Implementation of an Explicit and Reflective Pedagogy in Introductory Biology Laboratories

Students need to reflect on the practice of science to fully understand the nature of science (NOS), which is an important component of scientific literacy. In this paper, the authors describe how to implement an explicit and reflective pedagogy in college science laboratories and share examples from their implementation in a multiple-section introductory biology laboratory. Their experience shows that this technique is not difficult to integrate into current inquiry-based science laboratories and can be successfully implemented by graduate teaching assistants. However, convincing students of the importance of learning about NOS is difficult and may be the most important factor in the effectiveness of this technique. (Contains 1 table.)