Genetics is one of the key foundational subjects for all biology majors and also one of the most challenging for students to learn. A deep understanding of genetics requires students to understand processes that are invisible to the naked eye, master technical jargon, and think mathematically. Many recent national reports have challenged science educators to develop courses that promote a deeper understanding of core biological concepts by adopting teaching approaches that are evidence-based and student-centered instead of asking students to memorize isolated facts. As teaching techniques in genetics classrooms change, college instructors often struggle to determine if their changes lead to increased student learning. This project, when completed, will provide tools, called concept inventories (CI), needed for educators to determine the level of student understanding and misunderstanding of several core genetics concepts, such as the nature of mutations and how genes interact in a living system. These tools can be used by faculty to determine the teaching methods and classroom practices that best suit the needs of their students. This project aims to improve how biological sciences are learned and taught in college to meet the nation?s need for more and better educated graduates in the biological sciences.
Although multiple broad-spectrum genetics concept tests exist, the intellectual merit of this project is to develop several new concept inventories focused on a range of sub-topics. The project will include faculty and students from community colleges, R1, regional, and small private schools across the country. The first stage will be to gather student responses to open ended questions that require deep understanding of mutations, pedigrees, epistasis, epigenetics, and polygenic inheritance. The second stage will be to develop multiple choice assessments that include student misconceptions that were identified as possible answers in the open-ended responses. The third stage will administer the concept inventories in multiple classrooms across the country to determine whether the concept inventories address the stated course learning objectives, perform similarly in different settings, and can distinguish between high and low performing students. The completed concept inventories will enable instructors to more easily develop and evaluate specific teaching strategies and precisely address misconceptions within each classroom. This project has the potential to positively affect how hundreds of instructors teach genetics and to improve the genetics understanding of thousands of students for years to come.
This project is being jointly funded by the Genetic Mechanisms Program in the Directorate for Biological Sciences, Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences and the Directorate for Education and Human Resources, Division of Undergraduate Education as part of their efforts to address the challenges posed in Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education: A Call to Action (http://visionandchange.org/finalreport/).
