Bioinformatics is an essential discipline for biologists. It also has a reputation of being difficult for those without a strong quantitative and computer science background. At Lancaster University, we have developed modules for the integration of bioinformatics skills training into our undergraduate biology degree portfolio. This article…

Educators often seek methodologies that enhance enduring knowledge for their students if their goal is to teach effectively. Students who strive to improve their own learning often use less effective study strategies as a way to improve long-term memory or content transfer. If the goal of education is to teach students how to retrieve information…

Professional teaching competence is significantly influenced by beliefs about teaching and learning. Prospective teachers start their teacher training with quite persistent beliefs about learning processes. These beliefs are mainly influenced by the way they experienced their own lessons as a student at school. Previous biology lessons at school…

Graphing is an important practice for scientists and in K-16 science curricula. Graphs can be constructed using an array of software packages as well as by hand, with pen-and-paper. However, we have an incomplete understanding of how students' graphing practice vary by graphing environment; differences could affect how best to teach and assess…

The conception of racial categories from a biological perspective is unconsciously embedded in the individual's cognition. This is true even among university students majoring in biology and medicine. Even though students have never learned about "race" explicitly in formal biology class, they are highly likely to implicitly construct,…

This study examines what prior knowledge and misconceptions about evolutionary theory students bring with them into an introductory biological anthropology course. One hundred and fifty-three students completed short, anonymous surveys about evolution on the first day of class before any content was discussed. Of a possible seven points, the…

In the wake of a growing emphasis on students taking a more central role in shaping their own learning, it has become increasingly important that course designs cater for productive feedback. This study explores how feedback opportunities were incorporated into two course designs that in different ways aimed at engaging students actively in…

The purpose of the current study was to investigate the association of follower's strengths-based leadership (FSBL) with follower innovative behavior and the meditating role of self-efficacy in the relationship. Furthermore, this paper also explored the moderating role of emotional exhaustion in the relationship between FSBL, self-efficacy, and…

Knowledge about local species and a positive attitude towards all living organisms are important to motivate the next generations to protect biodiversity. We compared local species identification skills and declared attitude towards invertebrates across genders in Italian and Norwegian students in teacher education. We focused on Norway and Italy…

Laboratory practical sessions are critical to scientific training in biology but usually fail to promote logical and hypothesis-driven reasoning and rely heavily on the teacher's instructions. This paper describes a 2-day laboratory practicum in which students prepare and analyze larval cuticle preparations of "Drosophila" segmentation…

Despite the importance of evolution to understand living phenomena, evolution teaching confronts several tensions, especially with respect to teachers' and students' religious beliefs. These aspects have been widely investigated in the USA and Europe. However, little empirical research has been done on this issue in Latin America, despite their…

Optical polarization phenomena are omnipresent in physics, chemistry, biology, and technology. Studying optical polarization is best done through an interdisciplinary approach that combines biology and technology, which usually makes things more interesting to students. Seeing Haidinger's brush for the first time can be an exciting discovery for…

Understanding the relationship between protein structure and function is a core-learning goal in biochemistry. Students often struggle to visualize proteins as three-dimensional objects that interact with other molecules to affect its biochemical consequences. We describe here a partial course-based undergraduate research experiences that has…

Writing for social engagement in an academic context indicates the authors' attitude towards the propositional content and the text's audience through metadiscursive maxims markers employment. This study tried to determine whether there are any differences in metadiscourse marking in research articles across different disciplines and different…

While molecular visualization has been recognized as a threshold concept in biology education, the explicit assessment of students' visual literacy skills is rare. To facilitate the evaluation of this fundamental ability, a series of NSF-IUSE-sponsored workshops brought together a community of faculty engaged in creating instruments to assess…