2005 Archives
News Archives
2005
Alumni in the News
Lansing Community College has been selected to receive a Phi Theta Kappa award for Best Practices in Science and Math Education. As one of just ten community colleges chosen nationwide, LCC will be honored at the annual meeting of the National Association for Community College Teacher Preparation (NACCTEP) in Atlanta in March 2006. President Cunningham, Dr. Mary Brown and two LCC students will be accepting the award.
Patti Richardson is a high school biology teacher who recently graduated with her MA from the Institute. Patti did a thesis where she studied the effectiveness of a model she personally developed to help students understand the processes by which DNA guides the information of proteins. Her model is now commercially available from Science Kit and Boreal Laboratories. You can read about Patti's model online. Congratulations, Patti!"
Faculty Accolades
Dr. Dave Rudge was an invited speaker for a regional conference on Units of Historical Presentation in the Science Classroom held at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada Dec 9-10, 2005. The title of his talk was "History of Science in the Classroom."
Paster Daniel Cunningham, Larry Oppliger and Bishop James Bailey, members of the social action group ISAAC, were featured in the Kalamazoo Gazette on September 24, 2005. Dr. Oppliger is a retired professor and former Chair of the Department of Science Studies.
News from a MISE Alunmus
Dr. Eric Howe, who graduated from the Institute in 2004, has had a paper accepted for publication by Science & Education. The paper is titled, "Untangling Sickle-Cell Anemia and the Teaching of Heterozygote Protection" and is due out in early 2007. Eric, congratulations!
Faculty News
Congratulations to Dr. Bill Cobern who was named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science!
Student News
Uric Geer recently presented a paper at the Twelfth Annual American Association of Teachers for Curriculum Conference, Austin, TX, October 5-8, 2005:
- Contemporary Educational Reforms and Their Paucity of Ecological Concern
- Standards-based educational reforms and their implicit views of reality will be explored in this paper. It will be shown such reforms do not promote an adequate consideration of issues pertaining to ecological sustainability as a result of those views.
The Institute is pleased to announce that Patrick Meyer successfully defended his doctoral dissertation research on October 21, 2005. His topic was:
Welcome & Farewell
The Institute welcomes its newest member this fall, Dr. Herb Fynewever, Chemistry Education.
We also bid goodbye to Dr. Aletta Zietsman-Thomas, Physics Education, who has returned to her home in South Africa.
Recent MISE publications and conference papers :
Henderson, C. (2005). "The challenges of instructional change under the best of circumstances: A case study of one college physics instructor." American Journal of Physics (Physics Education Research Section), 73 (8), 778-786. More...
Rudge, D. W. (2005). Life Science for Elementary Educators I, Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, Dubuque, IA [ISBN: 0-7575-1863-X].
And,
Eric Howe (a former graduate student of our program and currently a faculty member at Assumption College) and Dave Rudge each made presentations this past July at a joint conference of the International History, Philosophy and Science Teaching Group and the British Society for History of Science that was held in Leeds, England. The titles are:
Howe, E. "Untangling Sickle-cell Anemia and the Discovery of Heterozygote Protection."
Rudge, D. "H.B.D. Kettlewell's Research 1937-1953: The Influence of E.B. Ford, E.A. Cockayne and P.M. Sheppard."
Alumni in the news!
Dr. Rob Keys (2004) of Cornerstone University was mentioned in the May 2005 MSTA Newsletter. MSTA commented on Bob's MSTA conference presentation on using inquiry-based methods to improve student learning about cells.
Our congratulations go out to Dr. Melissa Howse-Willard (2003) who has just accepted a full-time permanent teaching position with Lake Michigan College.
Way to go, Bob and Missy!
Bios 170 Students Participate in Poster Fair
Students Win Departmental Awards
Dr. Renee' Schwartz of MISE recently took part in the symposia at the National Association for Research in Science Teaching and at the American Education Research Association meetings.
Renee' Schwartz and Norm Lederman authored "What scientists say: scientists views of models and modeling." The paper was presented during the April 4-8, 2005, NARST symposium entitled "International views of learning about models and modeling in science", in Dallas, Texas.
Renee' Schwartz & Norm Lederman also presented in Montreal, Canada, at the April 11-15, 2005, AERA symposium entitled "International views of research on learning about models and modeling in science".
Congratulations on recent publications:
Howe, E. M. & Rudge, D.W. (2005) Recapitulating the History of Sickle-Cell Anemia Research: Improving Students' NOS Views Explicitly and Reflectively. Science & Education 14(3-5): 423-441.
Rudge, D.W. (2005) Did Kettlewell Commit Fraud? Re-examining the Evidence. Public Understanding of Science 14(3): 249-268.Rudge, D.W. (2005) The Beauty of Kettlewell's Classic Experimental emonstration of Natural Selection. BioScience 55(4): 369-375 -invited essay.
Clement, J., Zietsman, A. & Monaghan, J. (2005). Imagery in science learning in students and experts. In John K. Gilbert, (Ed.) Visualization in science education. London: Springer.
In March, Dr. Cobern was the guest of the Swedish Association for Science Education. During his week in Sweden he gave lectures at the Stockholm Institute for Education and at Uppsala University, and was the plenary speaker for the annual meeting of the Swedish Association for Science Education, which met at the University of Karlstadt. Dr. Cobern's lectures were based on his cultural studies research regarding worldview and the teaching and learning of science.
In January, several Institute members presented papers at the 2005 Association for the Education of Teachers in Science conference held at Colorado Springs, Colorado.
- Drs. Marcia Fetters and Paul Vellom presented their work on "Developing electronic portfolios: Models, benefits, limitations and strategies."
- Dr. Fetters also presented a paper titled, "'Hey - this would work for any student.' Moving past making inclusion and equity the topic of a day in the syllabus and toward a framework for science teacher education."
- Dr. Vellom, in cooperation with colleagues from Education and Engineering, presented on, "An Engineering Education/Teacher Education Collaboration: Building Bridges Between Disciplines."
- Dr. Renee Schwartz, along with Dr. Norman Lederman of the Illinois Institute of Technology, presented her work on "But what do scientists say? Scientists' views of nature of science."
Later this spring, Institute members will also be reporting their research at the annual meetings of the American Education Research Association and National Association for Research in Science Teaching.
Congratulations goes to Dr. David W. Rudge of the Institute! Dr. Rudge has been selected by the Michigan Science Teachers Association Awards Committee as a Finalist for the 2005 MSTA College Teacher of the Year. Please join us as we commend Dr. Rudge for his efforts both inside and outside of the classroom.
Institute Professor Contributes to Book on Natural Disasters
Dr. Robert Poel Retires: 
Dr. Robert Poel, professor emeritus of science education, officially retired January 2 following 34 1/2 years of service to the University. The longtime director of the Center for Science Education was recognized at a reception Thursday, February 3, 2005, at The Oaklands on WMU's campus. Dr. Poel began his career at Western in 1966 as a graduate student and was the second person to receive a Ph.D. in science education from Western Michigan University. He became a board appointed faculty member in 1970. In the mid 1980's, Bob was granted a sabbatical to serve as a science education resource person with the Teacher-Text-Technology Project of the U.S. Information Agency in Liberia, West Africa. In 1988 he was appointed Director of WMU’s Center for Science Education. A successful researcher, Bob brought to the University over 4 million dollars in research projects. One of these projects was the precursor to the Center’s successful science workshop/course program where over 6,000 graduate students and in-service teachers and 100 school districts have been served. He was the recipient of the Distinguished Community Service Award in 2002 and the Arts and Sciences Alumni Award in 2004. While Dr. Poel is now officially retired, we are pleased to report that he plans to continue his work in science education by serving as a consultant to The Mallinson Institute, its faculty and the University in general.