Today's undergraduates are highly engaged in a variety of social media outlets. Given their comfort with technology, we wondered if we could use this phenomenon to teach science-related material. We asked students to use freeware to make a short video with text, images, and music as a way to explain scientific concepts that are traditionally…

This dissertation describes the teaching methods and educational philosophies of natural philosophy instructors at several of the colleges in colonial and early national North America. It finds two distinct approaches: the demonstrative, in which the instructor centers the course on visually engaging lecture-demonstrations, and the catechetical,…

This paper discusses the traditional lecture-based instruction method. Strong experimental evidence suggests that social context affects knowledge construction and depends on prior knowledge. Engagement in the inquiry process using constructivist viewpoints can make the characteristics of science, scientific knowledge, and scientific method easy…

Microanalyzes graph use in lectures drawn from artifacts compiled from videotaping all lectures and seminars in a 13-week ecology course. Focuses on both the text and the gesture-related references made in the reading of a graph in an ecology lecture. Contains 36 references. (DDR)

Discusses the basis of a classification scheme for types of case studies. Four major classification headings are identified: (1) individual assignment; (2) lecture; (3) discussion; and (4) small group activities. Describes each heading from the point of view of several teaching methods. (DDR)

Designates Frank Halliwell as an inspiring science teacher who employed the demonstration lecture method very effectively. Traces the origin and development of this method to John Tyndall and provides numerous examples of his work. (DDR)

We conduct research workshops twice each semester in our cell biology lecture course. Instead of solely analyzing data obtained by others, students form groups to design research questions and experimental protocols on a given topic. The main focus is the process of scientific thinking, not simply obtaining a correct product. (Contains 3 tables…

Compares teaching observational research using a lecture format to using a software program called Courseware for Observational Research (COR). Finds that the COR-instructed class obtained a mean score of 78% on the examination, earned higher grades on the research reports, and rated the usefulness of conducting research more highly than the…