New Resources for Childbirth Educators and Parents

In this column, reviewers offer perspectives and comments on a variety of new media resources for childbirth educators and for expectant and new parents. The books and DVDs reviewed in this issue''s column address the following topics: new directions for childbirth education classes; pregnancy tips for expectant mothers; empowering women to give birth naturally; midwifery care; breastfeeding; labyrinths and “laborinths” (an alternative approach to preparing for birth); preterm labor; understanding newborns'' language cues; and exercise programs during pregnancy and the postnatal period, as well as exercises that strengthen the pelvic floor and help new mothers deal with incontinence.     

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.     

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.     

Reflections on the “Push for Your Baby” Campaign

In this editorial, a board member of Lamaze International describes the “Push for Your Baby” campaign to urge women to advocate for more evidence-based practice for better births. She also reflects on her hopes and worries about the “Push for Your Baby” campaign launched by Lamaze in May 2012. Discussing the realities of current maternity care practice, she asks how we can work with obstetric nurses and providers to have them support what most women value—vaginal birth.     

Mothers' Worries During Pregnancy: A Content Analysis of Reddit Posts

Qualitative investigations into maternal worries during pregnancy are limited. The aim of this study was to identify the content of women''s pregnancy-related worries by completing a content analysis of posts on Reddit. A total of 217 posts by 196 unique users were analyzed. Most worries related to infant factors (32.6%), individual factors (27.1%), and antenatal care factors, such as medical procedures (25.2%). The remaining worries related to situational factors (10.9%) and the partner relationship (4.3%). Although most fears related to fetal well-being, other concerns included problems with family members, women''s own mental health, and not being a “good mother.” These findings support calls for antenatal education to more adequately address women''s psychosocial concerns.     

Prenatal and Postnatal Diagnosis of Infant Disability: Breaking the News to Mothers

The birth of an infant with a disability is often perceived as the loss of a “perfect” baby and is typically an unanticipated event for the mother and family. Mothers may experience self-blame for the disability; therefore, sensitive communication is crucial. A private setting is recommended, with a minimum of health-care professionals in attendance when the diagnosis is revealed. The perinatal educator can guide the mother through the early emotional phases of processing and accepting the new information by offering support and incorporating timely information and interventions. The perinatal educator can also inform and prepare other expectant couples in the childbirth class and encourage them to support the mother and father in celebrating the forthcoming birth. The objective of nursing care for a mother whose infant is newly diagnosed with a disability is to facilitate a positive outcome for her and to promote optimal infant bonding. In all communication and information, replacing the term “disabled infant” with “infant with a disability” is emphasized in order to recognize the infant first and the disability second.     

Men’s Perceptions of Pregnancy-Related Weight Gain: A Psychosocial Firestorm (Upheaval) Intertwined With Supportive Intentions

In-depth interviews were conducted with 16 men who had a significant other who had given birth within the last 5 years. Men were asked about their perceptions of pregnancy-related weight gain, and content analysis was used to identify themes from the interviews. Men described nine themes related to perinatal weight gain: (a) negative perceptions, (b) eating behaviors, (c) exercise habits, (d) health impact, (e) body changes, (f) weight-loss success, (g) “it bothered her more than me,” (h) “the weight gain wasn’t a problem,” and (i) intimacy. Together, these themes offer a glimpse into men’s experiences and highlight the discord and balance between experiencing negative feelings/perceptions and being a supportive partner. This information on how men perceive pregnancy-related weight gain can be used to develop interventions to assist men to support their significant others in meeting weight loss goals following pregnancy.     

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.     

Support Needs of Expectant Mothers and Fathers: A Qualitative Study

The aim of this study was to describe expectant mothers’ and fathers’ perceived needs of support during pregnancy. Twenty-two women and 10 men were interviewed in four focus groups and 13 individual interviews. Systematic text condensation was performed to analyze the data. Parents described not only a broad spectrum of social support needs but also needs of psychological and physical support. They also requested to share their experiences with others. The foci of care and parents’ needs of support are more harmonized with medical support than with psychological and emotional support. Mothers’ needs were predominately addressed in the health services, but fathers often felt “invisible.” Antenatal services may need to offer more customized individual support and emphasize peer support in groups; the challenge is to involve both parents through communication and encouragement so they can support each other.     

A Pioneer of Hands-On Education

This biography of the physicist and science educator Frank Oppenheimer uses his crowning achievement, San Francisco''s Exploratorium, as the lens through which to explore his life and work.This book is a timely read, coinciding as it does with the moving of the renowned Exploratorium from the Palace of Fine Arts at the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, where it was established in 1969, to its new and larger location at Pier 15 on the Embarcadero. This institution continues to embody the vision of its founder, Frank Oppenheimer, the subject of this highly personal yet well-documented biography. The author, K. C. Cole, worked with Oppenheimer at the Exploratorium from 1972 until 1985 and in a subsequent voluminous correspondence. Together, they wrote magazine articles, prepared exhibit labels, developed applications for funding, and worked on a book project. The author herself is an ideal narrator, representing the target audience for the Exploratorium itself: the intelligent, curious, nonscientist. She brings the reader along on her voyage of discovery of the process of science through interactions with her enthusiastic and thoughtful guide.The book''s title, Something Incredibly Wonderful Happens, is drawn from a piece called “Adult Play,” which Oppenheimer wrote for the Exploratorium magazine in 1980 (Oppenheimer, 1980) . He describes play as activity without a particular goal, just noticing how something works or does not, combining things on a whim and often ending up with nothing in particular, throwing it out, and playing in a different way. “But a research physicist gets paid for this ‘waste of time’ and so do the people who develop exhibits in the Exploratorium. Occasionally though, something incredibly wonderful happens.” As the embodiment of the ease and freedom of play using exhibits designed to stimulate curiosity and challenge perception, the Exploratorium is precisely the sort of place where such exciting revelations can occur. The originality of the Exploratorium concept, a science museum without rules, encouraging experimentation and hands-on interaction with the exhibits, an environment where it is impossible to fail, grew organically from Oppenheimer''s own experiences of science and science teaching and was further informed by his rich background in art and music and his commitment to democracy in access to the riches of the intellectual life. The book thus provides a model for current life sciences educators, a particular view of the style of instruction that is now widely understood to be the most effective way to engage students in the processes of science. In this review, I will focus on those aspects of Oppenheimer''s life that most directly led to his approach to informal science education.The first six chapters describe Oppenheimer''s childhood, education, early work as an atomic physicist (including the Manhattan Project, which he worked on with his brother, Robert Oppenheimer), his difficulties during the McCarthy era, and a period of more than a decade in Pagosa Spring, Colorado, where he became a self-taught rancher and science teacher at the local high school. Blacklisted from university employment, he turned to the local community, who welcomed him and shared with him their agricultural expertise while valuing his contributions to the education of their children. A typical event was recalled by his son Michael, in which he and his father dissected a pig''s head after the pig had been slaughtered (p. 110). His teaching portfolio included general science, biology, chemistry, and physics. The students were not eager to learn at first, so Oppenheimer came up with intriguing experiments to capture their attention. They took apart machinery, dissected various organisms, explored the rural area and the junkyard, and asked questions. Sports were the preoccupation of most students, but they could involve relatively few students directly, and the emphasis on wins and losses took away much of the fun. Science fairs became a more democratic activity, and the students were unusually successful, bringing notice to Pagosa Springs and further opportunities for its students. In all his dealings with students, Oppenheimer took pains to answer their questions with honesty and rigor while adjusting his approaches to their intellectual maturity. He was not limited by age-appropriate curricula or preconceptions as to what a young teenager could understand. He also began working with teachers to help them develop similarly engaging curricula, a new concept for many of them, for whom science teaching was a threatening challenge. Oppenheimer understood that only excited and engaged teachers could adequately excite their students.At the end of his time in Colorado, he worked at the University of Colorado, where he undertook a revision of the physics teaching laboratories. In doing so, he developed and improvised instruments to conduct experiments on a wide range of physical phenomena. In this period, he became convinced that grades, particularly the grade of “F,” were pernicious and inhibited full creativity and curiosity in students, particularly those whose background was not that of the traditional academic culture. He worked hard to include opportunities for minority students in his courses and noticed how somewhat arbitrary “rules” tended to perpetuate the division between those who were “in” and those who were “out.” He also recognized the role of the physical setting in fostering excitement about science; he insisted on open laboratories surrounding lecture space, so the artificial distinction between the two modes of learning was blurred, and cooperation and conversation could be part of learning. The experiments became a sort of “library,” accessible all day long with the same freedom as a library of books.The first half of the book ends with Oppenheimer''s visits to science museums in Europe as a Guggenheim Fellow in 1965. He realized that the context of the science museum, particularly as a means to reach underserved members of the public, would be the best venue for his educational ideas. In the second half of the book, we learn of the development of the Exploratorium itself, designed in every aspect to encourage visitors to play and to be comfortable in their enjoyment of the exhibits, and to help them satisfy their curiosity. Analogous to a walk in the woods during which you notice various aspects of the environment, some large, some small, and take delight in them, the Exploratorium provided a “woods” of natural phenomena, through which visitors could walk, dallying here or there to try out one or another of the exhibits. Though all principles of science were important, an emphasis was placed on those involving direct perception. Aesthetics were important in all the exhibits, and artists were invited to prepare works and installations placed side by side with more traditionally “scientific” exhibits, thus blurring that somewhat artificial distinction. In fact, Oppenheimer was a proficient flautist and grew up in a home rich in art. He, more than most, was acutely aware of the beauty of science and the rigor of art, both ways of probing the human spirit. He is quoted as saying that artists and scientists are the official “noticers” of society (p. 191), an intriguing idea.A particularly innovative aspect of the Exploratorium was the hiring of students to be Explainers. Not as stuffy or formal as a typical docent, the Explainer''s job was to help others use the exhibits, perhaps suggesting ways the apparatus could be manipulated or what important principles it demonstrated. We now call this practice “peer-assisted learning,” and recent work has documented its advantages to both the explainer and the explainee.Another firmly held principle, at least during Oppenheimer''s life, was that admission to the Exploratorium should be free of charge. Despite a perennial shortage of funds, this principle was adhered to, guaranteeing that people could drop in from time to time as they might visit a favorite park, for a brief refreshing break or for a longer jaunt. Not only did such practice encourage regular visits, it democratized the institution by removing barriers to participation by those otherwise lacking means.Ultimately, Oppenheimer''s attitude toward science teaching and learning, as embodied in the Exploratorium, was to address two fundamental human needs: curiosity and confidence in one''s ability to understand things. It is a teacher''s job to get a student “unstuck” (p. 220), to intrigue the student and then to discover what the student already understands and build on it. Throughout, the teacher must reassure students that their brains are working just fine. No one ever fails a science museum.A final remark for readers of this journal is Oppenheimer''s attitude toward assessment. He said, “Why do we insist that there must always be a measure for the quality of learning? … By thus insisting we have limited our teaching to only those aspects of learning for which we have devised a ready measure. … If we prematurely insist on a quantitative measure for the effectiveness of museums, we will have to abandon the possibility of making them important” (p. 274). The criterion for evaluation of the exhibits at the Exploratorium was that they not be boring!In each of the 12 chapters of this book, subheadings are accompanied by pithy quotations from Oppenheimer himself or one of his colleagues. The scholarly apparatus of the book is contained in notes and a bibliography at the end, so it does not distract from a highly entertaining and edifying read. I recommend this book.     

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.     

Father-Time: Welcome to the Rest of Your Life

This guest editorial reports on the expansion of a program for expectant and new fathers within a local health service on the Central Coast of New South Wales, Australia. The program, titled “Father-Time: Welcome to the Rest of Your Life,” incorporates, and is an extension to, the all-male discussion forum previously reported in this journal (Spring 2005, Volume 14, No. 2).     

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.     

“What if students revolt?”—Considering Student Resistance: Origins,Options, and Opportunities for Investigation

Instructors attempting new teaching methods may have concerns that students will resist nontraditional teaching methods. The authors provide an overview of research characterizing the nature of student resistance and exploring its origins. Additionally, they provide potential strategies for avoiding or addressing resistance and pose questions about resistance that may be ripe for research study.

“What if the students revolt?” “What if I ask them to talk to a neighbor, and they simply refuse?” “What if they do not see active learning as teaching?” “What if they just want me to lecture?” “What if my teaching evaluation scores plummet?” “Even if I am excited about innovative teaching and learning, what if I encounter student resistance?”

These are genuine concerns of committed and thoughtful instructors who aspire to respond to the repeated national calls to fundamentally change the way biology is taught in colleges and universities across the United States. No doubt most individuals involved in promoting innovative teaching in undergraduate biology education have heard these or variations on these fears and concerns. While some biology instructors may be at a point where they are still skeptical of innovative teaching from more theoretical perspectives (“Is it really any better than lecturing?”), the concerns expressed by the individuals above come from a deeply committed and practical place. These are instructors who have already passed the point where they have become dissatisfied with traditional teaching methods. They have already internally decided to try new approaches and have perhaps been learning new teaching techniques themselves. They are on the precipice of actually implementing formerly theoretical ideas in the real, messy space that is a classroom, with dozens, if not hundreds, of students watching them. Potential rejection by students as they are practicing these new pedagogical skills represents a real and significant roadblock. A change may be even more difficult for those earning high marks from their students for their lectures. If we were to think about a learning progression for faculty moving toward requiring more active class participation on the part of students, the voices above are from those individuals who are progressing along this continuum and who could easily become stuck or turn back in the face of student resistance.Unfortunately, it appears that little systematic attention or research effort has been focused on understanding the origins of student resistance in biology classrooms or the options for preventing and addressing such resistance. As always, this Feature aims to gather research evidence from a variety of fields to support innovations in undergraduate biology education. Below, we attempt to provide an overview of the types of student resistance one might encounter in a classroom, as well as share hypotheses from other disciplines about the potential origins of student resistance. In addition, we offer examples of classroom strategies that have been proposed as potentially useful for either preventing student resistance from happening altogether or addressing student resistance after it occurs, some of which align well with findings from research on the origins of student resistance. Finally, we explore how ready the field of student resistance may be for research study, particularly in undergraduate biology education.     

A Web Application for Generation of Random DNA Sequences with a Single Open Reading Frame: Exemplars for Genetics and Bioinformatics Education

A standard genetic/bioinformatic activity in the genomics era is the identification within DNA sequences of an "open reading frame" (ORF) that encodes a polypeptide sequence. As an educational introduction to such a search, we provide a webapp that composes, displays for solution, and then solves short DNA exemplars with a single ORFTo the Editor: We wish to bring a new Web resource to the attention of CBE—Life Sciences Education readers.When being introduced to the central dogma of nucleic acid transactions, students are often required to identify the 5′→3′ DNA template strand in a double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) molecule; transcribe an antiparallel, complementary 5′→3′ mRNA; and then translate the mRNA codons 5′→3′ into an amino acid polypeptide by means of the genetic code table. Although this algorithm replicates the molecular genetic process of protein synthesis, experience shows that the series of left/right, antiparallel, and/or 5′→3′ reversals is confusing to many students when worked by hand. Students may also obtain the “right” answer for the “wrong” reasons, as when the “wrong” DNA strand is transcribed in the “wrong” 3′→5′ direction, so as to produce a string of letters that “translates correctly.”In genetics and bioinformatics education, we have found it more intuitively appealing to demonstrate and emphasize the equivalence of the mRNA to the DNA sense strand complement of the template strand. The sense strand is oriented in the same 5′→3′ direction and has a sequence identical to the mRNA, except for substitution of thymidine in the DNA for uracil in the mRNA. It is thus more computationally efficient to “read” the polypeptide sequence directly from this strand, with mental substitution of thymidine in the triplets of the genetic code table. (By definition, “codons” occur only in mRNA: the equivalent three-letter words in the DNA sense strand may be designated “triplets.”) This is the same logic used in DNA “translation” software programs.A further constraint often imposed on dsDNA teaching exemplars is that five of the six possible reading frames are “closed” by the occurrence of one or more “stop” triplets, and only one is an open reading frame (ORF) that encodes an uninterrupted polypeptide. We designate this the “5&1” condition. The task for the student is to identify the ORF and “translate” it correctly. Other considerations include correct labeling of the sense and template DNA strands, their 5′ and 3′ ends (and of the mRNA as required), and the amino (N) and carboxyl (C) termini of the polypeptide.Thus, instructors face the logistical challenge of creating dsDNA sequences that satisfy the “5&1” condition for homework and exam questions. Instructors must compose sequences with one or more “stops” in the three overlapping read frames of one strand, while simultaneously creating two “stopped” frames and one ORF in the other. We have explored these constraints as an algorithmic and computational challenge (Carr et al., 2014 ). There are no “5&1” exemplars of length L ≤ 10, and the proportion of exemplars of length L ≥ 11 is very small relative to the 4^L possible sequences (e.g., 0.0023% for L = 11, 0.048% for L = 15, 0.89% for L = 25). This makes random exploration for such exemplars inefficient.We therefore developed a two-stage recursive search algorithm that samples 4^L space randomly to generate “5&1” exemplars of any specified length L from 11 ≤ L ≤ 100. The algorithm has been implemented as a Web application (“RandomORF,” available at www.ucs.mun.ca/~donald/orf/randomorf). Figure 1 shows a screen capture of the successive stages of the presentation. The application requires JavaScript on the computer used to run the Web browser.Open in a separate windowFigure 1.Successive screen captures of the webapp RandomORF. First panel: the Length parameter is the desired number of base pairs. Second panel: Clicking the “Generate dsDNA” button shows the dsDNA sequence to be solved, with labeled 5′ and 3′ ends. The button changes to “Show ORF.” Third panel: A second click shows the six reading frames, with the ORF highlighted. Here, the ORF is in the sixth reading frame on the bottom (sense) strand. The polypeptide sequence, read right to left, is N–EITHLRL–C, where N and C are the amino and carboxyl termini, respectively. The conventional IUPAC single-letter abbreviations for amino acids are centered over the middle base of the triplet; stop triplets are indicated by asterisks (*).The webapp provides a means for students to practice identifying ORFs by efficiently generating many examples with unique solutions (Supplemental Material); this can take the place of the more standard offering of a small number of set examples with an answer key. The two-stage display makes it possible for problems to be worked “cold,” with the correct ORF identified only afterward. For examinations, any exemplar may be presented in any of four ways, by transposing the top and bottom strands and/or reversing the direction of the strands left to right. Presentation of the 5′ end of the sense strand at the lower left or upper or lower right tests student recognition that sense strands are always read in the 5′→3′ direction, irrespective of the “natural” left-to-right and/or top-then-bottom order. We intend to modify the webapp to include other features of pedagogical value, including constraints on [G+C] composition and the type, number, and distribution of stop triplets. We welcome suggestions from readers.     

New Resources for Childbirth Educators and Parents

In this column, reviewers offer perspectives and comments on a variety of new media resources for childbirth educators and for expectant and new parents. From audio CDs on building one''s birthing business endeavor to books for expectant parents focusing on breastfeeding, calming babies, cosleeping, and supplementing what is learned in a childbirth class, the marketplace always has new resources to offer.     

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.