Teaching Osmosis to Biology Students

Abstract

These standards incorporate a number of changes from the 1998 version. These changes have come about to remedy weaknesses in the standards discovered in their use by the NSTA's NCATE Program Review Board and to address concerns about the vagueness of some of the 1998 standards.In NCATE institutional reviews, the review board quickly learned that the ten standards adopted in 1998 were too broad to be addressed effectively by institutions, who interpreted the standards in many-sometimes unintended-ways. As an interim measure, NSTA integrated more specific "dimensions," into NCATE program review materials to help institutions understand the meaning of each standard. The dimensions thus became a de facto subset of standards to which programs seeking recognition were required to respond. In this revision, the task force has formally incorporated the dimensions into the standards, refining them in language and placement in order to define the knowledge, skills or dispositions sought for each of the original ten standards better. The standards themselves-especially standards two, three, four, seven and nine-have also been rewritten to focus and clarify their meanings.The task force has also added a set of subject matter content recommendations to this version of the standards. In the 1998 standards, the content recommendations were similar to those found in the 1987 curriculum-based standards. In addition, the National Science Education Standards were not directly referred to in the 1998 standards; references were added later in NCATE documents. In this revision, content recommendations have been created by the task force based on the recommendations of the American Association of Physics Teachers, the American Chemical Society, the National Association of Biology Teachers and the National Earth Science Teachers Association, and review of the NSES. These recommendations are expressed in the form of competencies rather than courses, and are intended to guide institutions and states in their selection of their subject matter requirements and assessments.The vision and recommendations of the NSES are given more prominence in this version of the standards than in the previous version. The unifying concepts, for example, have been given more attention, and their meanings have been delineated much more carefully.In terms of the format of the standards, the revised standards are each followed by a "discussion" section-replacing the "rationale" in the 1998 standards-and an "application to programs" section-replacing the former "recommendations" section. Narratives in these new sections are tighter and more focused than in the previous document. The "indicators" sections in the 1998 version were dropped, since they proved more confusing than helpful in practice.The revised standards have been subjective to numerous reviews, and comments received from science teacher educators have been carefully examined for possible incorporation into the standards. This version of the standards has generally been positively received and the c...

Foundations matter: Pre-service teachers’ understanding of osmosis and diffusion in relation to their formal science education backgrounds

“…AlHarbi et al (2015) found that pre-service teachers' understanding of osmosis and diffusion concepts had a mild positive correlation with their understanding of particle theory, which suggests that greater attention needs to be invested in teaching particle theory to ensure students' understanding of diffusion and osmosis. There are some studies in which teachers more actively approached the concepts; for example, using computer animations (Reinke et al, 2021;Sung et al, 2017), exercises and experiments (Haddad & Baldo, 2010;Lankford & Friedrichsen, 2012;Odom et al, 2017), a constructivist 5E model (Artun & Costu, 2013), and concept mapping (Kose, 2007).…”

Independent at-Home Chemistry Project for a High School Student: Osmosis Experiments Using a U-Tube Apparatus

“…Regardless of which definition is used, there is pressure that drives or prevents osmosis. Osmotic pressure (Π) is described by the van’t Hoff equation (eq ), − which is valid for ideal dilute solutions, and has been experimentally verified , where i is the van’t Hoff factor ( i = 1 for nonelectrolytes), M = n/V is the molar concentration of the solute in the solution, R is the universal gas constant (0.08206 L atm mol –1 K –1 ), and T is the absolute temperature. Moreover, there is a Staverman reflection coefficient, which is defined as the ratio of real to ideal osmotic pressures for a given membrane-solute combination, and this unitless reflection coefficient describes the “leakiness” of a membrane with a value varying from 0, for a membrane as permeable to the solute as to the solvent, to 1.0 for a membrane impermeable to the solute (ideal membrane). − …”

Immersive 3D Experience of Osmosis Improves Learning Outcomes of First-Year Cell Biology Students

“…Teachers have used different activities and approaches to teach osmosis and diffusion, such as coin-tossing exercises to show the random processes that are central to the process ( Haddad and Baldo, 2010 ), red onions and decalcified chicken eggs to depict net water movement ( Lankford and Friedrichsen, 2012 ), and dialysis bags and potato slices to show the process on a macro scale ( Odom et al. , 2017 ).…”

“…, 2017 ). In addition, with advances in technology, there is increasing use of multimedia simulations and dynamic visualizations to complement the traditional methods used to teach osmosis and diffusion ( Rundgren and Tibell, 2009 ; Odom et al. , 2017 ; Sung et al.…”

“…Teachers have used different activities and approaches to teach osmosis and diffusion, such as coin-tossing exercises to show the random processes that are central to the process (Haddad and Baldo, 2010), red onions and decalcified chicken eggs to depict net water movement (Lankford and Friedrichsen, 2012), and dialysis bags and potato slices to show the process on a macro scale (Odom et al, 2017). In addition, with advances in technology, there is increasing use of multimedia simulations and dynamic visualizations to complement the traditional methods used to teach osmosis and diffusion (Rundgren and Tibell, 2009;Odom et al, 2017;Sung et al, 2017). Studies of the use of dynamic visualizations to teach these concepts have reported mixed success.…”