Education Commons^™

Evolution Of Women’S Consciousness: Toward Integral Consciousness, Katherine T. Ziemke

Journal of Conscious Evolution

This article presents research materials which demonstrate historical consciousness for women of ancient European descent, the cultural heritage of the author. Awareness is examined from various historical angles in a transdisciplinary approach to the work. I explore the possibility that women’s historical and continued oppression may be a sign of the disintegration of the mental and a re-emergence of the integral structure of consciousness. A broad examination of women’s historical roles and corresponding thought shows how ancient consciousness may be used to accelerate a path toward integral consciousness today. Finally, this essay proposes that women’s historical consciousness and primordial memories …

Challenges And Opportunities In Teaching Interdisciplinary Courses On Islam And Evolution: A Theology-Centric Perspective, Shoaib Ahmed Malik

All Works

In the nascent discourse of Islam and science, the discussion of how to reconcile evolution with Islam is one of the most, if not the most, pressing concerns. This article reviews the various studies that have looked at the reception of evolution in multiple contexts to highlight the pedagogical challenges that materialise for Muslim students and teachers. It argues that, while recognising the obstacles and challenges mentioned in other studies, the crucial subject matter of Islamic theology (ʿaqīda) is not fully appreciated in those analyses. How and why theology is a vital discussion matter is examined, along with the benefits …

Deconstructing Consciousness In Art, Leila Kincaid

Journal of Conscious Evolution

To the extent that art mirrors consciousness, what does the art of any age have to tell us about where we are as a species and civilization? In this paper, I suggest that modern and postmodern art reveal the tendency toward deconstruction, of our identities, as selves, as cultures, as a civilization. Through this process of deconstruction, there is a space offered to us through the experience of art, of freedom to recreate ourselves, our identities, and our sense of purpose and meaning in the cosmos. Grounding the inquiry in texts from various authors in the field of art history …

Mixed Method Analysis Of Undergraduate Student Interpretation Of Different Phylogenetic Trees, Faith Frings

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Phylogenetic trees are common tools used to visualize evolutionary concepts such as historical patterns of ancestry, divergence of species, and descent of species. However, students have misconceptions when reading these abstract diagrams. The purpose of this study was to compare student performance and evolutionary thinking when using two styles of phylogenetic trees: cladograms and phylograms. The study also assessed the validity of a hierarchal theoretical framework evaluating student phylogenetic tree interpretation. Introductory biology students from two research universities were assigned to two groups, one solely given assessments with phylograms, and one solely given assessments with cladograms. One-on-one student interviews were …

The Understanding Of Mycorrhizae Networks: A Historical Approach, Jake Sun

The Confluence

The growth of mycorrhizal fungi into plant roots used to be viewed as a parasitic relationship between plants and fungi, where the fungal symbiont benefits and the plant host is harmed. Current research elucidates a mutualistic relationship. The mycorrhizae network assists the plants by increasing the capabilities for nutrient absorption in the soil. In exchange, the fungi receive carbon supply from the photosynthetic plants for growth. Our scientific understanding of other topics like species specificity, seed germination, and co-evolutionary influence of mycorrhizae and plants has also progressed. Additionally, we now understand that the mycorrhizal mutualism is not limited to the …

The Effects Of Scientific Inquiry Methodologies On Student Understanding Of Evolution, Rachel Downing

Masters of Arts in Education Action Research Papers

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of a scientific inquiry-based curriculum on student understanding of evolution. The study involves students ages 15-17 enrolled in a general biology course at a large suburban high school in the United States. This unit uses various scientific inquiry methods, including student-led group work and technology-based virtual labs. The researcher used several data collection methods, including a pre-and post-unit assessment and student surveys. The goal was to use the data to assess student learning and student preference of inquiry activity. The results suggest that the unit successfully addressed student misconceptions regarding …

Evolutionary Theory: Establishing Positive Learning Environments, Lawrence C. Scharmann

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

A simple but effective technique for self-assessing readiness to teach a particular topic is to explicitly reflect on the student questions, ‘Why do I need toknow this stuff?’ and ‘What’s in it for me?’ Faced with these questions, real or implied, instructional decisions should be made to better address and reflect the needs of target learners. If the teacher’s response does not have sufficient perceived relevance to the target learner, students find it quite easy to dismiss the ‘stuff’ as unimportant – something to be memorised for a test and forgotten. Preparation to teach evolution often carries with it an …

From The Dark Margins To The Spotlight: The Evolution Of Gastronomy And Food Studies In Ireland, Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire

Books/Book Chapters

For many years, food was seen as too quotidian and belonging to the domestic sphere, and therefore to women, which excluded it from any serious study or consideration in academia. This chapter tracks the evolution of gastronomy and food studies in Ireland. It charts the development of gastronomy as a cultural field, originally in France, to its emergence as an academic discipline with a particular Irish inflection. It details the progress that food history and culinary education have made in Ireland, suggesting that a new liberal / vocational model of culinary education, which commenced in 1999, has helped transform the …

An Evaluation Of College Preparedness On Natural Selection Principles Following The Completion Of An Entry-Level Biology Course, Amy Bell

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

Evolution education in secondary education has long been a topic of research. The level of knowledge and acceptance of students upon entering college has been studied using various methods; however, no study had provided the perception of preparedness from the student perspective nor had analyzed the individual Natural Selection principles. This study analyzed college freshmen (n=162) in an entry-level BIO 101 course. Participants were given the Conceptual Inventory of Natural Selection Instrument (CINSI) and perception survey questions upon completion of the course. The CINSI data was then analyzed for each of the four Natural Selection principles as well as …

Paradigm Shift In The Surgical Training: The Era Of Innovation, Simulation And Beyond, Syed Shahabuddin, Shiraz Hashmi, Yasir Khan, Shahid Ahmed Sami

Section of Cardiothoracic Surgery

This is an era of transformation of surgical education and training. Modern methods of training are being introduced at a rapid pace and are being adopted in surgical practice not only to improve the outcomes and patient satisfaction, but also to provide an opportunity to develop a new well-structured training curriculum by integrating both traditional and modern approaches to teach and learn surgical skills. Various surgical simulators are in use as training aids and are constantly undergoing further refinement and development. To achieve a smooth transition in surgical training to modern methods, a structured programme has to be developed and …

Evolutionary Theory In Applied Problem-Solving, Lawrence C. Scharmann

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Biology’s quest to be considered a mature science was initiated by Charles Darwin with the publication of On the Origin of Species2 in 1859. Naturalists quickly endorsed Darwin’s explanation for the relationships between similar species (i.e., common ancestry). Nonetheless, one of the arguments posed against evolution was that its supposed mechanism of action – namely natural selection – was considered conjecture at best since Darwin provided little in the way of evidence to support how natural selection might actually work. It was not until the 1930s when geneticists T.H. Morgan, Theodosius Dobzhansky, Ernst Mayr, and G. Gaylord Simpson noted that …

The History, Evolution, And Trends Of Academic Dishonesty: A Literature Review, Amy Zachek

The Nebraska Educator: A Student-Led Journal

Academic dishonesty is a murky problem without a commonly agreed upon solution in American higher education. It has a long-standing history in higher education but a short history in academic literature, it has evolved rapidly and longitudinally (McCabe & Trevino, 1996), and it has several easily apparent trends and others that the majority of researchers are in disagreement about. While traversing this perilous landscape of dichotomies, this paper will examine connections and gaps in the literature, make suggestions and recommendations for future study based off of these results, and examine the implications that these recommendations could have on higher education …

Biblical Worldview Development While Learning Origins Science, Charleton Dean King

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this hermeneutic phenomenology was to understand the lived experience of how homeschooled high school students integrate origins science into a biblical worldview. For this study, biblical worldview development is the process of faith development in either form or content through an individual’s understanding and application of the Bible. The theoretical framework guiding this study is Fowler’s faith development theory as it relates an individual’s physical, mental, and moral growth to the development of their worldview. This study sought to answer the following research question: how do homeschooled high school students integrate origins science into a biblical worldview? …

Mechanical Composition Of The Mountain Brown Soil (On The Example Of Soils Of The Chatkal State Biosphere Reserve), Malika Alimovna Aliboeva, Zafarjon Abdukarimovich Jabbarov, Mashkura Fazliddinovna Faxrutdinova

Bulletin of Gulistan State University

In the article, mountain-brown soils differ from other soils in their development, genesis, evolution, chemical properties, especially mechanical composition, as well as many other properties and characteristics. These soils are considered as a key factor in their separation from soils, especially with their rockiness, humus content, carbonates, and rock distribution. The results obtained from the point of view of mechanical composition state that mountain brown soils are soils with medium and heavy mechanical composition. The specific gravity of these soils is 2.50–2.78g/cm3, and we see that this indicator is not high in the upper soil layers. In mountain brown soils, …

Mechanical Composition Of The Mountain Brown Soil (On The Example Of Soils Of The Chatkal State Biosphere Reserve), Malika Alimovna Aliboeva, Zafarjon Abdukarimovich Jabbarov, Mashkura Fazliddinovna Faxrutdinova

Bulletin of Gulistan State University

In the article, mountain-brown soils differ from other soils in their development, genesis, evolution, chemical properties, especially mechanical composition, as well as many other properties and characteristics. These soils are considered as a key factor in their separation from soils, especially with their rockiness, humus content, carbonates, and rock distribution. The results obtained from the point of view of mechanical composition state that mountain brown soils are soils with medium and heavy mechanical composition. The specific gravity of these soils is 2.50–2.78g/cm3, and we see that this indicator is not high in the upper soil layers. In mountain brown soils, …

The Stories Of Middle School Science Teachers’ Teaching Evolution: A Narrative Inquiry, Victoria L. Klahn

CUP Ed.D. Dissertations

Avoidance of the theory of evolution occurs in science classrooms due to levels of dissonance from challenges that persist in the United States from conflicting worldviews and a lack of support regarding the topic of evolution. The purpose of this qualitative study with a narrative inquiry design was to explore the stories of science teachers teaching evolution in middle schools. This study adopted a qualitative method with a narrative inquiry design. Participants were 10 public middle school science teachers with at least 10 years of science teaching experience in urban, suburban, and rural areas of the Pacific Northwest. The central …

Teaching Natural And Artificial Selection In Production Agriculture, Madhav P. Nepal, Clayton W. Scott

iLEARN Teaching Resources

In this lesson, students will learn how natural selection and artificial selection impact both production agriculture and biological sciences. A natural selection is a mechanism that favors heritable traits that increase species survival and reproduction. Artificial selection is a selective breeding, where humans select for desirable traits in agricultural products.

S2e4: Can Studying Extinct Species Prepare Us For The Future?, Ron Lisnet, Jacquelyn Gill

The Maine Question

We visit with paleoecologist Jacquelyn Gill. She studies plants and animals that have been gone a long time- sometimes millions of years. She also studies our natural world today with the goal of trying to understand how and why some species have gone extinct while others have survived and what it means for how we and our planet adapt to the rapidly changing world we find ourselves in.

Insights Into Nature Of Science And Evolution Education, Lawrence C. Scharmann

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

While the public misunderstanding of evolution is in part due to religious and political motives, it is also a result of didactic teaching. Dr Lawrence C. Scharmann, Professor of Education at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, specialises in science teacher education. He has been working with non-major biology and science teacher students developing strategies to enhance the teaching and learning of science theories, and in particular, evolution. Many secondary school students and undergraduates hold a dualistic worldview. This leads them to create dichotomies, albeit false ones, such as right vs wrong and science vs religion. These can obstruct their learning science …

Dare We Speak Of It: The Teaching Of Evolution In Private Schools Of An Urban Middle Georgia Setting, Eric J. Thompson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions, experience, and thinking of teachers at three private schools in Middle Georgia to determine how different private schools approach the teaching of evolution. For this project three private schools were included representing a secular, non-religiously affiliated private school, a Catholic affiliated private school, and an independent, Christian private school. The research was designed to answer one research question and three sub-questions. The primary research question was: How do private schools of the Middle Georgia area teach the theory of evolution? The three sub-questions were (2) Does the type of …

Traffic Noise And Sexual Selection: Studies Of Anthropogenic Impact On Bird Songs And Undergraduate Student Reasoning Of Evolutionary Mechanisms, Sarah Spier

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Humans have transformed much of the natural landscape and are continuing to do so at an accelerated rate, compromising natural areas that serve as important habitat for many species. Roads impact much of the environment as they fragment habitat and introduce traffic noise into the acoustic environment, deferentially affecting wildlife in roadside habitat. I explored how traffic noise affects the detection of birds based on whether their vocalizations were masked by traffic noise. Masked species detection was not affected by an increase in traffic noise amplitude, while there was a negative effect of traffic noise amplitude on unmasked species detection, …

Traffic Noise And Sexual Selection: Studies Of Anthropogenic Impact On Bird Songs And Undergraduate Student Reasoning Of Evolutionary Mechanisms, Sarah Spier

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Humans have transformed much of the natural landscape and are continuing to do so at an accelerated rate, compromising natural areas that serve as important habitat for many species. Roads impact much of the environment as they fragment habitat and introduce traffic noise into the acoustic environment, deferentially affecting wildlife in roadside habitat. I explored how traffic noise affects the detection of birds based on whether their vocalizations were masked by traffic noise. Masked species detection was not affected by an increase in traffic noise amplitude, while there was a negative effect of traffic noise amplitude on unmasked species detection, …

Postsecondary Students’ Perceptions Toward Accepting And Understanding Biological Evolution: A Qualitative Metasynthesis, Erin Childress

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative meta-synthesis is the exploration and analysis of postsecondary students’ perceptions towards accepting and understanding evolution. Evolution as a process and theory is a foundation for understanding the biological sciences. Within the scientific and educational communities, evolution is a central theme tying the fabric of the biological sciences together. A three-tiered analysis was used to determine postsecondary students’ perceptions towards accepting and understanding evolution. This meta-synthesis analysis was guided by the following research questions: (1) What perceived conflicts do post-secondary students face when learning about evolution? and (2) Based on post-secondary students’ perspectives, how do personal …

Promoting Tolerance Through Learning About Human Evolution And Creation Myths, Afsoon Alishahi

Doctoral Dissertations

The role that religion plays in the lives of humans is complex, contradictory, and deeply impactful. According to Allport (1979), religion has a paradoxical function in that it can either combat or contribute to prejudice. A meta-analysis by Hall, Matz, and Wood (2010) found a significant correlation between being deeply religious and having racial prejudice. Similarly, many social scientific studies since 1940 have concluded that religious individuals are more prejudiced than less religious individuals (Hunsberger & Jackson, 2005).

Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine whether gaining knowledge about human evolution, creation myths, and their relationship to religious …

The Nature Of Science As A Foundation For Fostering A Better Understanding Of Evolution, Craig E. Nelson, Lawrence C. Scharmann, Jean Beard, Lawrence I. Flammer

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Misunderstandings of the nature of science (NOS) contribute greatly to resistance to evolutionary theory especially among non-scientific audiences. Here we delineate three extended instructional examples that make extensive use of NOS to establish a foundation upon which to more successfully introduce evolution. Specifically, these instructional examples enable students to consider evolutionary biology using NOS as a lens for interpretation of evolutionary concepts. We have further found, through our respective research efforts and instructional experiences, that a deep understanding of NOS helps students understand and accept the scientific validity of evolution and, conversely, that evolution provides an especially effective context for …

Concept Inventories As A Resource For Teaching Evolution, Robert E. Furrow, Jeremy L. Hsu

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

Understanding evolution is critical to learning biology, but few college instructors take advantage of the body of peer-reviewed literature that can inform evolution teaching and assessment. Here we summarize the peer-reviewed papers on tools to assess student learning of evolutionary concepts. These published concept inventories provide a resource for instructors to design courses, gauge student preparation, identify key misconceptions in their student population, and measure the impact of a lesson, course, or broader curriculum on student learning. Because these inventories vary in their format, target audience, and degree of validation, we outline and explain these features. In addition to summarizing …

Christian High School Science Teachers' Perspective Transformation: The Journey From Evolution To Creation, Paul Leslie Thorpe

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this hermeneutical phenomenology study was to explore and describe the perspective transformations of 11 science instructors teaching at Christian high schools. These science teachers previously believed the evolutionary paradigm of origins. However, they have all experienced a transformation and now hold a young-earth creation perspective and believe the literal six-day creation event in the book of Genesis is accurate and true. Transformation of perspective regarding origins is defined as a phenomenon of transformative faith accompanied by assimilation and accommodation of new knowledge as seen through the lens of Jack Mezirow’s (1991) transformative adult learning theory, and James …

Evolution And Nature Of Science Instruction: A First-Person Account Of Changes In Evolution Instruction Throughout A Career, Lawrence C. Scharmann

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

In this article, I provide an analysis of my work (1985–present) with non-major biology students and science teacher candidates in developing strategies for teaching and enhancing learning with respect to evolutionary science. This first-person account describes changes in evolution instruction over the course of a career based on personal experiences, research-informed practices, and a critical collaboration with colleague Mike U. Smith. I assert four insights concerning the influence and efficacy of teaching nature of science (NOS) prior to the introduction of evolution within college courses for science non-majors and science teacher candidates. These insights are: (a) teach explicit NOS principles …

The Effect Of An Historical Geology Course On Students’ Attitudes Towards Science And Their Knowledge Of Deep Time As A Threshold To Their Knowledge Of Evolution, Allan Nolan

Dissertations

In America there exists a conflict between a small group of its citizens and the concept of evolution. Researchers have studied this conflict and the ways in which teachers might approach educational methodologies that not only address evolution in a sensitive manner, but also remain legally acceptable.

This research was designed to address teaching evolution in the context of deep time – the concept that time is vast and that geology and biology operate in a timescale of hundreds of millions to billions of years. In previous peer-reviewed works, it has been stated that deep time acts as a threshold …

Panpsychism And J.R.R. Tolkien: Exploring A Universal Psyche In The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, And The Lord Of The Rings, Sheppard-Goodlett, Lisa R.

Journal of Conscious Evolution

An informal exploration of the concept of panpsychism in three of J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy works, The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings trilogy, by using multiple consciousness theories from prominent consciousness authors. Plotlines, character compositions, and physical and mental interactions between individuals and entities are examined through multi-faceted panpsychic consciousness lenses. Those lenses include consciousness as a “stream,” integrality, evolutionary emergence of consciousness in all life forms, numinosity, liminality, the mythical trickster, major consciousness themes, precognitive and lucid dreaming, removal of self-identity through separation and burial, inner work, plurality and conflict, and enlightenment and synergism.