Use of Instructional Technology as an Integral Part of a Non-Major Science Laboratory Course: A New Design
Phyllis Laine
Xavier University
Abstract
The use of instructional technology to learn and teach science is a natural approach for today’s undergraduate. Adding computers to a non-major laboratory to serve as the research laboratory notebook converted the course into a dynamic student- centered classroom. Cooperative teams became very active in doing inquiries and using the tools of technology to gather background information, collect evidence, analysis data, write proposals, submit journal articles to a class electronic journal, and present results at the podium. Student and instructor comments support the design of the new biology non-major laboratory course.
About the Author(s)...
Phyllis Laine has been involved in the field of education since 1970. Her initial career choice was as a registered Medical Technologist. But she soon realized interactingwith people and sharing ideas was very important to her and I took a biology instructor position at Corning Community College.
After four years of teaching, she began graduate work at Cornell University. Her degree combined science and education. As part of her master's work, she designed a one-credit microbiology laboratory for the veterinary science curriculum. Her mentors were a microbiologist and two science educators. She continued in education as a full-time instructor in the Microbiology Department at Penn State University. During her five years there, she helped design, write, implement and teach two junior-senior level microbiology laboratory courses. She was also a member of a funded project to develop 800 35 mm slides for teaching concepts in undergraduate microbiology.
She remained in higher education after her move to the Cincinnati area in 1980. Over the years she has taught at Thomas More College, Xavier University, Cincinnati Technical College, Northern Kentucky University and the University of Cincinnati. She completed her Ph.D. in molecular genetics and cell biology at the University of Cincinnati in 1992. Having left Xavier in 1985, she returned to the Biology Department at Xavier University in 1991 because its primary focus was teaching. The diversity of her academic experience has given her great adaptability in assessing, designing and teaching science to many types of students. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
