An Investigative Laboratory to Accompany a New Introductory Mixed-Majors Course

为了满足学生的需求，教师的关注，和国家科学教育标准的大学预科教育，俄勒冈州立大学的生命科学部门正在重组他们目前的入门课程，并创建一个专业和非专业相结合的课程，强调在讲座和实验室的合作和调查。该项目将提供设备，使新的和经过修改的实验室能够在每个实验室进行计算机辅助数据收集和小组报告编写。为了让学生有时间在实验室设计、进行和报告实验，我们将实验室延长到三个小时，并为学生在学习资源中心和万维网上进行实验前活动。学生将在讲座中介绍“场景”，这些场景将在OSU进行的流行问题或当前研究的背景下介绍概念，并指导学生在实验室中解决问题。学生将学习在涉及不同组织级别的多种情况下应用总体概念（例如表面积与体积比，成本效益分析），并有望提供定量数据来回答问题或测试假设。这个过程将允许学生发现而不是验证概念。学生将使用数字温度计和各种物理和化学传感器来研究细胞，生物，种群和生态系统水平的问题。学生将创建调查的数字视频日志，并首次参与分子遗传学实验。学生将使用计算机数据和视频网络共享数据和信息。该项目建立在以前的ILI赠款的经验教训。每学期约有900名学生将受到影响，其中包括约150名K- 12教育专业的学生。我们将通过考试成绩、态度调查、对学生的直接观察以及对学生和教师的访谈来检验这门课程的影响。

In response to student need, faculty concerns, and the National Science Education Standards for pre-college education, OSU's life-sciences departments are restructuring their present introductory curriculum and creating a combined majors and non-majors course emphasizing collaboration and inquiry in both lecture and laboratory. This project will provide the equipment to make possible new and revised laboratories involving computer-assisted data collection and group report writing in each laboratory. To allow students time to design, conduct, and report on experiments during lab, we are extending our labs to three hours and creating pre- lab activities for students to conduct in our Learning Resources Center and on the WWW. Students will be presented with "scenarios" in lecture that will introduce concepts in the context of popular issues or current research conducted at OSU and guide students toward questions to be addressed in the laboratory. Students will learn to apply overarching concepts (e.g. surface-to- volume ratio, cost-benefit analysis) in multiple contexts involving different levels of organization and be expected to provide quantitative data to answer problems or test hypotheses. This process will allow students to discover rather than verify concepts. Students will use digital spectrophotometers and a variety of physical and chemical sensors to investigate problems at the cellular, organismal, population and ecosystem levels. Students will create digital-video-logs of investigations and engage in molecular genetics experiments for the first time. Students will share data and information using computer-data and video networks. This project builds on lessons from a previous ILI grant. Approximately 900 students will be affected each semester, including approximately 150 K- 12 education majors. We will examine the impact of this course using test scores, attitude surveys, direct observation of students, and interviews with students and faculty.