Intervention research that supported the benefit of students' construction of relevance through writing has commonly defined relevance narrowly as utility value -- perceived instrumentality of the content to the student's career goals. In comparison, we employed a broad multidimensional conception of relevance. We also investigated how the content…

Evolution is a unifying theory in biology and is challenging for undergraduates to learn. An instructor's ability to help students learn is influenced by pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), which is topic-specific knowledge of teaching and learning. Instructors need PCK for every topic they teach, which is a tremendous body of knowledge to…

Presented is a discussion of recent evidence on the evolution of human forms on earth gathered and evaluated using mitochondrial DNA techniques. Theories regarding the possibility that a common female ancestor existed in Africa about 200,000 years ago are discussed. A list of teaching aids is provided. (CW)