I am looking for phylogenetic biologists to participate in a
study I am conducting for my dissertation. I hope to improve
the teaching of systematic and evolutionary biology by having
students solve realistic problems of phylogenetic inference.
My study, which examines how experts solve these problems,
will be useful for developing curricula and instructional
materials. If you agree to participate, I will ask you to
volunteer about four hours of your time to become familiar
with the software I am using and to draw a series of
phylogenetic trees using coded and polarized data that I will
provide.
I'm looking for people who regularly perform phylogenetic
studies as part of their research. It would be particularly
helpful to find people who are close to Michigan and in
groups. If you and a group of colleagues are engaged in this
work, please help me recruit them so that I can stretch my
extremely limited travel budget. I know that everyone is
short on time and nervous about making commitments, but this
is a way that you can directly help improve how systematics
is taught to non-majors.
Although I can't offer any direct compensation, you may keep
the software we use for teaching purposes, if you like. In
addition, this may be an opportunity for you to think about
your teaching in a way you haven't considered before.
Finally, if you find our work interesting, we are setting up
a long-term project that will use this study as a foundation:
We are looking for people who would be willing to collaborate
in creating a microworld that students could explore that is
composed of multiple data sources. We think that this
project has the potential to be a powerful tool for teaching
systematics and evolutionary biology.
To find out more and/or volunteer, please call me (616-387-
7638) or send me some email (brewer at cs.wmich.edu). You can
also check out our website to find out more:
http://141.218.91.93/PIGuide/piguide.html
The newest version of PI (1.5b) has also been uploaded to all
of the major Macintosh FTP sites
--
Steve Brewer <brewer at cs.wmich.edu> | Se iu diras 'Mi havas korpon,' oni
http://141.218.91.93/WWW/I_sbrewer.html | povas demandi 'Kiu parolas tie ^ci
Science Studies WMU Kalamazoo MI 49008 | per tiu ^ci bu^so?' --Wittgenstein
