Given the importance of phylogenetic trees to understanding common ancestry and evolution, they are a necessary part of the undergraduate biology curriculum. However, a number of common misconceptions, such as reading across branch tips and understanding homoplasy, can pose difficulties in student understanding. Students also may take phylogenetic…

Understanding of evolution is foundational to be a scientifically literate citizen because it allows analysis of socioscientific issues, such as biodiversity conservation, biotechnology applications, and human-induced climate change. Unfortunately, students who weakly understand evolution fail to understand its importance in everyday life and…

We validate the Measure of Acceptance of the Theory of Evolution (MATE) on undergraduate students using the Rasch model and utilize the MATE to explore qualitatively how students express their acceptance of evolution. At least 24 studies have used the MATE, most with the assumption that it is unidimensional. However, we found that the MATE is best…

Evolution is a unifying theory in biology and is challenging for undergraduates to learn. An instructor's ability to help students learn is influenced by pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), which is topic-specific knowledge of teaching and learning. Instructors need PCK for every topic they teach, which is a tremendous body of knowledge to…

An inversion polymorphism of the filamin and emerin genes at the tip of the long arm of the human X-chromosome serves as the basis of an investigative laboratory in which students learn something new about their own genomes. Long, nearly identical inverted repeats flanking the filamin and emerin genes illustrate how repetitive elements can lead to…

Students who enter college with a solid grounding in, and positive attitudes toward, evolutionary science are better prepared for and achieve at higher levels in university-level biology courses. We found highly significant, positive relationships between student knowledge of evolution and attitudes toward evolution, as well as between…

Students often have misconceptions about natural selection as they misuse a direct causal schema to explain the process. Natural selection is in fact an emergent process where random interactions lead to changes in a population. The misconceptions stem from students' lack of emergent schema for natural selection. In order to help students…

Considerable anecdotal evidence indicates that some of the most difficult concepts that both high school and undergraduate elementary-education students struggle with are those surrounding evolutionary principles, especially speciation. It's no wonder that entry-level biology students are confused, when biologists have multiple definitions of…

Teaching and learning about complex scientific content, such as biological evolution, is challenging in part because students have a difficult time seeing the relevance of evolution in their everyday lives. The purpose of this study was to explore the effectiveness of the Teaching for Transformative Experiences in Science (TTES) model (Pugh, 2002)…

The "Next Generation Science Standards" (NGSS Lead States, 2013) recommend that science courses engage communities of students in scientific practices that include building accurate conceptual models of phenomena central to the understanding of scientific disciplines. We offer a set of activities, implemented successfully at both the…

Large, introductory, nonmajors biology classes present challenges when trying to encourage class discussion to help reinforce important concepts. Lively in-class discussion involving hundreds of students is more successful when a relevant story told with passion is used to introduce a topic. In my courses, each semester begins with thorough…

One of the key aspects of natural selection is competition, yet the concept of competition is not necessarily emphasized in explanations of natural selection. Because of this, we developed an activity for our class that focuses on competition and provides an example of the effects of competition on natural selection. This hands-on activity models…

Mutation is the key molecular mechanism generating phenotypic variation, which is the basis for evolution. In an introductory biology course, we used a model-based pedagogy that enabled students to integrate their understanding of genetics and evolution within multiple case studies. We used student-generated conceptual models to assess…

Evolution is a main concept in biology, but not many students understand how it works. In this article we introduce the game "DNA Re-EvolutioN" as an active learning tool that uses genetic concepts (DNA structure, transcription and translation, mutations, natural selection, etc.) as playing rules. Students will learn about molecular…

One goal of postsecondary education is to assist students in developing expert-level understanding. Previous attempts to encourage expert-level understanding of phylogenetic analysis in college science classrooms have largely focused on isolated, or "one-shot," in-class activities. Using a deliberate practice instructional approach, we…