Download or read book The Chicago Guide to College Science Teaching written by Terry McGlynn and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2020-11-09 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Higher education is a strange beast. Teaching is a critical skill for scientists in academia, yet one that is barely touched upon in their professional training—despite being a substantial part of their career. This book is a practical guide for anyone teaching STEM-related academic disciplines at the college level, from graduate students teaching lab sections and newly appointed faculty to well-seasoned professors in want of fresh ideas. Terry McGlynn’s straightforward, no-nonsense approach avoids off-putting pedagogical jargon and enables instructors to become true ambassadors for science. For years, McGlynn has been addressing the need for practical and accessible advice for college science teachers through his popular blog Small Pond Science. Now he has gathered this advice as an easy read—one that can be ingested and put to use on short deadline. Readers will learn about topics ranging from creating a syllabus and developing grading rubrics to mastering online teaching and ensuring safety during lab and fieldwork. The book also offers advice on cultivating productive relationships with students, teaching assistants, and colleagues.
Download or read book The Thinking Student s Guide to College written by Andrew Roberts and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2010-09-15 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Each fall, thousands of eager freshmen descend on college and university campuses expecting the best education imaginable: inspiring classes taught by top-ranked professors, academic advisors who will guide them to a prestigious job or graduate school, and an environment where learning flourishes outside the classroom as much as it does in lecture halls. Unfortunately, most of these freshmen soon learn that academic life is not what they imagined. Classes are taught by overworked graduate students and adjuncts rather than seasoned faculty members, undergrads receive minimal attention from advisors or administrators, and potentially valuable campus resources remain outside their grasp. Andrew Roberts’ Thinking Student’s Guide to College helps students take charge of their university experience by providing a blueprint they can follow to achieve their educational goals—whether at public or private schools, large research universities or small liberal arts colleges. An inside look penned by a professor at Northwestern University, this book offers concrete tips on choosing a college, selecting classes, deciding on a major, interacting with faculty, and applying to graduate school. Here, Roberts exposes the secrets of the ivory tower to reveal what motivates professors, where to find loopholes in university bureaucracy, and most importantly, how to get a personalized education. Based on interviews with faculty and cutting-edge educational research, The Thinking Student’s Guide to College is a necessary handbook for students striving to excel academically, creatively, and personally during their undergraduate years.
Download or read book Scientific Teaching written by Jo Handelsman and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2007 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seasoned classroom veterans, pre-tenured faculty, and neophyte teaching assistants alike will find this book invaluable. HHMI Professor Jo Handelsman and her colleagues at the Wisconsin Program for Scientific Teaching (WPST) have distilled key findings from education, learning, and cognitive psychology and translated them into six chapters of digestible research points and practical classroom examples. The recommendations have been tried and tested in the National Academies Summer Institute on Undergraduate Education in Biology and through the WPST. Scientific Teaching is not a prescription for better teaching. Rather, it encourages the reader to approach teaching in a way that captures the spirit and rigor of scientific research and to contribute to transforming how students learn science.
Download or read book Writing Science in Plain English written by Anne E. Greene and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-05-24 with total page 137 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scientific writing is often dry, wordy, and difficult to understand. But, as Anne E. Greene shows in Writing Science in Plain English,writers from all scientific disciplines can learn to produce clear, concise prose by mastering just a few simple principles. This short, focused guide presents a dozen such principles based on what readers need in order to understand complex information, including concrete subjects, strong verbs, consistent terms, and organized paragraphs. The author, a biologist and an experienced teacher of scientific writing, illustrates each principle with real-life examples of both good and bad writing and shows how to revise bad writing to make it clearer and more concise. She ends each chapter with practice exercises so that readers can come away with new writing skills after just one sitting. Writing Science in Plain English can help writers at all levels of their academic and professional careers—undergraduate students working on research reports, established scientists writing articles and grant proposals, or agency employees working to follow the Plain Writing Act. This essential resource is the perfect companion for all who seek to write science effectively.
Download or read book The Chicago Guide to Your Career in Science written by Victor A. Bloomfield and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-11-15 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Embarking upon research as a graduate student or postdoc can be exciting and enriching—the start of a rewarding career. But the world of scientific research is also a competitive one, with grants and good jobs increasingly hard to find. The Chicago Guide to Your Career in Science is intended to help scientists not just cope but excel at this critical phase in their careers. Victor A. Bloomfield and Esam E. El-Fakahany, both well-known scientists with extensive experience as teachers, mentors, and administrators, have combined their knowledge to create a guidebook that addresses all of the challenges that today’s scientists-in-training face. They begin by considering the early stages of a career in science: deciding whether or not to pursue a PhD, choosing advisors and mentors, and learning how to teach effectively. Bloomfield and El-Fakahany then explore the skills essential to conducting and presenting research. The Chicago Guide to Your Career in Science offers detailed advice on how to pursue research ethically, manage time, and communicate effectively, especially at academic conferences and with students and peers. Bloomfield and El-Fakahany write in accessible, straightforward language and include a synopsis of key points at the end of each chapter, so that readers can dip into relevant sections with ease. From students prepping for the GRE to postdocs developing professional contacts to faculty advisors and managers of corporate labs, scientists at every level will find The Chicago Guide to Your Career in Science an unparalleled resource. “The Chicago Guide to Your Career in Science is a roadmap to the beginning stages of a scientific career. I will encourage my own students to purchase it.”—Dov F. Sax, assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, Brown University “Step-by-step, Victor Bloomfield and Esam El-Fakahany provide sound, thorough, yet succinct advice on every issue a scientist in training is likely to encounter. Young readers will welcome the authors’ advice on choosing a graduate school, for example, while senior scientists will probably wish that a book like this had been around when they were starting out. With down-to-earth and occasionally humorous advice, The Chicago Guide to your Career in Academic Biology belongs on the bookshelf of every graduate student and advisor.”—Norma Allewell, Dean, College of Chemical and Life Sciences, University of Maryland
Download or read book Handbook of College Science Teaching written by Joel J. Mintzes and published by NSTA Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are you still using 20th century techniques to teach science to 21st century students? Update your practices as you learn about current theory and research with the authoritative Handbook of College Science Teaching. The Handbook offers models of teaching and learning that go beyond the typical lecture-laboratory format and provides rationales for updated practices in the college classroom. The 38 chapters, each written by experienced, award-wining science faculty, are organized into eight sections: attitudes and motivations; active learning; factors affecting learning; innovative teaching approaches; use for technology, for both teaching and student research; special challenges, such as teaching effectively to culturally diverse or learning disabled students; pre-college science instruction; and improving instruction. No other book fills the Handbook's unique niche as a definitive guide for science professors in all content areas. It even includes special help for those who teach non-science majors at the freshman and sophomore levels. The Handbook is ideal for graduate teaching assistants in need of a solid introduction, senior faculty and graduate cooridinators in charge of training new faculty and grad students, and mid-career professors in search of invigoration.
Download or read book The Chicago Guide to Landing a Job in Academic Biology written by C. Ray Chandler and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-09-15 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Chicago Guide to Landing a Job in Academic Biology is an indispensable guide for graduate students and post-docs as they enter that domain red in tooth and claw: the job market. An academic career in the biological sciences typically demands well over a decade of technical training. So it’s ironic that when a scholar reaches the most critical stage in that career—the search for a job following graduate work—he or she receives little or no formal preparation. Instead, students are thrown into the job market with only cursory guidance on how to search for and land a position. Now there’s help. Carefully, clearly, and with a welcome sense of humor, The Chicago Guide to Landing a Job in Academic Biology leads graduate students and postdoctoral fellows through the perils and rewards of their first job search. The authors—who collectively have for decades mentored students and served on hiring committees—have honed their advice in workshops at biology meetings across the country. The resulting guide covers everything from how to pack an overnight bag without wrinkling a suit to selecting the right job to apply for in the first place. The authors have taken care to make their advice useful to all areas of academic biology—from cell biology and molecular genetics to evolution and ecology—and they give tips on how applicants can tailor their approaches to different institutions from major research universities to small private colleges. With jobs in the sciences ever more difficult to come by, The Chicago Guide to Landing a Job in Academic Biology is designed to help students and post-docs navigate the tricky terrain of an academic job search—from the first year of a graduate program to the final negotiations of a job offer.
Download or read book What Every Science Student Should Know written by Justin L. Bauer and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2016-05-06 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every year, six million students enter college with the intention of becoming a science major by the time they graduate, only 60% of them will actually follow through. This means that close to 2.4 million students, every year, drop out of the science track. According to the New York Times, roughly 40% of students planning science majors either end up switching their major or fail to get any degree. Furthermore, aspiring pre-medical students (who comprise a large percentage of the freshmen class at most colleges, but who may not be science majors) often cite frustrations with science coursework/grading as a main motivation for changing their career plans. What Every College Science Student Should Know teaches students everything they need to know about how to succeed in school and after graduation. It s a portable guide and mentor that teaches study skills, course selection and mastery, how to do scientific research, what to expect from majors, how to find mentors, and how to apply learned skills to career development and enjoyment. Written by recent college graduates for entering college students and seniors in high school, What Every College Science Student Should Know is an invaluable resource for those who want to pursue a science degree, and it s also an inspiring narrative of remarkable students who are already changing the world through science."
Download or read book Small Teaching written by James M. Lang and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2016-03-07 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Employ cognitive theory in the classroom every day Research into how we learn has opened the door for utilizing cognitive theory to facilitate better student learning. But that's easier said than done. Many books about cognitive theory introduce radical but impractical theories, failing to make the connection to the classroom. In Small Teaching, James Lang presents a strategy for improving student learning with a series of modest but powerful changes that make a big difference—many of which can be put into practice in a single class period. These strategies are designed to bridge the chasm between primary research and the classroom environment in a way that can be implemented by any faculty in any discipline, and even integrated into pre-existing teaching techniques. Learn, for example: How does one become good at retrieving knowledge from memory? How does making predictions now help us learn in the future? How do instructors instill fixed or growth mindsets in their students? Each chapter introduces a basic concept in cognitive theory, explains when and how it should be employed, and provides firm examples of how the intervention has been or could be used in a variety of disciplines. Small teaching techniques include brief classroom or online learning activities, one-time interventions, and small modifications in course design or communication with students.
Download or read book A Field Guide for Science Writers written by Deborah Blum and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2005-09-08 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the official text for the National Association of Science Writers. In the eight years since the publication of the first edition of A Field Guide for Science Writing, much about the world has changed. Some of the leading issues in today's political marketplace - embryonic stem cell research, global warming, health care reform, space exploration, genetic privacy, germ warfare - are informed by scientific ideas. Never has it been more crucial for the lay public to be scientifically literate. That's where science writers come in. And that's why it's time for an update to the Field Guide, already a staple of science writing graduate programs across the country. The academic community has recently recognized how important it is for writers to become more sophisticated, knowledgeable, and skeptical about what they write. More than 50 institutions now offer training in science writing. In addition mid-career fellowships for science writers are growing, giving journalists the chance to return to major universities for specialized training. We applaud these developments, and hope to be part of them with this new edition of the Field Guide. In A Field Guide for Science Writers, 2nd Edition, the editors have assembled contributions from a collections of experienced journalists who are every bit as stellar as the group that contributed to the first edition. In the end, what we have are essays written by the very best in the science writing profession. These wonderful writers have written not only about style, but about content, too. These leaders in the profession describe how they work their way through the information glut to find the gems worth writing about. We also have chapters that provide the tools every good science writer needs: how to use statistics, how to weigh the merits of conflicting studies in scientific literature, how to report about risk. And, ultimately, how to write.
Download or read book Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2000-05-03 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Humans, especially children, are naturally curious. Yet, people often balk at the thought of learning scienceâ€"the "eyes glazed over" syndrome. Teachers may find teaching science a major challenge in an era when science ranges from the hardly imaginable quark to the distant, blazing quasar. Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards is the book that educators have been waiting forâ€"a practical guide to teaching inquiry and teaching through inquiry, as recommended by the National Science Education Standards. This will be an important resource for educators who must help school boards, parents, and teachers understand "why we can't teach the way we used to." "Inquiry" refers to the diverse ways in which scientists study the natural world and in which students grasp science knowledge and the methods by which that knowledge is produced. This book explains and illustrates how inquiry helps students learn science content, master how to do science, and understand the nature of science. This book explores the dimensions of teaching and learning science as inquiry for K-12 students across a range of science topics. Detailed examples help clarify when teachers should use the inquiry-based approach and how much structure, guidance, and coaching they should provide. The book dispels myths that may have discouraged educators from the inquiry-based approach and illuminates the subtle interplay between concepts, processes, and science as it is experienced in the classroom. Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards shows how to bring the standards to life, with features such as classroom vignettes exploring different kinds of inquiries for elementary, middle, and high school and Frequently Asked Questions for teachers, responding to common concerns such as obtaining teaching supplies. Turning to assessment, the committee discusses why assessment is important, looks at existing schemes and formats, and addresses how to involve students in assessing their own learning achievements. In addition, this book discusses administrative assistance, communication with parents, appropriate teacher evaluation, and other avenues to promoting and supporting this new teaching paradigm.
Download or read book On Course written by James M. Lang and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2010-05-10 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: You go into teaching with high hopes: to inspire students, to motivate them to learn, to help them love your subject. Then you find yourself facing a crowd of expectant faces on the first day of the first semester, and you think “Now what do I do?” Practical and lively, On Course is full of experience-tested, research-based advice for graduate students and new teaching faculty. It provides a range of innovative and traditional strategies that work well without requiring extensive preparation or long grading sessions when you’re trying to meet your own demanding research and service requirements. What do you put on the syllabus? How do you balance lectures with group assignments or discussions—and how do you get a dialogue going when the students won’t participate? What grading system is fairest and most efficient for your class? Should you post lecture notes on a website? How do you prevent cheating, and what do you do if it occurs? How can you help the student with serious personal problems without becoming overly involved? And what do you do about the student who won’t turn off his cell phone? Packed with anecdotes and concrete suggestions, this book will keep both inexperienced and veteran teachers on course as they navigate the calms and storms of classroom life.
Download or read book Teaching Evolution in a Creation Nation written by Adam Laats and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2016-03-03 with total page 137 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No fight over what gets taught in American classrooms is more heated than the battle over humanity’s origins. For more than a century we have argued about evolutionary theory and creationism (and its successor theory, intelligent design), yet we seem no closer to a resolution than we were in Darwin’s day. In this thoughtful examination of how we teach origins, historian Adam Laats and philosopher Harvey Siegel offer crucial new ways to think not just about the evolution debate but how science and religion can make peace in the classroom. Laats and Siegel agree with most scientists: creationism is flawed, as science. But, they argue, students who believe it nevertheless need to be accommodated in public school science classes. Scientific or not, creationism maintains an important role in American history and culture as a point of religious dissent, a sustained form of protest that has weathered a century of broad—and often dramatic—social changes. At the same time, evolutionary theory has become a critical building block of modern knowledge. The key to accommodating both viewpoints, they show, is to disentangle belief from knowledge. A student does not need to believe in evolution in order to understand its tenets and evidence, and in this way can be fully literate in modern scientific thought and still maintain contrary religious or cultural views. Altogether, Laats and Siegel offer the kind of level-headed analysis that is crucial to finding a way out of our culture-war deadlock.
Download or read book Guide to Implementing the Next Generation Science Standards written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2015-03-27 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Framework for K-12 Science Education and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) describe a new vision for science learning and teaching that is catalyzing improvements in science classrooms across the United States. Achieving this new vision will require time, resources, and ongoing commitment from state, district, and school leaders, as well as classroom teachers. Successful implementation of the NGSS will ensure that all K-12 students have high-quality opportunities to learn science. Guide to Implementing the Next Generation Science Standards provides guidance to district and school leaders and teachers charged with developing a plan and implementing the NGSS as they change their curriculum, instruction, professional learning, policies, and assessment to align with the new standards. For each of these elements, this report lays out recommendations for action around key issues and cautions about potential pitfalls. Coordinating changes in these aspects of the education system is challenging. As a foundation for that process, Guide to Implementing the Next Generation Science Standards identifies some overarching principles that should guide the planning and implementation process. The new standards present a vision of science and engineering learning designed to bring these subjects alive for all students, emphasizing the satisfaction of pursuing compelling questions and the joy of discovery and invention. Achieving this vision in all science classrooms will be a major undertaking and will require changes to many aspects of science education. Guide to Implementing the Next Generation Science Standards will be a valuable resource for states, districts, and schools charged with planning and implementing changes, to help them achieve the goal of teaching science for the 21st century.
Download or read book Student s Guide for Writing College Papers written by Kate Larimore Turabian and published by . This book was released on 1969 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book MICRONATIONS written by Kathy Ceceri and published by Nomad Press. This book was released on 2014-05-12 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For anyone who's ever dreamed of ruling over their own empire, here's your chance! Micronations are imaginary countries that have a lot of the same things as real ones: laws, customs, history, and their own flags, coins, and postage stamps. Micronations: Invent Your Own Country and Culture takes readers step-by-step to create their own unique realm, using examples from real nations, micronations, and fictional lands. What makes a country a country? What symbols and systems define a country and help it function? Learn about geography and government, technology and the environment, art and culture, and the literary device of "world-building" used in works like The Hobbit and Harry Potter. Kids get to invent their own language, music, games, clothing, food, and holidays to fit their micronation's tradition. Whether they create a land of time travel where every city exists in a different epoch or an underwater monarchy whose chief export is fish, Micronations: Invent Your Own Country and Culture will engage kids' imagination and teach make-believe rulers how the real world works. This title meets Common Core State Standards for literacy in language arts, history and social studies; Guided Reading Levels and Lexile measurements indicate grade level and text complexity.
Download or read book Information Now written by Matt Upson and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2015-10-26 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every day researchers face an onslaught of irrelevant, inaccurate, and sometimes insidious information. While new technologies provide powerful tools for accessing knowledge, not all information is created equal. Valuable information may be tucked away on a shelf, buried on the hundredth page of search results, or hidden behind digital barriers. With so many obstacles to effective research, it is vital that higher education students master the art of inquiry. Information Now is an innovative approach to information literacy that will reinvent the way college students think about research. Instead of the typical textbook format, it uses illustrations, humor, and reflective exercises to teach students how to become savvy researchers. Students will learn how to evaluate information, to incorporate it into their existing knowledge base, to wield it effectively, and to understand the ethical issues surrounding its use. Written by two library professionals, it incorporates concepts and skills drawn from the Association of College and Research Libraries’ Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education and their Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. Thoroughly researched and highly engaging, Information Now offers the tools that students need to become powerful consumers and creators of information. Whether used by a high school student tackling a big paper, an undergrad facing the newness of a university library, or a writer wanting to go beyond Google, Information Now is a powerful tool for any researcher’s arsenal.
