Graduate Course

Beginning September 2006 - 11 weeks
Tuesdays
5 pm - 8 pm
Dinner is served at 4:30 pm.
Northwestern University's School of Education (Evanston)

"Learning and Teaching Human Biology" (Masters of Science in Education 451 / Biological Sciences 307).   The graduate course integrates science content and inquiry pedagogy to explore how to work with students' ideas about human biology.  

You will experience each lesson as a student, complete the lesson in your own classroom, and return to class the next week to reflect and discuss with your classmates.   Everything you do in class will be directly related to what is occurring in your classroom.  

Your time in class will support you intellectually as you consider the decisions you make planning and teaching Disease Detectives in the light of your increased biology content knowledge and the pedagogical concepts you've learned as well as logistically as you talk with colleagues about challenges and successes.   This planning, teaching and analysis of each lesson comprises the bulk of the performance-based assessment for this course.  

Two lessons will be videotaped for you to analyze and evaluate your own teaching as you progress through the course.   You will have access to the expertise of your fellow teachers, the curriculum design and research team as well as those who have taught the curriculum in previous years. Graduate and undergraduate students in biology and education will also participate in the course and contribute their knowledge and questions to class discussions.