Thank you for checking out our “30 days of Science Education” series. Use Science Education videos to introduce undergraduates to the lab.
NOTE: Over the next 3 days, we'll introduce one assistant professor's success with Science Education in teaching a nontraditional course, "Experimental Biology."
Part 1 of 3! "Experimental Biology" and the challenges of teaching science without video
According to Dr. Kuehner of Emmanuel College, the biggest challenge for his Experimental Biology students is juggling the introduction of new scientific techniques each week — be it in biochemistry, molecular biology, or genetics.
Dr. Kuehner’s class is a lecture-lab hybrid, where his students meet twice a week for about three hours in the lab. But unlike traditional introductory biology courses, the purpose of Experimental Biology is to introduce students to the investigation process in the lab. “It’s more of a discovery-based process,” he says, “where the students have the opportunity to think of a research question more in depth, and use multiple current lab techniques to address that question.”
At Emmanuel, though Dr. Kuehner is fortunate enough to have small classes, he still recognizes the difficulty of demonstrating complicated experiments to groups. “The course is capped at 16 students, which is not a lot. It’s actually a good number. But even with that number it’s hard for them all to see me do something,” he says.
Furthermore, Dr Kuener’s says that his students must be sure to pay close attention during class. “There is not a textbook for this course, so they rely heavily on the information they're given in class or what's been shown in class,” he says.
Tomorrow: Part 2 of 3! Teaching science in the 21st century: Dr. Kuehner introduces his lab students to scientific video
