Wood garners contract for teaching strategies book

     PRESQUE ISLE – A professor of biology at the University of Maine at Presque Isle has garnered a contract from a major science publisher to write a book on lecture-free teaching strategies.     Dr. Bonnie Wood, a fulltime faculty member since 1989, will have her book, “Lecture-Free Teaching: A Learning Partnership of Science Educators and Their Students,” published in 2009 by NSTA [National Science Teachers Association] Press.
    The process began in the early summer of 2007 when Wood submitted a comprehensive, 50-page book proposal to NSTA Press. After responding to detailed comments and suggestions from two outside reviewers who were hired to evaluate the proposal, the director of NSTA Press awarded her a contract last fall. Wood will work full-time to write the book during the summer of 2008 and during a fall 2008 sabbatical leave.
    Lecture-free teaching, a term Wood coined in 2001, describes the methods she designed and uses in all of the science courses she teaches at the University. During class meetings, students participate in activities as members of cooperative learning groups and employ the scientific process to develop hypotheses, and then design and perform course-related experiments.
    According to Wood, the book will be a practical guide to lecture-free teaching for both experienced science educators – whose goal is to gradually revise their teaching methods – and also for pre-service and new teachers who are just beginning their careers. The chapters, each of which can be used independently, describe how to transform a traditional science lecture class with a separate laboratory into an active learning, inquiry-based format with a constantly evolving, but coherent, curriculum.
    “Although many science educators now recognize the benefits of breaking away from traditional lectures and cookbook-style labs, most do not have the time or confidence to independently tackle the task of modifying their courses,” Wood said. “This book not only will provide guidance on redesigning a course to become partially or fully lecture-free, but also will include a sample course pack to be used by readers.”