Supporting inspired teaching and learning in the life sciences.

Over the past couple decades lots of companies have come out with brain games that are supposed to increase brain function through training. A recent article in Nature pretty definitively shows that these supposed generalized brain training exercises don't do much of anything, a result that I think might speak to interdisciplinary science teaching as well.

You're probably aware of the TED talks - short talks by interesting people that then get posted to the web. I came across one recently by Sugata Mitra, an Indian professor / educator who did an experiment where he put computers into Indian slums and walked away, with a video camera recording what happened afterwards.

If you haven't seen it already, you should read over this very interesting article in the NY Times last week summarizing research on learning styles for students (your students might be well served to read it as well). The article discusses recent research on what makes for good study habits.

As we look for ideas to improve our SimUText Ecology chapters, I've been digging through literature on how students learn from reading. Last week I found an interesting experiment on the effect of using embedded questions.