend more time discussing experiments, 2) use more scientific inquiry skills, and 3) find the increased autonomy afforded by MBL more enjoyable than do students following regimented instructions in a conventional “cookbook”-style laboratory. Furthermore, the MBL approach does not incur an obvious increase in labor and financial costs, which makes it feasible for easy adaptation and implementation in a large class.     

Educational Challenges of Molecular Life Science: Characteristics and Implications for Education and Research

Molecular life science is one of the fastest-growing fields of scientific and technical innovation, and biotechnology has profound effects on many aspects of daily life—often with deep, ethical dimensions. At the same time, the content is inherently complex, highly abstract, and deeply rooted in diverse disciplines ranging from “pure sciences,” such as math, chemistry, and physics, through “applied sciences,” such as medicine and agriculture, to subjects that are traditionally within the remit of humanities, notably philosophy and ethics. Together, these features pose diverse, important, and exciting challenges for tomorrow''s teachers and educational establishments. With backgrounds in molecular life science research and secondary life science teaching, we (Tibell and Rundgren, respectively) bring different experiences, perspectives, concerns, and awareness of these issues. Taking the nature of the discipline as a starting point, we highlight important facets of molecular life science that are both characteristic of the domain and challenging for learning and education. Of these challenges, we focus most detail on content, reasoning difficulties, and communication issues. We also discuss implications for education research and teaching in the molecular life sciences.     

The University of Alabama at Birmingham Center for Community OutReach Development Summer Science Institute Program: A 3-Yr Laboratory Research Experience for Inner-City Secondary-Level Students

This article describes and assesses the effectiveness of a 3-yr, laboratory-based summer science program to improve the academic performance of inner-city high school students. The program was designed to gradually introduce such students to increasingly more rigorous laboratory experiences in an attempt to interest them in and model what “real” science is like. The students are also exposed to scientific seminars and university tours as well as English and mathematics workshops designed to help them analyze their laboratory data and prepare for their closing ceremony presentations. Qualitative and quantitative analysis of student performance in these programs indicates that participants not only learn the vocabulary, facts, and concepts of science, but also develop a better appreciation of what it is like to be a “real” scientist. In addition, the college-bound 3-yr graduates of this program appear to be better prepared to successfully academically compete with graduates of other high schools; they also report learning useful job-related life skills. Finally, the critical conceptual components of this program are discussed so that science educators interested in using this model can modify it to fit the individual resources and strengths of their particular setting.     

Biology Intensive Orientation for Students (BIOS): a biology "boot camp"

The Biology Intensive Orientation for Students (BIOS) Program was designed to assess the impact of a 5-d intensive prefreshman program on success and retention of biological science majors at Louisiana State University. The 2005 pilot program combined content lectures and examinations for BIOL 1201, Introductory Biology for Science Majors, as well as learning styles assessments and informational sessions to provide the students with a preview of the requirements of biology and the pace of college. Students were tracked after their BIOS participation, and their progress was compared with a control group composed of students on the BIOS waiting list and a group of BIOL 1201 students who were identified as the academic matches to the BIOS participants (high school GPA, ACT score, and gender). The BIOS participants performed significantly better on the first and second exams, they had a higher course average, and they had a higher final grade than the control group. These students also had higher success rates (grade of “A,” “B,” or “C”) during both the fall and spring semesters and remained on track through the first semester of their sophomore year to graduate in 4 yr at a significantly higher rate than the control group.     

Misconceptions Are “So Yesterday!”

At the close of the Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research conference in July 2012, one of the organizers made the comment: “Misconceptions are so yesterday.” Within the community of learning sciences, misconceptions are yesterday''s news, because the term has been aligned with eradication and/or replacement of conceptions, and our knowledge about how people learn has progressed past this idea. This essay provides an overview of the discussion within the learning sciences community surrounding the term “misconceptions” and how the education community''s thinking has evolved with respect to students’ conceptions. Using examples of students’ incorrect ideas about evolution and ecology, we show that students’ naïve ideas can provide the resources from which to build scientific understanding. We conclude by advocating that biology education researchers use one or more appropriate alternatives in place of the term misconception whenever possible.     

Coping With the Unexpected in Childbirth: A Thematic Analysis

This article reports original research that describes new mothers'' experiences of birth and maternity care. Qualitative data were collected through a survey on birth satisfaction, which included space for women to provide comments about their birth and experience of care. Thirty-nine women provided comments that were analyzed using the thematic analysis method. Two themes emerged from the women''s experiences: “Unexpected birth processes: expectations and reality” and “Coping with birth: the role of health-care staff.” Participants described unexpected birthing processes, their experiences of care, and maternity care staff''s contributions to coping with birth. Implications for practice for childbirth professionals include promotion of physiologic birth, respectful person-centered care during all phases of perinatal care, and the value of childbirth preparation.     

Assessment of Student Learning Associated with Tree Thinking in an Undergraduate Introductory Organismal Biology Course

Phylogenetic trees provide visual representations of ancestor–descendant relationships, a core concept of evolutionary theory. We introduced “tree thinking” into our introductory organismal biology course (freshman/sophomore majors) to help teach organismal diversity within an evolutionary framework. Our instructional strategy consisted of designing and implementing a set of experiences to help students learn to read, interpret, and manipulate phylogenetic trees, with a particular emphasis on using data to evaluate alternative phylogenetic hypotheses (trees). To assess the outcomes of these learning experiences, we designed and implemented a Phylogeny Assessment Tool (PhAT), an open-ended response instrument that asked students to: 1) map characters on phylogenetic trees; 2) apply an objective criterion to decide which of two trees (alternative hypotheses) is “better”; and 3) demonstrate understanding of phylogenetic trees as depictions of ancestor–descendant relationships. A pre–post test design was used with the PhAT to collect data from students in two consecutive Fall semesters. Students in both semesters made significant gains in their abilities to map characters onto phylogenetic trees and to choose between two alternative hypotheses of relationship (trees) by applying the principle of parsimony (Occam''s razor). However, learning gains were much lower in the area of student interpretation of phylogenetic trees as representations of ancestor–descendant relationships.     

An Approach to Improving Science Knowledge About Energy Balance and Nutrition Among Elementary- and Middle-School Students

Unhealthy diets, lack of fitness, and obesity are serious problems in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control, Surgeon General, and Department of Health and Human Services are calling for action to address these problems. Scientists and educators at Baylor College of Medicine and the National Space Biomedical Research Institute teamed to produce an instructional unit, “Food and Fitness,” and evaluated it with students in grades 3–7 in Houston, Texas. A field-test group (447 students) completed all unit activities under the guidance of their teachers. This group and a comparison group (343 students) completed pre and postassessments measuring knowledge of concepts covered in the unit. Outcomes indicate that the unit significantly increased students'' knowledge and awareness of science concepts related to energy in living systems, metabolism, nutrients, and diet. Pre-assessment results suggest that most students understand concepts related to calories in food, exercise and energy use, and matching food intake to energy use. Students'' prior knowledge was found to be much lower on topics related to healthy portion sizes, foods that supply the most energy, essential nutrients, what “diet” actually means, and the relationship between body size and basal metabolic rate.     

From Biology to Mathematical Models and Back: Teaching Modeling to Biology Students,and Biology to Math and Engineering Students

We describe the development of a course to teach modeling and mathematical analysis skills to students of biology and to teach biology to students with strong backgrounds in mathematics, physics, or engineering. The two groups of students have different ways of learning material and often have strong negative feelings toward the area of knowledge that they find difficult. To give students a sense of mastery in each area, several complementary approaches are used in the course: 1) a “live” textbook that allows students to explore models and mathematical processes interactively; 2) benchmark problems providing key skills on which students make continuous progress; 3) assignment of students to teams of two throughout the semester; 4) regular one-on-one interactions with instructors throughout the semester; and 5) a term project in which students reconstruct, analyze, extend, and then write in detail about a recently published biological model. Based on student evaluations and comments, an attitude survey, and the quality of the students'' term papers, the course has significantly increased the ability and willingness of biology students to use mathematical concepts and modeling tools to understand biological systems, and it has significantly enhanced engineering students'' appreciation of biology.     

Looking Back in Time: An Interview with Madame Blanche Cohen

Madame Blanche Cohen, a French physiotherapist, was both a colleague of Drs. Fernand Lamaze and Pierre Vellay and their primary teacher of the Lamaze method (also known as accouchement sans douleur, or “painless childbirth”). She is the woman we read about in Marjorie Karmel''s landmark book, Thank You, Dr. Lamaze. In her Paris apartment in 1955, Madame Cohen conducted private classes to prepare Marjorie for her birth experience. She also served as Marjorie''s monitrice when Marjorie gave birth to her first daughter. Madame Cohen is still living in France with her husband, Henry. In this interview, she shares a fascinating glimpse into the history of the Lamaze method.     

Using a Physics Experiment in a Lecture Setting to Engage Biology Students with the Concepts of Poiseuille's Law

Biology students enrolled in a typical undergraduate physiology course encounter Poiseuille''s law, a physics equation that describes the properties governing the flow of blood through the circulation. According to the equation, a small change in vessel radius has an exponential effect on resistance, resulting in a larger than expected change in blood flow. To help engage students in this important concept, we performed a physics experiment as a lecture demonstration to mimic the original research by the 19th-century French scientist. We tested its impact as a research project and found that students who viewed the demonstration reacted very positively and showed an immediate increase in test performance, while the control group was able to independently “catch up” at the fourth week posttest. We further examined whether students’ math skills mapped to learning gains. The students with lower math scores who viewed the demonstration had slightly more improvement in test performance than those students who did not view the demonstration. Our data suggest that watching a lecture demonstration may be of even greater benefit to biology students with lower math achievement.     

A Central Support System Can Facilitate Implementation and Sustainability of a Classroom-Based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) in Genomics

In their 2012 report, the President''s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology advocated “replacing standard science laboratory courses with discovery-based research courses”—a challenging proposition that presents practical and pedagogical difficulties. In this paper, we describe our collective experiences working with the Genomics Education Partnership, a nationwide faculty consortium that aims to provide undergraduates with a research experience in genomics through a scheduled course (a classroom-based undergraduate research experience, or CURE). We examine the common barriers encountered in implementing a CURE, program elements of most value to faculty, ways in which a shared core support system can help, and the incentives for and rewards of establishing a CURE on our diverse campuses. While some of the barriers and rewards are specific to a research project utilizing a genomics approach, other lessons learned should be broadly applicable. We find that a central system that supports a shared investigation can mitigate some shortfalls in campus infrastructure (such as time for new curriculum development, availability of IT services) and provides collegial support for change. Our findings should be useful for designing similar supportive programs to facilitate change in the way we teach science for undergraduates.     

Effective Antenatal Education: Strategies Recommended by Expectant and New Parents

Antenatal education is a crucial component of antenatal care, yet practice and research demonstrate that women and men now seek far more than the traditional approach of a birth and parenting program attended in the final weeks of pregnancy. Indeed, women and men participating in this study recommended a range of strategies to be provided during the childbearing year, comparable to a “menu in a restaurant.” Their strategies included three program types: “Hearing Detail and Asking Questions,” “Learning and Discussing,” and “Sharing and Supporting Each Other.” The characteristics of each type of program are identified in this article. The actual learning methods the study participants recommended to be incorporated into the programs were “Time to Catch Up and Focus,” “Seeing and Hearing the Real Experience,” “Practicing,” and “Discovering.”     

Denying Genetic Causality

This edited volume of essays presents a countermainstream view against genetic underpinnings for cancer, behavior, and psychiatric conditions.This edited volume is a project from the Council of Responsible Genetics, a private organization based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, whose mission, as stated on its website, includes as one of several goals to “expose oversimplified and distorted scientific claims regarding the role of genetics in human disease, development and behavior.” This book represents such an effort. Editors Krimsky and Gruber are chair and president/executive director, respectively, of the organization and appear to have solicited contributions to the book from affiliates and other colleagues. Fewer than half of the 16 chapters are written by active laboratory scientists, however, and as a result, the book suffers from arguments clouded by imprecise use of terminology and preconceptions about genes and their functions. One might consider this book, or parts thereof, for an advanced undergraduate genetics class in which positions counter to the mainstream scientific view are presented and evaluated, and in which students are challenged to critically assess the quality of support for all arguments.The general theme of this book is to question the role of genes (and reproducible molecular mechanisms, more broadly) in cancer, behavior, psychiatric disorders, evolution, and other phenomena. One chapter promotes the tissue organization field theory (TOFT) against the somatic mutation theory of cancer. TOFT was proposed by the chapter authors in 2011 (Soto and Sonnenschein, 2011 ) but has not found traction and has garnered little attention beyond an initial refutation (Vaux, 2011 ). The authors assert that cancer is a disease of development and tissue repair primarily from environmental exposures and independent of genetic changes. Most cancer researchers agree that environmental factors can trigger cell growth but that ensuing mutations complete the picture in the genesis of malignancies. This chapter would be a good starting point from which one could assign students to explore papers cited in the Cancer Genome Atlas database, a growing resource compiling cancer genome data and subsequent validation in other systems of the effects of mutations found. In another chapter, a nonscientist author asserts that “in only a small percentage of cases are genes notable contributors to breast cancer,” implying imprecisely that only rare inherited cancer predisposition is genetic, when in fact cancer stemming from somatic mutations is also gene based. To assert that cancer stems only from environmental effects, to the exclusion of genes, overlooks the intertwining of the two arenas—radiation induces somatic mutations, for example, and estrogen mimics trigger cell division, which sets the stage for additional new mutations during DNA replication. Open in a separate windowOther sections of the book argue a lack of evidence for genetic influence on behaviors and psychiatric conditions. One chapter centers on several refuted ideas of biology and behavior (for example XYY and monoamine oxidase genotypes associated with aggression), with the intended implication that all other biological connections to behavior must be suspect. A chapter on autism accepts but downplays a partial role of genetics in the disorder, while emphasizing environmental exposures. Students exploring this topic could examine the growing literature on de novo mutations found in autism patients (Huguet et al., 2013 ), among other autism studies, to see how interlocking causes of the disorder might best explained by the available data. In the context of disorders such as schizophrenia, the book does not acknowledge or address the literature reporting genetic associations with psychiatric predispositions. In a troubling instance, a cited reference is misrepresented as refuting a genetic connection to schizophrenia; the reference in question (Collins et al., 2012 ) actually reports genome-wide association studies showing linkage of schizophrenia to particular loci (just not to the genes originally suspected). The same research group the previous month reported copy number variations associated with schizophrenia (Kirov et al., 2012 ), but this finding was not cited. Psychiatric genetics is a rich area for students to explore, and the contrarian viewpoint of the book can provide a starting point to trigger students’ delving into the literature.Genetic Explanations: Sense and Nonsense includes two chapters with assertions counter to the neo-Darwinian synthesis of evolution. One claims, fairly misleadingly, that “a growing number of evolutionary biologists … believe that macroevolution was the result of mechanisms other than natural selection.” Another states that “not genomic DNA but epigenetic environmental influences … overwhelmingly affect our health and well being.” The idea that gene regulation via environmental and epigenetic effects is somehow not reducible to genes (and that genes are therefore not central to evolution) would be an interesting subject for students to explore in the literature to see what the data actually support.This book is recommended only for use in advanced classes centered on weighing evidence and dissecting arguments in scientific controversies. The book''s countermainstream assertion of a lack of significant genetic connection to cancer, autism, schizophrenia, and other phenomena provides multiple opportunities for students to explore the scientific literature surrounding such genetic connections.