PARENT SESSION
Poster Session #51: Education: Undergraduate I.
Thursday, August 8. Presentation from 8:00 AM to 9:30 AM. Exhibit Hall B & C, TCC
40
Teaching Issues and Experiments in Ecology (TIEE): A web site and CD-ROM for undergraduate ecological education.
Grant, Bruce*,1, D'Avanzo, Charlene2, Udovic, Dan3, Lederer, Dan2, Taylor, Jason4, 1 Department of Biology, Chester, PA2 School of Natural Science, Amherst, MA3 Department of Biology, Eugene, OR4 Ecological Society of America, Washington, DC
ABSTRACT- We report on the goals, structure, and current successes of a web and CD-ROM based project to improve ecological education in undergraduate courses: Teaching Issues and Experiments in Ecology (TIEE). This is an NSF-funded, ESA-sponsored, peer-reviewed, and classroom/ field tested collection of teaching materials (1) to facilitate inquiry-based Experiments to Teach Ecology in laboratory courses, and (2) that uses active-learning methods and current controversial Issues to Teach Ecology for lecture classes. The TIEE resource collection is not merely a static site of labs or topics for lecturing, it is an interactive set of new materials that are both scientifically sound and pedagogically innovative. Our goal is to have each new peer-reviewed unit meet standards-based learning objectives and use innovative strategies for teaching, assessing growth among the full diversity of student learners, and improving teaching through formative and summative evaluation. In addition, the peer review aspect of TIEE submissions and ESA's publication of the accepted educational materials will hopefully stimulate greater participation in ecological educational improvement by faculty who teach ecology. The poster will describe the pedagogical and classroom materials, as well as annotated links offsite, that are directly linked through keywords from the "Experiments" and "Issues" sections of the site. The resources provide background explanations and references to the pedagogy and enable faculty to use and evaluate new innovations in education in their classrooms and participate in rigorous research in ecological education to learn what works and why.
KEY WORDS: ecological education, experiments to teach ecology, issues to teach ecology, digital library