Resources and practices to help graduate students and postdoctoral fellows write statements of teaching philosophy

Graduate students and postdoctoral fellows currently encounter requests for a statement of teaching philosophy in at least half of academic job announcements in the United States. A systematic process for the development of a teaching statement is required that integrates multiple sources of support, informs writers of the document's purpose and audience, helps writers produce thoughtful statements, and encourages meaningful reflection on teaching and learning. This article for faculty mentors and instructional consultants synthesizes practices for mentoring graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and junior faculty members as they prepare statements of teaching philosophy. We review background information on purposes and audiences, provide writing resources, and synthesize empirical research on the use of teaching statements in academic job searches. In addition, we integrate these resources into mentoring processes that have helped graduate students in a Health Sciences Pedagogy course to collaboratively and critically examine and write about their teaching. This summary is intended for faculty mentors and instructional consultants who want to refine current resources or establish new mentoring programs. This guide also may be useful to graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and junior faculty members, especially those who lack mentoring or who seek additional resources, as they consider the many facets of effective teaching.     

Experiences with Evaluation Procedures in Pathology Teaching at Dalhousie University

The experience of evaluation of both students and course in pathology at Dalhousie Medical School indicates that valuable reproducible and probably objective information is obtained by the use of frequent multiple-choice tests combined with substantial final oral examinations. Course evaluation by student questionnaires has provided useful information on course modifications and teaching techniques. The most informative feature of the evaluation program is in the provision of mechanisms for feedback from students to faculty and among faculty members. By these means weaknesses in teaching have been identified and often corrected. The method has aided in the early identification of poor students and of their areas of weakness so that remedial instruction can be instituted before the final examination.     

Teaching evolution (and all of biology) more effectively: Strategies for engagement, critical reasoning, and confronting misconceptions

The strength of the evidence supporting evolution has increased markedly since the discovery of DNA but, paradoxically, public resistance to accepting evolution seems to have become stronger. A key dilemma is that science faculty have often continued to teach evolution ineffectively, even as the evidence that traditional ways of teaching are inferior has become stronger and stronger. Three pedagogical strategies that together can make a large difference in students' understanding and acceptance of evolution are extensive use of interactive engagement, a focus on critical thinking in science (especially on comparisons and explicit criteria) and using both of these in helping the students actively compare their initial conceptions (and publicly popular misconceptions) with more fully scientific conceptions. The conclusion that students' misconceptions must be dealt with systematically can be difficult for faculty who are teaching evolution since much of the students' resistance is framed in religious terms and one might be reluctant to address religious ideas in class. Applications to teaching evolution are illustrated with examples that address criteria and critical thinking, standard geology versus flood geology, evolutionary developmental biology versus organs of extreme perfection, and the importance of using humans as a central example. It is also helpful to bridge the false dichotomy, seen by many students, between atheistic evolution versus religious creationism. These applications are developed in detail and are intended to be sufficient to allow others to use these approaches in their teaching. Students and other faculty were quite supportive of these approaches as implemented in my classes.     

“趣味教学法”在微生物学课堂中的应用及探讨

微生物学属于生命科学的重要分支,是生物、食品科学、临床医学等大学专业一门重要的基础课。该课程综合性强、知识涉及面广,所以如何有效调动学生的学习兴趣将直接影响课堂效果。为达到良好的教学效果,教师可在微生物学教学过程中综合运用多种方式提高学生学习兴趣与学习质量。因此,我们采用“趣味教学法”进行教学设计,并针对连续3个不同年级的相同专业班级做出教学改革,通过学生期末闭卷成绩、过程考核（签到率、课堂参与度、注意力集中程度等）成绩与学生反馈评语对教学成果进行验证。结果表明,采用“趣味教学法”进行教学改革的班级学生期末闭卷成绩中不及格率低于未改革的班级,“良好”与“优秀”学生比例均高于未改革的班级,过程考核成绩远高于未改革的班级,说明“趣味教学法”教学改革有效调动了学生的学习兴趣。我们认为,在大学微生物学课堂上,教师可在教学设计中适当引入趣味教学内容并适时展开,有助于改善教学气氛,调动学生学习积极性与主动性,提高教学质量。     

药用植物学立体化课程体系的构建与实践

药用植物学是医学院中药、药学等相关专业和高等农业院校中药资源开发与利用等专业的专业基础课,是培养相关专业学生掌握和运用药用植物形态解剖学及系统分类学的基本知识和技能,准确识别和鉴定药用植物种类,保证临床用药准确有效的重要课程。课题组通过整合药用植物学教学内容,建立多元化的教学方法,构建多层次实践教学体系,建立合理的综合性考核评价体系,培养学生双创能力。     

Why do we need autophagy? A cartoon depiction

In my role as an instructor I am constantly looking for ways to more effectively convey information to my audience, which is typically the students in my class. However, the same concerns apply to most of the people who attend a seminar. The approach you take to making the material easier to understand is likely to be influenced by the course you teach. That is, the same instructor may use different examples when teaching an upper division vs. a lower division course. I teach introductory biology, and my students may have little familiarity with cell biology, let alone autophagy. Accordingly, I have tried to consider how to illustrate the importance of autophagy in a way that can be comprehended by people who may not even be familiar with the term.     

An exploration of instructor perceptions of community college students’ attitudes towards evolution

Background

Faculty perception of student knowledge and acceptance of subject matter affects the choice of what to teach and how to teach it. Accurate assessment of student acceptance of evolution, then, is relevant to how the subject should be taught. To explore the accuracy of such assessment, we compared how community college instructors of life sciences courses perceive students’ attitudes towards evolution with those students’ actual attitudes towards evolution.

Results

The research had two components: (1) a survey of students of several biology classes at a community college about their acceptance of evolutionary theory and (2) interviews with the biology faculty teaching those classes about their perceptions of their students’ attitudes towards evolution. Results of the study indicate relatively high levels of acceptance of evolution among community college students at this West Coast institution. We also found that community college instructors of life sciences courses varied in accuracy of their perceptions of their students’ attitudes towards evolution–but not systematically. Although one professor assessed each class quite accurately, the other two professors frequently underestimated the acceptance of evolution among their students.

Conclusions

Errors in perception seemed independent of whether the class was composed of majors, nonmajors, or a combination. Clearly, in our sample there is much idiosyncrasy regarding community college instructor accuracy concerning student opinions about evolution.

     

北京大学微生物学实验课模块化教学的探索

微生物学是一门重要的生命科学分支学科,并在很大程度上促进了其他分支学科如分子生物学等的发展。在北京大学新的教学体系下,微生物学实验课被提前到大学一年级本科生选修。为了保证一年级本科生能够掌握微生物学基础实验技术,达到良好的学习效果,作者在参考了国内各综合性大学所编写的微生物学基础实验教材之后,认真梳理了教材中相关微生物学基础实验,明确了微生物基础实验课的教学要求和目的:学生能掌握微生物学基础实验技术并能初步运用这些技术解决实际问题。根据新体系中教学目的,作者重新设计和丰富了微生物基础实验内容,进行了模块化教学的实验教学安排,增强了课程的整体性、连贯性、实用性和开放性,提高了学生学习的兴趣,实现了教学目的。     

Book Review Section

This article argues that education policy should support school-university partnerships that place preservice music teachers with their college professors in a laboratory school environment. With roots in Dewey's experimental school of 1896, the laboratory concept is a variation of the professional development schools now in vogue. The policies recommended here are not tied directly to this school-university partnership model, but they do support the collaborative concept. Policy recommendations include re-conceptualization of the student teaching experience; compensation of faculty members through financial incentives and professional development credits; and consideration for university faculty members engaged in such partnerships when determining workload and reviewing teaching, scholarship, and service for tenure or promotion decisions. The policy recommendations call for the creation of release time for school personnel to meet with university personnel to plan and assess the partnered collaboration, and for funding to support ongoing collaborative research by university and school personnel.     

“新工科”背景下“生物分离工程”课程创新改革

“生物分离工程”是生物工程专业本科生的一门重要的专业必修课,是生物工程专业建立“新工科”课程体系的重要组成部分。本教学团队坚持“以学生发展为中心,以创新思维为核心”的教育理念,以“学习成果”为导向的创新理念,针对课程长期存在的“理论教学与实验课脱节,学生不能及时地将理论知识内化为实践能力”、“课程内容陈旧,与行业需求脱节”、“授课和考核方式相对单一,学生的专业能力和素质未能有效培养”等痛点问题开展教学改革,重构课程内容。打通理论课和实验课的界限,开展“线上+线下”混合教学,通过科研反哺教学,使课程内容紧跟行业发展前沿,充分利用现代信息技术手段开展更丰富的课堂教学活动,并对学生进行全程化、动态化和多样化的考核,全面提升学生的能力。     

“七步法”课堂设计与实践：构建研究导向型微生物学“金课”课堂

研究导向型教学是以学生成长和发展为中心的创新性教育模式,其核心目标与“金课”的建设目标一致,强调培养学生的研究技能,使其具有创新性和高阶性。在微生物学一流课程建设过程中,将研究导向型教学理念与BOPPPS课堂[导入(bridge-in)、目标(objective)、前测(pre-assessment)、参与式学习(participatory-learning)、后测(post-assessment)和总结(summary)]组织形式相结合,并创新性引入“提升”模块,以问题为驱动,聚焦科学前沿,融入思政材料,形成导入—目标—前测—参与式学习—后测—提升—总结(七步法)的新型模块化闭环教学模式。该模式的实施能够有效提升课堂教学的逻辑性和组织性,提高教学效率,提升学生分析问题和解决问题的高阶性,为学生将来开展科研工作奠定良好的基础,并为打造以学生为中心的“金课”课堂实践提供借鉴参考。     

A curriculum on physician-patient sexual misconduct and teacher-learner mistreatment. Part 2: Teaching method.

Medical educators have become increasingly aware of the need for health care professionals to receive more training about the causes and consequences of physician-patient sexual misconduct and teacher-learner mistreatment and harassment. A curriculum in use at the University of Toronto includes a didactic component, consisting of lectures, and an experiential component, consisting of a workshop. This article concerns how, by discussing case vignettes designed to illustrate salient points, the participants have an opportunity to consider their responses in actual clinical and teaching situations. Evaluation of the course by 373 participants shows that the curriculum is considered acceptable and is likely to be of benefit. Of the course participants, 54% (15/28) of those attending the course for faculty and 39% (133/345) of those at subsequent courses stated that they would change their clinical and teaching practices in positive ways as a result of attending. A further 38% (130/345) stated that they already practised in a manner congruent with the model discussed.     

Comparing biology majors from large lecture classes with TA-facilitated laboratories to those from small lecture classes with faculty-facilitated laboratories

The teaching faculty for this course sought to address their own concerns about the quality of student learning in an impersonal large lecture biology class for majors, the difficulties in getting to know each student by name, and difficulties in soliciting answers and reactions from the students during the lecture. Questions addressed by this study were, Do active-learning activities in a small and personal lecture setting enhance student learning more than active-learning activities in large impersonal lectures? and Are students more satisfied with an educational experience in a small and personal lecture setting? Based on faculty perceptions of how they best relate to their students, the prediction was that the students in the experimental group with small lecture classes and increased direct contact with the teaching faculty would learn physiological principles better than the students in the control group in the large impersonal lecture portion of the course. One of the laboratory sections of this large enrollment biology course was randomly selected to be taught with separate small lectures by the teaching faculty. In addition, the teaching faculty participated in the laboratory with these students during their experiments correlated with the lecture material. The students in both groups were compared by pre- and posttests of physiological principles, final course grades, and class satisfaction surveys.     

细胞生物学教学改革初探

细胞生物学是生命科学专业的一门必修的专业基础课,占有非常重要的地位。鉴于我院细胞生物学课程课时安排少、实验少、与已修课程有重复内容、相关科学前沿知识不能及时更新、"填鸭式"教学模式和传统的以"讲"为主的教学方法等严重影响该课程教学质量的教学现状,提出了从课程结构体系、课程教学内容,教学方法及考核方式等方面的一系列改革探究,课程结构体系方面由专业任选课变更为专业基础课,适当增加了理论课时;从课程内容来看,取缔与已修课程的重复内容,适当补充最新科研动态、介绍相关的诺贝尔奖,积极鼓励学生参与教师的相关科研项目和申报大学生科研创新活动项目,培养学生的科研创新能力;从教学模式来看,教师要积极利用图文并茂的多媒体教学、适时放映学生喜欢看的相关电教视频、课堂上多以讨论和提问的方式教学;考核采用平时成绩加期末成绩的方式,不断提高教学效率和课堂管理水平,促进教学质量的提高。     

Lessons learned through listening to biology students during a transition to online learning in the wake of the COVID‐19 pandemic

During the Spring Semester of 2020, an outbreak of a novel coronavirus (SARS‐CoV‐2) and the illnesses it caused (COVID‐19) led to widespread cancelling of on‐campus instruction at colleges and universities in the United States and other countries around the world. Response to the pandemic in university settings included a rapid and unexpected shift to online learning for faculty and students. The transition to teaching and learning online posed many challenges, and the experiences of students during this crisis may inform future planning for distance learning experiences during the ongoing pandemic and beyond. Herein, we discuss the experiences of first‐ and second‐year university students enrolled in a biology seminar course as their classes migrated to online environments. Drawing on reported student experiences and prior research and resources, we discuss the ways we will adjust our own teaching for future iterations of the course while offering recommendations for instructors tasked with teaching in online environments.     

“岗课赛证”四位一体“动物微生物”课程教学改革探索与实践

为适应当前职业教育政策,积极推进高水平职业院校“岗课赛证”综合育人课程建设,“动物微生物”课程教学团队进行“岗课赛证”四位一体课程教学改革,以岗位能力培养为核心,以职业标准和技能大赛为引导制定课程标准,编写特色教材,通过任务驱动法、项目式教学法和引“赛场”入课堂教学方法提高课堂教学效果,打造优质教育教学资源,加强课程师资力量建设,实现岗位、课程、大赛、证书的互为融通,把学生培养为企业需要的高素质技能型人才,全面提升教学质量。     

The Claude Bernard Distinguished Lecture. In pursuit of meaningful learning

The Bernard Distinguished Lecturers are individuals who have a history of experience and expertise in teaching that impacts multiple levels of health science education. Dr. Joel Michael more than meets these criteria. Joel earned a BS in biology from CalTech and a PhD in physiology from MIT following which he vigorously pursued his fascination with the mammalian central nervous system under continuous National Institutes of Health funding for a 15-yr period. At the same time, he became increasingly involved in teaching physiology, with the computer being his bridge between laboratory science and classroom teaching. Soon after incorporating computers into his laboratory, he began developing computer-based learning resources for his students. Observing students using these resources to solve problems led to an interest in the learning process itself. This in turn led to a research and development program, funded by the Office of Naval Research (ONR), that applied artificial intelligence to develop smart computer tutors. The impact of problem solving on student learning became the defining theme of National Science Foundation (NSF)-supported research in health science education that gradually moved all of Dr. Michael's academic efforts from neurophysiology to physiology education by the early 1980's. More recently, Joel has been instrumental in developing and maintaining the Physiology Education Research Consortium, a group of physiology teachers from around the nation who collaborate on diverse projects designed to enhance learning of the life sciences. In addition to research in education and learning science, Dr. Michael has devoted much of his time to helping physiology teachers adopt modern approaches to helping students learn. He has organized and presented faculty development workshops at many national and international venues. The topics for these workshops have included computer-based education, active learning, problem-based learning, and the use of general models in teaching physiology.     

Undergraduate medical education.

Pressures from students and teachers, from professional bodies, and from changes in the way health care is delivered are all forcing a rethink of how medical students should be taught. These pressures may be more intense in London but are not confined to it. The recommendation the Tomlinson report advocates that has been generally welcomed is for more investment in primary care in London. General practitioners have much to teach medical schools about effective ways of learning, but incentives for teaching students in general practice are currently low, organising such teaching is difficult and needs resources, and resistance within traditional medical school hierarchies needs to be overcome. Likewise, students value learning within local communities, but the effort demanded of public health departments and community organisations is great at a time when they are under greater pressure than ever before. The arguments over research that favour concentration in four multifaculty schools are less clear cut for undergraduate education, where personal support for students is important. An immediate concern is that the effort demanded for reorganising along the lines suggested by Tomlinson will not leave medical schools much energy for innovating.     

Perspective: Teaching evolution in higher education

Abstract.— In the past decade, the academic community has increased considerably its activity concerning the teaching and learning of evolution. Despite such beneficial activity, the state of public understanding of evolution is considered woefully lacking by most researchers and educators. This lack of understanding affects evolution/science literacy, research, and academia in general. Not only does the general public lack an understanding of evolution but so does a considerable proportion of college graduates. However, it is not just evolutionary concepts that students do not retain. In general, college students retain little of what they supposedly have learned. Worse yet, it is not just students who have avoided science and math who fail to retain fundamental science concepts. Students who have had extensive secondary-level and college courses in science have similar deficits. We examine these issues and explore what distinguishes effective pedagogy from ineffective pedagogy in higher education in general and evolution education in particular. The fundamental problem of students' prior conceptions is considered and why prior conceptions often underpin students' misunderstanding of the evolutionary concepts being taught. These conceptions can often be discovered and addressed. We also attend to concerns about coverage of course content and the influence of religious beliefs, and provide helpful strategies to improve college-level teaching of evolution.     

An intensive hands-on course designed to teach molecular biology techniques to physiology graduate students

To address a growing need to make research trainees in physiology comfortable with the tools of molecular biology, we have developed a laboratory-intensive course designed for graduate students. This course is offered to a small group of students over a three-week period and is organized such that comprehensive background lectures are coupled with extensive hands-on experience. The course is divided into seven modules, each organized by a faculty member who has particular expertise in the area covered by that module. The modules focus on basic methods such as cDNA subcloning, sequencing, gene transfer, polymerase chain reaction, and protein and RNA expression analysis. Each module begins with a lecture that introduces the technique in detail by providing a historical perspective, describing both the uses and limitations of that technique, and comparing the method with others that yield similar information. Most of the lectures are followed by a laboratory session during which students follow protocols that were carefully designed to avoid pitfalls. Throughout these laboratory sessions, students are given an appreciation of the importance of proper technique and accuracy. Communication among the students, faculty, and the assistant coordinator is focused on when and why each procedure would be used, the importance of each step in the procedure, and approaches to troubleshooting. The course ends with an exam that is designed to test the students' general understanding of each module and their ability to apply the various techniques to physiological questions.