This article describes a teaching unit that used Lego Robotics to address state science standards for teaching basic principles of evolution in two middle school life science classes. All but two of 29 students in these classes were native Spanish speakers from Mexico. Both classes were taught using Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol…

Feedback on academic performance is of critical importance to students' learning, and in their perception of the quality of instruction they receive. Here we report the outcomes of a study comparing the views and expectations of first year biological science undergraduate students and academic staff regarding feedback provision and utilisation.…

While Gottlieb recognized the significance of biological factors for behavioral development, the system of psychology he developed did not cast the discipline as a purely biological science. Rather, genes, brains, hormones were understood by him as participating, rather than causal factors in behavioral origins. He worked from two basic principles…

To prevent a paper from being discarded and ensure that it addresses the right audience, it must have a proper title that satisfies certain requirements. Writing the titles to scientific articles is therefore a challenging exercise that demands the use of various skills. Still, although the research paper is one of the most thoroughly studied…

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a case study approach on students' achievement and attitudes towards viruses, bacteria, fungi, and protista. Fifth-grade students (N = 88) from two different classes were involved in the study. One intact class was assigned as the experimental group, whereas the other intact class…

The Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside has developed and implemented an innovative, multidisciplinary undergraduate curriculum in Molecular Biology and Bioinformatics (MBB). The objective of the MBB program is to give students a hands-on facility with molecular biology theories and laboratory techniques, an…

Assessment is an integral and vital part of teaching and learning, providing feedback on progress through the assessment period to both learners and teachers. However, if test items are flawed because of misconceptions held by the question setter, then such test items are invalid as assessment tools. Moreover, such flawed items are also likely to…

The intention of this paper is two-fold. First, it makes explicit a little known and poorly understood area of human experience: transgender. Second, it explores curriculum possibilities opened up by recent legitimating of transgender people through the Gender Recognition Act (2004). The Act foregrounds the necessity for a forum in schools to…

A case study about carbon monoxide poisoning was used help students gain a greater understanding of the physiology of oxygen transport by the blood. A review of student answers to the case questions showed that students can use the oxygen-hemoglobin dissociation curve to make meaningful determinations of oxygen uptake and delivery. However, the…

California has achieved considerable economic success through technological innovation and the formation of businesses based upon those technologies. This paper addresses some of the roles of universities in that success story. It starts with some measures of the contributions of innovation and a robust university structure to the California…

This study investigates the information needs of faculty and graduate students in agricultural and biological sciences. Qualitative research methods, interviews and focus groups, were used to examine what types of information these scholars need for their research, teaching and learning, how they seek that information, and perceptions. The…

Many short-duration science outreach interventions have important societal goals of raising science literacy and increasing the size and diversity of the science workforce. Yet, these long-term outcomes are inherently challenging to evaluate. We present findings from a qualitative research study of an inquiry-based, life science outreach program…

Describes a study evaluating the effectiveness of the Information Retrieval, Ltd. (IRL) Life Sciences Collection database in a field where BioSciences Information Service (BIOSIS) claims to offer comprehensive coverage of the international literature. The two databases are described, and the depth of controlled indexing is compared for the two

Explores entrepreneurship in the research university. Uses a survey of life science faculty members to distinguish five types of academic entrepreneurship: engaging in externally funded research, earning supplemental income, gaining industry support for university research, obtaining patents or generating trade secrets, and…

Constructivist learning theory holds that "learning consists less in recording information than in interpreting it. To interpret what is received and is attended to, the learner must personally construct meaning for it." Unfortunately, opportunities for interpreting conceptual information are often lacking in classroom…