Initial Publication Date: March 1, 2010
Designing your course around the process of science
If you are considering a change in the way you have structured your entire course, or are considering starting from scratch, think about designing your course around the process of science. This does not mean abandoning the core science content you wish to teach - far from it. Instead, it means using your course content as a means for exposing students to the real process of science as explicitly as possible. This approach can be taken at all course levels, from introductory science to graduate level courses. In some cases, in fact, you may wish to focus exclusively on the process of science, such as in a research preparation course that prepares undergraduates for summer research or senior thesis research. The examples below cover all of these possibilities, and more.