During the first Teaching Science Seminar of 2012, graduate students Jennifer Taylor and Morgan Thompson, in Chemistry and Molecular and Cellular Biology respectively, discussed the highlights of the 2011 National Science Teachers Association Conference in New Orleans, LA and shared a hands-on activity.
One of the sessions they attended that raised discussion was about using argument papers in science classes to encourage students to apply the writing skills they have learned in other disciplines and to encourage critical thinking. Some faculty participants in the Teaching Science Seminar use similar assignments in first year seminars but there were questions about how something like this could be used in more traditional science classes.
Most of the session was spent with participants working in pairs or groups of three to experience the hands-on lesson created by 3-D Molecular Designs acting as students engaged with the “Insulin mRNA to Protein Kit©.” Participants discussed the possibility of replacing a more traditional laboratory experience with the hands-on modeling activity to reinforce the central dogma of molecular biology. The kit also seems like a great outreach activity that graduate students and postdocs could bring to a local school classroom to give our future faculty more teaching experience with a vetted lesson.
