Involving students in inquiry-based exercises is much more difficult than simply providing activities for them to do in the classroom. While active learning suggests students are physically participating in the lesson, inquiry learning requires that they are also mentally participating in it. Academic theorists agree it is more the mental…

Four different team teaching experiences are described with collaborators from a variety of disciplines. The pedagogical differences between the teachers created unique challenges. A description of each collaboration is provided, followed by an analysis of the four experiences. An examination of the challenges that arose are summarized to…

This article explores trainee teachers' conceptions and ideas about endangered bird species and their protection. The study involved 191 students majoring in kindergarten education, primary school natural science or secondary school biology education at the University of Ljubljana Faculty of Education, Slovenia. Data analyses showed that the…

In this study, the effect of problem-based learning on students' academic achievement and performance skills in a unit on the human excretory system was investigated. Sixty-one 10th grade students, from two full classes instructed by the same biology teacher, were involved in the study. Classes were randomly assigned as either the experimental or…

Biology students in their first year at university have difficulty understanding the abstract concepts of photosynthesis. The traditional didactic lecture followed by practical exercises that show various macroscopic aspects of photosynthesis often do not help the students visualise or understand the submicroscopic (molecular-level) reactions that…

This article presents a brief history of the events leading up to the current US biology education standards, a brief examination of the National Science Education Standards for biology, and a description of the three recently developed biology curricula that were designed to address the new standards. Several evaluative studies of these curricula…

Inflammation during the perinatal period has become a recognized risk factor for developmental brain injuries over the past decade or more. To fully understand the relationship between inflammation and brain development, a comprehensive knowledge about the immune system within the brain is essential. Microglia are resident immune cells within the…

Successful treatment of many childhood diseases once considered terminal has resulted in the emergence of long-term effects of the disease or consequences of treatment that were previously unrecognized. Many of these long-term effects involve the central nervous system (CNS) and are developmental in the way that they emerge over time. Because we…

To help students learn science concepts, Pharmacology Education Partnership (PEP)--a science education program that incorporates relevant topics related to drugs and drug abuse into standard biology and chemistry curricula was developed. The interdisciplinary PEP curriculum provides six modules to teach biology and chemistry principles within the…

The new 1?9 curriculum framework in Taiwan provides a remarkable change from previous frameworks in terms of the coverage of content and the powers of teachers. This study employs a modified repertory grid technique to investigate biology teachers' preferences with regard to six curriculum components. One hundred and eighty-five in-service and…

The IMMEX (Interactive Multi-Media Exercises) Web-based problem set platform enables the online delivery of complex, multimedia simulations, the rapid collection of student performance data, and has already been used in several genetic simulations. The next step is the use of these data to understand and improve student learning in a formative…

The need to support bioinformatics training has been widely recognized by scientists, industry, and government institutions. However, the discussion of instructional methods for teaching bioinformatics is only beginning. Here we report on a systematic attempt to design two bioinformatics workshops for graduate biology students on the basis of…

Be it metaphysics, theology, or some other unifying framework, humans have long sought to determine "first principles" underlying knowledge. Larry Arnhart continues in this vein, positing a Darwinian web of genetic, cultural, and cognitive evolution to explain our social behavior in terms of human nature as governed by biology. He leaves it to us…

Classes of 100 students or more are not uncommon in higher education. With such large enrollments, it can be difficult for instructors to integrate active learning components to the traditional lecture format typically adopted in such large classes. To help address this problem, Johnny El-Rady discusses his use of an electronic classroom voting…

Question-asking is a basic skill, required for the development of scientific thinking. However, the way in which science lessons are conducted does not usually stimulate question-asking by students. To make students more familiar with the scientific inquiry process, we developed a curriculum in developmental biology based on research papers…