Professor Heideman  

Courses and Learning Tools

In addition to teaching the courses below, I have a long interest
 in developing tools (see below) to make learning science both easier and faster.  Materials from my workshops on learning for students or on learning and teaching for teachers are available whenever requested.

  Courses Taught  (current)
  1. Memory and Learning: A Practical Guide for Students (Bio 115 -- 1 credit course for freshmen; Summer, Fall, and/or Spring, but usually in Fall semester).  This class includes a mix of cognitive psychology and neuroscience content, and class activities focused on how we experiment on learning and how we learn.  Students should come out of the class knowing how to read and interpret these aspects of the science of learning and be skeptical inquirers into their own learning.
  2. Integrative Biology: Animals (Sophomore-level Biology with laboratory for majors; 4 credits) Bio 302.  This class looks at how animals work, from the chemistry and physics of molecules to behavior and functional ecology, integrating all of these together (sometimes even in a single exam question).
  3. Animal Physiology with laboratory, Bio 432 & grad section Bio 532 (4 credits).  Upper level physiology--an advanced problem-solving and hypothesis oriented class in physiology.
  4. How Students Learn, Bio 455 (Offered each Fall since 2009; also 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.  Click on the course name for the web page with source materials for this course).  A class on learning in relation to teaching for students interested in becoming grades 6-12 teachers in science or mathematics.
  5. Critiquing Biomedical Assumptions, Bio 404 to become Bio 459 (1 credit course for seniors in any natural or physical science or mathematics interested in medicine).  A seminar class with case studies on why and how medical science has gone wrong from 1950 to the present, and how it practicing scientists might detect and prevent such errors sooner.  Topics include ethics, basic biomedical research, clinical research, biomathematics and biophysics, depending upon who is in the class
  6. Writing in the Biological Sciences, Bio 300-08; Writing in Neuroscience, NSCI 300
  7. Laboratory Teaching in Biology, Bio 444 (1 credit)
  8. (last taught in 2010) Principles of Biology: Organisms, Ecology, Evolution (intro bio for majors, 3 credits), Bio 220


  Learning Tools   [Rules for Learning]
For my learning tools (and some thoughts on learning), go to my learning webpage.  That site includes instructions for Minute Sketches and Folded Lists, the two major learning tools.

Go to --> Rules for Learning

Last updated  8/15/2012
College of William and Mary, Department of Biology
pdheid@wm.edu