Two professors from the College of Science and Technology at Southern Arkansas University recently presented papers at professional meetings in Oklahoma and Kentucky.
Dr. Rudolph Eichenberger, professor of physics, presented a paper at the recent Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Kansas regional meeting of the American Association of Physics Teachers held in Oklahoma City, Okla.
Eichenberger’s work was “Adding activities to astronomy lecture” and included an explanation of 15 different astronomy practices that provide students with involvement of data gathering and hand-on manipulations of experiments and demonstrations in lecture periods of a senior-level astronomy course.
The active learning exercises have been shown to improve student interest and provide basic learning by students being able to see physical reality phenomena that relate to basic cosmology.
Eichenberger, chair of the Department of Physical Sciences and Technology at SAU, is also the Arkansas Four-Year College representative on the board of the regional organization.
Dr. Joe Winstead, dean of the College of Science and Technology and professor of biology, presented a paper at the 91st annual meeting of the Kentucky Academy of Science in Richmond, Ky.
His talk, given in the science education section of the academy, centered upon the assessment of “Misconceptions of biological principles by first-year university students and use in introductory biology course assessments.”
An analysis of 10 pre-course questions given to several hundred students indicates a general misconception of the process of cellular respiration and the role of photosynthesis, but an overwhelming number of the same students polled show an affirmative agreement concerning the fact of evolutionary process.
The results indicate topics of emphasis that maybe used in secondary school science classes to better prepare students entering science courses at colleges and universities. As an assessment of course-learning goals, the questions can be tracked and imbedded through modification in later testing to measure student performance at the end of the course.
A past president of the Academy, this meeting was Winstead’s 35th consecutive appearance and his 43rd presentation at this particular organization’s annual meetings.
