Dawn Meredith

Educator

University of New Hampshire

Department of Physics

Pedagogical Methods Used

Peer Instruction / Think-Pair-Share, Collaborative problem-solving, Conceptually-oriented activities, Guided inquiry, Mathematically-focused activities, Experimentally-focused activities, Tutorials

Life Sciences Focus

The course I teach is for a wide variety of life science majors, so I do not have a particular topic focus in my teaching, other than topics that have many connections to biology. I am drawn to writing problems that use detailed models (for an intro course) for things such as human voice production, countercurrent exchanges, and the random model walk of diffusion. I have more expertise in physiological applications than in cellular applications.

Education Research and Pedagogy Expertise

Qualitative and quantitative classroom studies using the resources framework: looking for student cognitive resources on which students can build.

Describe the courses that you teach for life sciences students

We have one introductory physics course for all the life science students (plus a handful of IT students). This is an algebra based course that students typically take in their sophomore and junior years, and we do not have any chemistry or biology prerequisites, so we cannot assume any prior biological knowledge.

What is your approach to teaching physics for life science students?

There are three skills I’d like the students to take away, as they are universally useful and easier to teach in a physics context than a biological one. One is the ability to connect meaning and mathematics; to see that an equation tells a story and is not just a request for a number. The second is the ability to reason mechanistically, to take a set of conditions and decide if related quantities increase, decrease or stay the same, based on fundamental principles. The third is for the students to use physics models to explain how physics constrains and enables life