Higher Education Events

Advance inclusivity in the biology classroom by learning how to help your students feel welcome, identify as biologists, and discover careers in biology.

The General Chemistry Primer is a digital tutorial originated at the University at Buffalo, SUNY (UB) to help students identify and address chemistry concept and skill gaps before beginning college chemistry. The included concepts correspond to an annual, onsite, three-day summer workshop for incoming students. The primer exercises were developed through collaboration with Pearson, Inc., using MasteringChemistry’s recent update supporting video enabled tutorials. The digital course format allows for far greater participation than the onsite course, with a simple implementation format. The tutorial exercises can be classified into three groups: mathematics for chemistry calculations, chemistry literacy, and selected pervasive chemistry themes (i.e. balancing chemical equations, mole theory, and stoichiometry). Tutorials include instructor-led examples similar to assigned problems, and hints with interactive, step-wise models to coach students. The question structure enables students proficient in a particular concept to efficiently proceed and allows students needing help to select the provided tools. This format was piloted and assessed for 200 incoming General Chemistry 101 students at UB prior to the fall 2015 semester. The General Chemistry Primer and UB implementation will be presented, including optional modifications and assessment results to date

You’re invited to join us to hear Professor Al Trujillo discuss how he teaches the hot topics of El Niño and La Niña and the tips, tricks and active learning techniques he uses in the classroom to talk about this relevant topic

In its simplest form, the students in a flipped classroom watch traditional lectures for homework and do traditional homework in class in the presence of a content expert. Much attention in the flipped classroom has been given to creating and delivering lecture videos; however, when students watch lecture videos, the transfer pace is set by the video, the viewer is passive, the students’ attention tanks as time passes, and it is an isolated/individual experience. In contrast, students are active and the transfer pace is set by the reader when reading a textbook. Perusall capitalizes on these aspects of the text and places students in an interactive environment where they are automatically graded on their online engagement to ensure they are prepared for class. Students are essentially graded for reading and annotating the text. Instructors are also provided with a simple, concise “confusion report” so they can address the most pressing questions in class

In his courses last year, due to the conclusive data on the benefits of active learning, and because of the new digital tools we now have available, Niva implemented a before, during, and after strategy for his students. The idea is simple: Engage students in active learning before lecture, during lecture, and after lecture. To that end, Niva assigns a Key Concept Video before each lecture. This video introduces the student to the key concept and gets them thinking about it before they come to class. During class, Niva expands on the concept and uses Learning Catalytics to question his students in class. Instead of passively listening to a lecture, they are interacting with the concept through questions that he poses to them. Some of these questions they answer individually; for others they pair up with a partner. This has changed his classroom. Students are engaged in the material: they have to think and process and interact. It is incredibly fun for Niva to see his students so engaged. Then, after class, he gives them another assignment, often an Interactive Worked Example with a follow-up question. Now they have to apply what they have learned to solve a problem. The results have been spectacular. His students are enjoying the process and learning more than ever because they are engaged throughout, rather than just engaging the night before a problem set is due

Dr. Paula Bruice has experimented in how to best organize the organic chemistry course in order to foster understanding rather than memorization, as well as develop problem-solving skills, while still finding the time to teach the material students are expected to know for the new MCAT. Dr. Bruice has spent many years teaching the only section of the year-long organic chemistry course at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Because she did not have to turn students over to other faculty or inherit students from other faculty, she had the opportunity to experiment with the structure of the course. The structure that eventually emerged resulted in her students telling her that they had to spend relatively little time reviewing organic chemistry for the MCAT or DAT because their knowledge of organic chemistry had stayed with them

Did you know that most students study for an exam by re-reading their textbook and notes? Did you also know that this has been shown to be an ineffective study method for most of them? Our colleagues in cognitive science study how people learn (the Science of Learning). We can apply this work to our own classrooms to effectively enhance instruction. Using examples from introductory chemistry, Laura will discuss experiments from the science of learning and, based on this evidence, ask the audience to consider some simple adjustments that can better build understanding in our students

Students enter the introductory environmental science course with a variety of skills, interests and prerequisite knowledge, and this can often be challenging for any instructor. In this webinar, Pearson authors and specialists in teaching the introductory environmental science course, Jason Neff and Norm Christensen, will share easy to implement techniques to improve student performance and encourage student engagement with course content among all students

Science education research, and reports such as Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education, indicate that true mastery of science content and skills requires a move away from memorization towards active engagement. In this 45-minute webinar, members of the Freeman, Biological Science Sixth Edition author team will share a few of their favorite teaching strategies for freshman-level Majors Biology courses that inspire students to think like scientists. The discussion will focus on ideas to teach students how to use visual models to learn and do biology as well as ideas to connect core concepts and skills to engaging, contemporary, relevant biological research

In this webinar, we will get hands on and use Learning Catalytics with Professor Terry Austin from Temple College. Professor Austin will share examples and results from using Learning Catalytics in his A&P class and lab. With Learning Catalytics, educators can assess students in real time using open-ended tasks to probe student understanding; understand immediately where students are and adjust lessons accordingly; improve students’ critical-thinking skills; access rich analytics to understand student performance; add questions to make Learning Catalytics fit the course exactly; and manage student peer interactions with intelligent grouping and timing.

This webinar will introduce participants to MyReadinessTest, a powerful online system designed to assess pre-A&P students’ proficiency in the foundational concepts needed for success in human anatomy and physiology courses and efficiently remediate gaps in targeted topics. Dr. Shawn Macauley from Muskegon Community College will show how he uses MyReadinessTest and MasteringA&P in his course to increase student success, and will also present results from his recent efficacy study

In this webinar, Ruth Heisler will share strategies for using MasteringA&P assignments to help students prepare for Human Anatomy lecture and lab and apply critical thinking skills