Professor Heideman  

How Students Learn

My goal for this site is to provide a steadily expanding set of readings and resources that my students, other students, and teachers can use to help improve student learning.

This site includes selected materials and updates used with my classes from 2009-2012 of prospective teachers and with current teachers in Summer 2010 with support from a Howard Hughes Medical Institute grant through the Undergraduate Biological Sciences Education Program to the College of William and Mary.  Support for this course and the materials has also come from the National Science Foundation, the US Department of Education, and the Jessie Ball DuPont Fund.


  BIO 455 Materials (in development!)
  1. Brief course description
  2. Useful readings and where to find them
  3. Instructions on making and using minute sketches and folded lists (Short version)  (Longer version on designing minute sketches)
  4. Guidelines for teachers on ways to use minute sketches and folded lists in teaching
  5. Use of a minute sketch to recognize and correct a 'surface content with deep content misconception'.  In this case my error--an error that I noticed and corrected because I was trying to design a minute sketch for the concept).  The error was in my conception of the flow of charge through a cell or a wire.
  6. Instructions for 'sketch-mapping' (a modification of mind maps & concept maps using sketches)
  7. Minute sketches and folded lists on the topic of learning and memory (all in one file).  These accompanied course readings and lectures on learning and memory.  These minute sketches and folded lists are not intended to stand alone!  I have a funded grant in progress to develop a free set of readings for this project.
  8. Sample minute sketches and folded lists in mathematics, introductory ecology, introductory molecular cell biology, and other subjects and topics.



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Last updated  10/01/2012
College of William and Mary, Department of Biology
pdheid@wm.edu