Cover: Transformations, 1st Edition by Deborah Allen; Kimberly Tanner

Transformations

First  Edition©2009  Deborah Allen; Kimberly Tanner

ISBN:9781429253352

About

Transformations: Approaches to College Science Teaching by Deborah Allen and Kimberly Tanner is the latest addition to the W.H. Freeman Scientific Teaching Series of books. 

Originally edited by Sarah Elgin (Washington Univ, St Louis), this book is a collected series of the popular teaching articles from the open-access, online journal CBE-Life Sciences Education (www.lifescied.org)

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The Allen-Tanner essays are practical guides that share insights and strategies for teaching science, appropriate for both the new instructor and those who have been teaching for many years.  The book is divided into four parts, which act as overarching themes to the included articles: Part 1- How Can I Engage My Students in Learning?, Part 2- How Can I Know That My Students Are Learning?, Part 3- How Can I Engage All of My Students?, and Part 4- How Can I Continue My Professional Growth in Science Education? 

Table of Contents

Foreword by Sarah Elgin and William Wood ix
Preface xii
Acknowledgments xvii
Part 1 How Can I Engage My Students in Learning? 1
Introduction to Section 1

Chapter 1 Infusing Active Learning into the Large-Enrollment Biology
Class: Seven Strategies, from the Simple to the Complex 3 (Winter 2005)

Chapter 2 Answers Worth Waiting For: One Second is Hardly Enough 19 (Spring 2002)

Chapter 3 Talking to Learn: Why Undergraduate Biology Students Should Be Talking in Classrooms 26 (Summer 2009)

Chapter 4 Questions about Questions 40 (Fall 2002)

Chapter 5 Problem-Based Learning 51 (Summer 2003)

Part 2 How Can I Know That My Students Are Learning? 69

Introduction to Section 69

Chapter 6 Putting the Horse Back in Front of the Cart: Using Visions and Decisions about High-Quality Learning Experiences to Drive Course Design 71 (Summer 2007)

Chapter 7 Rubrics: Tools for Making Learning Goals and Evaluation Criteria Explicit for Both Teachers and Learners 82 (Fall 2006)

Chapter 8 From Assays to Assessments: On Collecting Evidence in Science Teaching 99 (Summer 2004)

Chapter 9 Understanding the Wrong Answers: Teaching toward Conceptual Change 111 (Summer 2005)

Chapter 10 Mapping the Journey 122 (Fall 2003)

Chapter 11 A Primer on Standards 129 (Winter 2002)

vi Transformations

Part 3 How Can I Engage All of My Students? 141

Introduction to Section 141

Chapter 12 Learning Styles and the Problem of Instructional Selection: Engaging All Students in Science Courses 143 (Winter 2004)

Chapter 13 Cooperative Learning: Beyond Working in Groups 155 (Spring 2003, coauthored by Liesl Chatman)

Chapter 14 Cultural Competence in the College Biology Classroom 167 (Winter 2007)

Chapter 15 Making Biology Learning Relevant to Students: Integrating People, History, and Context into College Biology Teaching 184 (Spring 2008, coauthored by Katayoun Chamany)

Part 4 How Can I Continue My Professional Growth in Science Education? 211

Introduction to Section 211

Chapter 16 From a Scholarly Approach to Teaching to the Scholarship of Teaching 213 (Spring 2005)

Contents vii

Chapter 17 On Integrating Pedagogical Training into the Graduate Experiences of Future Science Faculty 225 (Spring 2006)

Chapter 18 Cultivating Conversations through Scientist–Teacher
Partnerships 238 (Winter 2003, coauthored by Liesl Chatman)

Chapter 19 Lesson Study: Building Communities of Learning among Educators 252 (Spring 2004, coauthored by Richard Donham)

Author Autobiographies 265

Index 267

Deborah Allen

Deborah Allen is on leave from the University of Delaware to serve in the National Science Foundations Division of Undergraduate Education, where she is a Program Director for the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship program, and for the Interdisciplinary Training for Undergraduates in Biological & Mathematical Sciences (UBM), Course, Curriculum & Laboratory Improvement (CCLI), Research Coordination Networks–Undergraduate Biology Education (RCN-UBE), and Scholarships in Science Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (S-STEM) programs. Before joining DUE, Allen served as PI of a NSF-funded Teacher Professional Continuum project, and continues to collaborate with the projects team of science and science education faculty who study pre-service teachers progress through a reform-based teacher preparation program, and who co-teach courses for students in that program. Allen serves on the editorial board of CBE-Life Sciences Education and has co-authored a regularly-featured column on teaching strategies for that journal. She is the author of Transformations: Approaches to College Science Teaching (W.H. Freemans Scientific Teaching Series, 2009).

Kimberly Tanner

Kimberly Tanner is an Assistant Professor of Biology and the Director of SEPAL: The Science Education Partnership and Assessment Laboratory within the Department of Biology at San Francisco State University (SFSU). Trained as both a biochemist and a neuroscientist, she received her B.A. in Biochemistry from Rice University in 1991 and her Ph.D in Neuroscience from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) in 1997. She was awarded an NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Science Education (PFSMETE) from 1998 to 2000, during which she pursued additional training in science education research methodologies, investigating the impact of involving scientists in K-12 science education partnerships. After completing her fellowship, she joined the UCSF Science & Health Education Partnership (SEP), her fellowship study site, as a Senior Academic Coordinator from 2000-2004. Most recently, she was hired at SFSU in January 2004 as a tenure-track faculty member with a specialization in biology education, the first such hire across the SFSU science departments. Her research group-SEPAL-investigates how people learn science, especially biology, and how teachers and scientists can collaborate to make science teaching and learning in classrooms-kindergarten through university-more like how scientists work. SEPAL research addresses two lines of inquiry: (1) developing novel assessment tools to better understand conceptual change and misconceptions in biology that can guide strategies for curriculum improvement and teaching reform, and (2) studying the impact of involving scientists in science education, whether K-12 classrooms, as undergraduate or graduate teaching assistants, or as college and university Science Faculty with Education Specialties (SFES). SEPAL also offers courses designed to teach scientific trainees how to teach the science they know and programs that promote science education partnerships between scientific trainees and instructors from kindergarten through community college. Dr. Tanner is a founding member of the editorial board for CBE: Life Sciences Education and coauthor of the Approaches to Biology Teaching and Learning series, which translates education research and pedagogical strategies into language accessible to undergraduate biology faculty. Professionally, she regularly serves on committees for the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the National Research Council, the Society for Neuroscience, the American Society for Cell Biology, and the National Association for Research in Science Teaching. Her scholarly activities have been funded by multiple NSF grant awards, an NIH Science Education Partnership Award, and multiple internal SFSU awards.