Resources

Teaching as a Scientific Activity

While there is certainly a degree to which teaching is a creative endeavor and good teachers have a “knack” for understanding how design instruction and manage a classroom in productive ways, any scientist interested in teaching can greatly improve student learning if they view teaching as a scientific activity: what works, what doesn't, and why. Discipline-based educational researchers have developed teaching strategies which have been tested time and again under different circumstances with different instructors and have been systematically shown to improve student learning.

See, Article 1 and Article 2.

Consult the “Course Transformation Guide” to transform the way you teach a course to include more student centered approaches,

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Active Engagement

Many of the strategies which improve student learning in science classes involve significant degrees of student active engagement.

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Framing a Transformed Course

More information on practical strategies to frame a transformed course.

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Common Student Difficulties - Physics

Development of these assessments always includes an investigation of common student difficulties

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Common Student Difficulties - Geological Sciences

Development of these assessments always includes an investigation of common student difficulties