- Follow Teaching nonmajors biology on WordPress.com
-
Recent Posts
- This might just be my new favorite book about teaching…
- Seven Strategies for Sustaining Student Engagement Online
- A New Way to Look at Red-Green Colorblindness
- “BiteScis”: Bite-sized research to promote scientific thinking
- What Does a STEM Professional Look Like? One Graduate Student’s Perspective
- Calling on students at random: What are the keys to success?
- Instructors: Be kind to your future self
- My Students Need Help Asking for Help; Do Yours?
- The Incredibly Stretchy Condom, Revisited
- Natural Selection in Tortoises: A (Homemade) Video
Category cloud
Academic conferences Active learning Assessment Assignments Chemistry Citizen science Collaboration Concept mapping Course design Ecology Engaging students Equity and inclusion Evolution Experimental design fungi Instructional technology Just for fun Laboratory activities Learning at home Microbiology Podcast Science in art Science news STEM Student writing Study skills Teaching Uncategorized Videos VineArchives
Tag Archives: American Biology Teacher
“BiteScis”: Bite-sized research to promote scientific thinking
Are you looking for biology lessons that promote scientific thinking, are classroom-tested, and are fully customizable to your own needs? On second thought, who isn’t? While reading The American Biology Teacher recently, I learned about a good source: BiteScis, a … Continue reading
Another Way to Connect Selection, Phenotype, and Genotype
Now that it’s summer, I’m catching up on my American Biology Teacher backlog. I found this interesting-looking activity by Janina Jördens and three coauthors in the February 2018 issue. The title of the article says it all: “Interrelating Concepts from … Continue reading
Posted in Evolution, Laboratory activities, Teaching
Tagged allele, American Biology Teacher, cod, evolution, genetics, genotype, graph, Janina Jordens, natural selection, overfishing, phenotype, simulation
3 Comments
Antibiotic resistance in the lab … with actual bacteria!
Apparently my post on the antibiotic resistance activity using green, yellow, and red beads was a big hit with instructors, because lots of people want a copy of the worksheet. I have been happy to oblige, and now I want … Continue reading
Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria: A Simple, Realistic Lab Activity
Every now and then I write a blog post about lab activities that worked in my nonmajors biology class. For example, I have written about reptilobirds (an activity combining meiosis and inheritance), staining banana cells to illustrate digestion in plants, … Continue reading
Growing a Thicker Skin: A Borrowed Lab Activity
Skimming through the August 2015 issue of The American Biology Teacher, I found a lab activity that I am eager to try. It’s by Troy R. Nash, Suann Yang, and John C. Inman of Presbyterian College, and it’s called “Growing a Thicker … Continue reading
A Cheap and Wonderful Way to Use Bananas in Lab
I’d like to report on another great idea from a recent issue of The American Biology Teacher. This time it’s from the October 2015 issue. Dawn A. Tamarkin from Springfield Technical Community College wrote a wonderful article called “Exploring Carbohydrates … Continue reading
What Good Is It to Know Biology? Study Says: Not Much!
The March 2015 edition of The American Biology Teacher features a research article by Alla Keselman et al., entitled “The Relationship between Biology Classes and Biological Reasoning and Common Health Misconceptions.” (ABT has kindly posted a free PDF of the … Continue reading
Making “Reptilobird” Babies: An Action Center Success Story
I have frequently struggled to help students connect the events of meiosis with the adaptive value of sexual reproduction; it’s hard to get students to look away from the stages of meiosis to see the “big picture” of genetic variability. … Continue reading
Posted in Active learning, Assignments, Collaboration, Engaging students, Evolution, Laboratory activities, Teaching
Tagged American Biology Teacher, collaboration, Dorit Eliyahu, engaging students, genetic variation, introductory biology, meiosis, National Association of Biology Teachers, sexual reproduction
96 Comments
The Incredibly Stretchy Condom: A Lab Success Story
In my nonmajors biology class, our first lab of the semester is about the process and tools of science. Students get to practice with hypothesis-testing, the elements of an experiment, showing data in graphs, and metric units of measure. The … Continue reading
Posted in Active learning, Assignments, Collaboration, Engaging students, Instructional technology, Laboratory activities, Teaching
Tagged active learning, American Biology Teacher, collaboration, edtech, introductory biology, ipad, National Association of Biology Teachers, relevance, Technology
15 Comments