In July, 2005, the European Institute of Chemistry and Biology at the campus of the University of Bordeaux, France, hosted a focused week of seminars, workshops, and discussions around the theme of “teaching signal transduction.” The purpose of the summer school was to offer both junior and senior university instructors a chance to reflect on the development and delivery of their teaching activities in this area. This was achieved by combining open seminars with restricted access workshops and discussion events. The results suggest ways in which systems biology, information and communication technology, Web-based investigations, and high standard illustrations might be more effectively and efficiently incorporated into modern cell biology courses.

Research articles are an excellent tool for promoting active learning about the scientific process. One difficulty in teaching research articles is that they address a professional audience and often seek to be persuasive as well as informative. This essay discusses pedagogical strategies that are intended to help students differentiate the purely informative aspects of research articles, such as descriptions of the methods and results, from the persuasive aspects, such as interpretation of results and critical evaluation of the work of other scientists.

In this article, we describe an exploratory study of a small-scale, concept-driven, voluntary laboratory component of Introductory Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. We wished to investigate whether students' attitudes toward biology and their understanding of basic biological principles would improve through concept-based learning in a laboratory environment. With these goals in mind, and using our Biology Concept Framework as a guide, we designed laboratory exercises to connect topics from the lecture portion of the course and highlight key concepts. We also strove to make abstract concepts tangible, encourage learning in nonlecture format, expose the students to scientific method in action, and convey the excitement of performing experiments. Our initial small-scale assessments indicate participation in the laboratory component, which featured both hands-on and minds-on components, improved student learning and retention of basic biological concepts. Further investigation will focus on improving the balance between the minds-on concept-based learning and the hands-on experimental component of the laboratory.

Many students at minority-serving institutions are underexposed to Internet resources such as the human genome project, PubMed, NCBI databases, and other Web-based technologies because of a lack of financial resources. To change this, we designed and implemented a new bioinformatics component to supplement the undergraduate Genetics course at Clark Atlanta University. The outcomes of the Bioinformatics course were assessed. During the first week of the semester, students were assigned the Felder-Soloman's Index of Learning Styles Inventory. The overwhelming majority of students were visual (82.1%) and sequential (75.0%) learners. Furthermore, pre- and postcourse surveys were administered during the first and the last week of the course to assess learning, confidence level, and mental activity. These indicated students increased the number of hours spent using computers and doing homework. Students reported confidence in using computers to study genetics increased, enabling them to better visualize and understand genetics. Furthermore, students were more mentally engaged in a more social learning environment. Although the students appreciated the value of the bioinformatics component, they reported the additional work load was substantial enough to receive additional course credit.

Inquiry-based laboratories are acknowledged as the preferred method of instruction for development of research skills. Much has been written about changes in student performance associated with inquiry, but less is known about how students view the inquiry-based format or whether they perceive a benefit from this type of instruction. The Student Assessment of Learning Gains (SALG) survey was used to evaluate and compare student reactions to the new, inquiry-based laboratories of a lower-division undergraduate curriculum, from implementation to the present (an interval of 3 yr). Initial student response to the format and value of the inquiry labs improved over time. The quality of the graduate teaching assistants and the clarity of the laboratory manual were important variables influencing student perception. A student's perception of his/her retention of lab-related skills was strongly associated with perceptions of gains in those skills. Student responses reflect their most current laboratory experience and not a cumulative effect of participation in the core series of courses. Student success in the inquiry format was not associated with gender or status as a transfer student. The majority of students believe that their experiences in the lower-division inquiry labs have prepared them for upper-division course work.

The laboratory component of a first-semester general chemistry course for science majors is described. The laboratory involves a semester-long project undertaken in a small-group format. Students are asked to examine whether plants grown in soil contaminated with lead take up more lead than those grown in uncontaminated soil. They are also asked to examine whether the acidity of the rainwater affects the amount of lead taken up by the plants. Groups are then given considerable independence in the design and implementation of the experiment. Once the seeds are planted, which takes about 4 wk into the term, several shorter experiments are integrated in before it is time to harvest and analyze the plants. The use of a project and small working groups allows for the development of a broader range of learning outcomes than occurs in a“ traditional” general chemistry laboratory. The nature of these outcomes and some of the student responses to the laboratory experience are described. This particular project also works well at demonstrating the connections among chemistry, biology, geology, and environmental studies.