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Pathways to Scientific Teaching, Chapter 6b of 7: Unraveling complexity: building an understanding of Everglades restoration

Understanding the complexity of ecosystems at all scales, macro to micro, is challenging for students (and scientists!) to unravel. Sklar and colleagues present the engaging problem of the restoration of the Florida Everglades [attached], including history, biology, hydrology, modeling, and regulatory morasses. Students need to learn how to derive and interconnect biological concepts from the literature as well as from textbooks. To do so they must connect new information with prior knowledge to make sense of the ideas and concepts presented. In this article, we model a way to guide and assess students’ understanding of the biological principles featured in Sklar et al. before they come to class. Instructors use this formative assessment to modify classroom instruction, and to assess students’ understanding of those principles at the end of class.
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Resource Group "Pathways to Scientific Teaching" is based on a series of two-page articles published in "Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment" from August 2004 to June 2006 that illustrated effective instructional methods to help students gain conceptual understanding in ecology (Diane Ebert-May and Janet Hodder, 2008).

This installment of the Pathways to Scientific Teaching series describes one or more instructional strategies that use scientific papers to teach selected concepts. While specific journal articles are used in demonstrating these strategies, we would like to emphasize that each activity in the Pathways series has been designed for use with any scientific article on a similar topic, and not just the example shown here.

Note that in addition to undergraduate faculty, many high school teachers can use these articles as well in their biology courses.
Resource Group Link http://ecoed.esa.org/index.php?P=AdvancedSearch&Q=Y&FK=%22Pathways+to+...
Primary or BEN resource type
Secondary resource type
Discipline Specific Core Concepts
Life science discipline (subject)
Keywords Florida Everglades, wetlands, adaptive management, trade-offs, Just-in-Time Teaching (JiTT)
Audience
Intended End User Role
Language
Educational Language
Pedagogical Use Category
Pedagogical Use Description Instructor goals: 1) Implement Just-in-Time Teaching (JiTT) instructional strategies. 2) Analyze and use formative data from students’ responses to their reading before class to guide instruction in class. 3) Develop summative assessments that quantify and elucidate students’ understanding of complex ecological problems and demonstrate their ability to synthesize information.

This installment of the Pathways to Scientific Teaching series describes one or more instructional strategies that use scientific papers to teach selected concepts. While specific journal articles are used in demonstrating these strategies, we would like to emphasize that each activity in the Pathways series has been designed for use with any scientific article on a similar topic, and not just the example shown here.

Note that in addition to undergraduate faculty, many high school teachers can use these articles as well in their biology courses.
Aggregation Level
Structure
Full Name of Primary Author Diane Ebert-May
Primary Author Controlled Name
Primary Author Affiliation Michigan State University
Primary Author email ebertmay@msu.edu
Secondary Author Name(s) Janet Hodder 1, and Kathy S Williams 2
Secondary Author Affiliation(s) 1 University of Oregon, 2 San Diego State University
Added By Id
  • Celia
Rights Copyright 2008, the Ecological Society of America
License
Publisher
Review type
Drought and Water Ecosystem Services Collection Off
Conservation Targets Under Global Change Collection Off
Big Data Collection Off
Editors Choice No
Resource Status
Date Of Record Submission 2011-12-02
I Agree to EcoEdDL's Copyright Policy & Terms of Use No
Date Of Record Release 2012-03-05 11:48:13
Last Modified By Id
  • tmourad
Date Last Modified 2013-11-27 09:40:33
Release Flag Published

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