Why we are teaching science wrong, and how to make it right

Abstract

utbreak alert: six students at the Chicago State Polytechnic University in Illinois have been hospitalized with severe vomiting, diarrhoea and stomach pain, as well as wheezing and difficulty in breathing. Some are in a critical condition. And the university's health centre is fielding dozens of calls from students with similar symptoms.This was the scenario that 17 third-and fourth-year undergraduates dealt with as part of an innovative virology course led by biologist Tammy Tobin at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania. The students took on the role of federal public-health officials, and were tasked with identifying the pathogen, tracking how it spreads and figuring out how to contain and treat it -all by the end of the semester.Although the Chicago school and the cases were fictitious, says Tobin, "we tried to make it as real as possible". If students decided to run a blood test or genetic assay, Tobin would give them results consistent with enterovirus D68, a real respiratory virus. (To keep the students from just getting the answer from the Internet, she portrayed the virus as an emergent strain with previously unreported symptoms.) If they decided to send a team to Chicago, Tobin would make them look at real flight schedules and confirm that there were enough seats.Active problem-solving confers a deeper understanding of science than does a standard lecture. But some university lecturers are reluctant to change tack.

Um Levantamento Em Larga Escala Das Concepções De Natureza Da Ciência De Graduandos De Biologia Brasileiros E Os Possíveis Elementos Formativos Associados

“…Generally, science teaching is based on expositive classes focused on the presentation and memorization of concepts (CARVALHO, 2006;CAPECCHI, 2014). Unfortunately, this is also the case in higher education, in which conceptual education has more weight than the development of professional abilities (WALDROP, 2015). This might explain why NOS conceptions changed very little throughout educational stage or after contact with meta-scientific themes in disciplines.…”

A Cultured Learning Environment: Implementing a Problem- and Service-Based Microbiology Capstone Course to Assess Process- and Skill-Based Learning Objectives

“…By contrast, active, evidence-based teaching aligns student learning objectives with course design and facilitates authentic student learning (Handelsman, Miller, & Pfund, 2007). It has been argued that the only ethical way to teach science is through active problem-solving (Waldrop, 2015). Yet, standard lecture is still pervasive in undergraduate science education (Handelsman et al, 2007).…”

Editorial. Life Sciences in an Integrated Curriculum: Starting the Conversation

“…We can focus on student evaluations of teaching events, teacher development, and their technical competence, but overall strategies for measuring effectiveness should also consider the impact on our students' learning. This issue was addressed by a Nature features editor, M. Mitchell Waldrop, in his review of studies about the teaching of university science (17) and conclusions were very damning for the didactic lecture, but encouraging of problem-oriented learning and innovative flipped-lecture approaches: "At this point it is unethical to teach in any other way".…”