They Might Be Giants - Science is Real

Fun Monday science video

Biomarker for traumatic brain injury

Banyan Biomarkers is a UF Biotechnology Incubator success story. The small start up company has grown into a well-known and established company located in the Progress Park in Alachua. Researchers from their company spoke to our teachers regarding their work to identify biomarkers to indicate traumatic brain injury, allowing faster, more accurate diagnosis and therefore improved treatment and care. Their work has been in the news recently. There is a nice piece here that has many references and original source information.

Should students be paid for passing AP exams?

Massachusetts is among six states participating in a program through the National Math and Science Initiative that pays students $100 for each Advanced Placement exam they pass. In Massachusetts, 46 schools are participating this year. However, there is debate over whether such reward-based programs are effective. Boston Herald
Wow. A bit speechless. What do you all think? Comments welcome.

Open access journal collection

Love the concept of open access journals. Often on a University campus, with free access to so many journals, we forget that it is difficult for others not affiliated with a university to access the latest research. PLoS aims to assist. They recently added a Biology Education post to their offerings. Only one post so far.

The Education Series combines open education—which freely shares teaching methods, initiatives, and materials—with open access publishing to present innovative approaches to teaching critical concepts, developments, and methods in biology. It covers fundamental areas of biology, from evolution and ecology to cell biology and biochemistry, and takes full advantage of Web-based open-access research and multimedia tools to create an interactive, dynamic resource to further understanding of fundamental questions in biology and of current methods to investigate them.

Articles feature initiatives that incorporate current life sciences research and allow students to use authentic research tools to investigate real-world problems and generate solid data—crucial elements for nurturing students’ interest in science. Toward this end, approaches that use genomics databases and bioinformatics tools, with their easy online access and mathematical expression of biological concepts, are particularly effective in the classroom. Alternately, taking students out in the field to test questions about relationships between species abundance and the presence of contaminants can provide a memorable lesson in environmental science.

In the first article, Louise Charkoudian , Jay Fitzgerald, Andrea Champlin, and Chaitan Khosla show that Streptomyces-derived natural products provide an untapped source of pigments, showing others how to explore the potential of biopigments in the classroom as well as in art and industry. The authors share their experiences in harnessing these biopigments to create paint and paintings and provide educators with the tools to replicate their experiments in the classroom.

By mining the promise of open education and harnessing the collective imagination and talent of PLoS Biology readers and contributors, the Education Series creates a virtual biology education library that is available through PLoS Biology Collections.

Where did all the CPET stuff go?

What an incredibly busy summer we had at CPET! I'm afraid the hectic pace we kept then is still with us. As we wrap up summer goodies and start our school visits, Mini Medical School, conferences, JSEHS prep, etc there isn't much time to blog! So, to help with the effort of communicating the great things going on in science research and science education, we have started a Facebook page. Join us there and let us know what is going on in your world!

The Sound of Science

Good teaching: top ten requirements

The NSTA listserv is a wealth of information. Sometimes I feel like an interloper reading the discussions, not able to offer much comment. However, it is amazing to me the camaraderie that exists in the education community, specifically among science teachers. A soon-to-be first year teacher asked for advice and many educators from around the country have offered some great morsels. I thought the following was nicely stated:

. Good Teaching: Top Ten Requirements
By Richard Leblanc, York University, Ontario

One. Good teaching is as much about passion as it is about reason. It's about not only motivating students to learn, but teaching them how to learn, and doing so in a manner that is relevant, meaningful, and memorable. It's about caring for your craft, having a passion for it, and conveying that passion to everyone, most importantly to your students.

Two. Good teaching is about substance and treating students as consumers of knowledge. It's about doing your best to keep on top of your field, reading sources, inside and outside of your areas of expertise, and being at the leading edge as often as possible. But knowledge is not confined to scholarly journals. Good teaching is also about bridging the gap between theory and practice. It's about leaving the ivory tower and immersing oneself in the field, talking to, consulting with, and assisting practitioners, and liaisoning with their communities.

Three. Good teaching is about listening, questioning, being responsive, and remembering that each student and class is different. It's about eliciting responses and developing the oral communication skills of the quiet students. It's about pushing students to excel; at the same time, it's about being human, respecting others, and being professional at all times.

Four. Good teaching is about not always having a fixed agenda and being rigid, but being flexible, fluid, experimenting, and having the confidence to react and adjust to changing circumstances. It's about getting only 10 percent of what you wanted to do in a class done and still feeling good. It's about deviating from the course syllabus or lecture schedule easily when there is more and better learning elsewhere. Good teaching is about the creative balance between being an authoritarian dictator on the one hand and a pushover on the other.

Five. Good teaching is also about style. Should good teaching be entertaining? You bet! Does this mean that it lacks in substance? Not a chance! Effective teaching is not about being locked with both hands glued to a podium or having your eyes fixated on a slide projector while you drone on. Good teachers work the room and every student in it. They realize that they are the conductors and the class is the orchestra. All students play different instruments and at varying proficiencies.

Six. This is very important -- good teaching is about humor. It's about being self-deprecating and not taking yourself too seriously. It's often about making innocuous jokes, mostly at your own expense, so that the ice breaks and students learn in a more relaxed atmosphere where you, like them, are human with your own share of faults and shortcomings.

Seven. Good teaching is about caring, nurturing, and developing minds and talents. It's about devoting time, often invisible, to every student. It's also about the thankless hours of grading, designing or redesigning courses, and preparing materials to still further enhance instruction.

Eight. Good teaching is supported by strong and visionary leadership, and very tangible institutional support -- resources, personnel, and funds. Good teaching is continually reinforced by an overarching vision that transcends the entire organization -- from full professors to part-time instructors -- and is reflected in what is said, but more importantly by what is done.

Nine. Good teaching is about mentoring between senior and junior faculty, teamwork, and being recognized and promoted by one's peers. Effective teaching should also be rewarded, and poor teaching needs to be remediated through training and development programs.

Ten. At the end of the day, good teaching is about having fun, experiencing pleasure and intrinsic rewards ... like locking eyes with a student in the back row and seeing the synapses and neurons connecting, thoughts being formed, the person becoming better, and a smile cracking across a face as learning all of a sudden happens. Good teachers practice their craft not for the money or because they have to, but because they truly enjoy it and because they want to. Good teachers couldn't imagine doing anything else.

From:
http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/topten.htm