Science Teaching Essentials: Short Guides to Good Practice

Science Teaching Essentials: Short Guides to Good Practice serves as a reference manual for science faculty as they set up a new course, consider how to teach the course, figure out how to assess their students fairly and efficiently, and review and revise course materials. This book consists of a series of short chapters that instructors can use as resources to address common teaching problems and adopt evidence-based pedagogies. By providing individual chapters that can be used independently as needed, this book provides faculty with a just-in-time teaching resource they can use to draft a new syllabus.

This is a must-have resource for science, health science and engineering faculty, as well as graduate students and post-docs preparing for future faculty careers.

Provides easily digested, practical, research-based information on how to teachAllows faculty to efficiently get up-to-speed on a given pedagogy or assessment methodAddresses the full range of faculty experiences as they being to teach for the first time or want to reinvent how they teach

Section 1: The foundations 1. Inclusive teaching: Creating a welcoming, supportive classroom environment 2. Course design: Making choices about constructing your course 3. Assignments and exams: Tools to promote engagement, learning, and reflection

Section 2: Keystone teaching practices 4. Active learning: The student work that builds understanding 5. Group work: Using cooperative learning groups effectively 6. Metacognitive practices: Giving students tools to be self-directed learners 7. Test-enhanced learning: Using retrieval practice to help students learn, with Rachel E. Biel

Section 3: Pedagogy Toolbox 8. Lecturing 9. Flipping the classroom 10. Using Educational Videos 11. Incorporating research into courses, with Faith Rovenolt.

Section 4: Fair and transparent grading practices 12. Writing exams: Good practice for writing multiple choice and constructed response test questions 13. Rubrics: Tools to make grading more fair and efficient