Course Identification

The course will apply the "action research" methodology as a bridge between aspects of research in Biological -science education, and the biology teachers' classroom practice.

The students will learn subjects and will read research articles, in relation to their practice and science education content. They will plan their data collection methods and analysis, gather the data in their classes and analyze it.

Assessment of the course will combine submission of assignments during the semester, a full action research report at the end of the semester (50%), and on-going participation tasks in the course web site (40%).

Upon successful completion of this course students should be able to:

1. Bridge between aspects of research in science education and the biology teachers' classroom practice

Barrett, G. W., Peles, J. D., & Odum, E. P. (1997). Transcending processes and the levels-of-organization concept. BioScience, 47(8), 531-535.

Breslyn, W., & McGinnis, J. R. (2012). A comparison of exemplary biology, chemistry, earth science, and physics teachers' conceptions and enactment of inquiry. Science Education, 96(1), 48-77.‏

Coley, J. D., & Tanner, K. (2015). Relations between intuitive biological thinking and biological misconceptions in biology majors and nonmajors. CBE-Life Sciences Education, 14(1), ar8.

Cooper, M. M., Caballero, M. D., Ebert-May, D., Fata-Hartley, C. L., Jardeleza, S. E., Krajcik, J. S., ... & Underwood, S. M. (2015). Challenge faculty to transform STEM learning. Science, 350(6258), 281-282.‏

Magnusson, S., Krajcik, J., & Borko, H. (1999). Nature, sources, and development of pedagogical content knowledge for science teaching. In Examining pedagogical content knowledge (pp. 95-132). Springer Netherlands.‏

Osborne, J. (2014). Teaching scientific practices: Meeting the challenge of change. Journal of Science Teacher Education, 25(2), 177-196.‏

Park, S., & Chen, Y. C. (2012). Mapping out the integration of the components of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK): Examples from high school biology classrooms. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 49(7), 922-941.‏

Rowland, G. (2007). Towards a new biology curriculum. Journal of Biological Education, 40(3), 99-101.