Genome Consortium for Active Teaching: meeting the goals of BIO2010

The Genome Consortium for Active Teaching (GCAT) facilitates the use of modern genomics methods in undergraduate education. Initially focused on microarray technology, but with an eye toward diversification, GCAT is a community working to improve the education of tomorrow's life science professionals. GCAT participants have access to affordable microarrays, microarray scanners, free software for data analysis, and faculty workshops. Microarrays provided by GCAT have been used by 141 faculty on 134 campuses, including 21 faculty that serve large numbers of underrepresented minority students. An estimated 9480 undergraduates a year will have access to microarrays by 2009 as a direct result of GCAT faculty workshops. Gains for students include significantly improved comprehension of topics in functional genomics and increased interest in research. Faculty reported improved access to new technology and gains in understanding thanks to their involvement with GCAT. GCAT's network of supportive colleagues encourages faculty to explore genomics through student research and to learn a new and complex method with their undergraduates. GCAT is meeting important goals of BIO2010 by making research methods accessible to undergraduates, training faculty in genomics and bioinformatics, integrating mathematics into the biology curriculum, and increasing participation by underrepresented minority students.     

A trio of evaluation and assessment models from pre ICT innovations: Lessons from the past

Three major evaluations of innovative projects designed and implemented in the US during the 1960s and 1970s provide models for the design and analysis of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) projects. Large in scope, sophisticated in design and explicit in reporting, the three evaluations were: an analysis of major factors in “change agent” projects conducted by the Rand Corporation; an evaluation of Follow Through, a program to continue supporting “disadvantaged” children in elementary school; and a multi-year evaluation of the Comprehensive School Mathematics Program, a multi-grade project designed to change mathematics instruction and, at the same time, develop suitable assessment tools. Each of the studies provides a model of how ICT projects, both those in place and those in the design stages, may be evaluated in order that important questions — “What happened?” and “Why?” and “To what effect?” — can be answered. The three evaluations stress the importance of defining project characteristics, working from clearly defined practices, assessing fidelity of implementation, studying the multiple reactions of all the stakeholders, and conducting assessments of pupil progress at appropriate times and with appropriate measures. The models can serve ICT educators as guidelines as they look for complex, meaningful and educationally sound ways of determining the impact of ICT on all stakeholders.     

The development of a conceptual framework and tools to assess undergraduates' principled use of models in cellular biology

Recent science education reform has been marked by a shift away from a focus on facts toward deep, rich, conceptual understanding. This requires assessment that also focuses on conceptual understanding rather than recall of facts. This study outlines our development of a new assessment framework and tool-a taxonomy- which, unlike existing frameworks and tools, is grounded firmly in a framework that considers the critical role that models play in science. It also provides instructors a resource for assessing students' ability to reason about models that are central to the organization of key scientific concepts. We describe preliminary data arising from the application of our tool to exam questions used by instructors of a large-enrollment cell and molecular biology course over a 5-yr period during which time our framework and the assessment tool were increasingly used. Students were increasingly able to describe and manipulate models of the processes and systems being studied in this course as measured by assessment items. However, their ability to apply these models in new contexts did not improve. Finally, we discuss the implications of our results and the future directions for our research.     

How do pre-kindergarteners spend their time? Gender,ethnicity, and income as predictors of experiences in pre-kindergarten classrooms

The current paper considers how children spend their time in state-funded pre-kindergarten programs and how time use relates to ethnicity, gender, and family income, based on the assumption that how time is spent in pre-kindergarten is relevant for the programs’ success in narrowing achievement gaps. Classroom observations of 2061 children in 652 pre-k programs in 11 states were analyzed. Findings indicated that the pre-kindergarten day was roughly equally divided among free choice, teacher-assigned activities, and meals/routines. Children spent much of their time in language/literacy, social studies, and art, and less time in math and gross motor activities. Much of the pre-k day was spent in ‘no coded learning activity.’ Children in classes with lower proportions of Latino and African American children and higher average income-to-need ratios were generally engaged in richer and more stimulating experiences. The child-level variables of ethnicity and income were generally unrelated to how children spent their time, above and beyond the effects of classroom-level ethnicity and income. There were generally small, but significant gender differences – always in the gender-stereotyped direction – in how time was spent, especially during free choice time.     

Moving from outside to inside: High school students' use of apprenticeships as vehicles for entering the culture and practice of science

The purpose of this study was to investigate how research apprenticeships shaped students' views of the culture and practice of science. Twenty‐seven 11th and 12th graders from across the United States and American Samoa participating in a summer research program were interviewed individually three times over 7 weeks. Seven students were selected as a representative focus group, and in addition to interviews, their journals, entrance questionnaires, and exit questionnaires were analyzed for what they revealed about students' ideas of what constituted scientific work, of the research process, of the existence and importance of communities in which they participated, and of the roles they played in these communities. Based on the pattern of student comments and perspectives, we identified four dimensions of scientific practice and culture whose salience and complexity increased and became articulated over the 7‐week period. These dimensions included technical language, collaboration, uncertainty, and inquiry. The learning that took place with regard to these dimensions took place within three program‐embedded communities, which we identified as laboratory‐centered, program‐centered, and peer‐centered. The roles students played in these communities and the degree to which they could make use of resources within them contributed to students' view of scientific practice and culture, and to the development of the identity kits they began to construct of themselves as scientists. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 36: 677–697, 1999     

Teaching and Learning IT in Secondary Schools: Towards a New Pedagogy?

New Technologies, particularly Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs), have caused profound changes throughout society. A generation of children is emerging already immersed in a multimedia 'data storm' (Moshell, 1995). Their understandings and expectations of the world are mediated through their experiences of multimedia and ICTs and these differ from those of preceding generations nourished on linear technologies. Educating these children using models of teaching and learning that are grounded in concepts of knowing and understanding that are linear and finite will not help them succeed in a technological, global future where multi-disciplinary, holistic approaches predominate. The conflict between the traditional and the new in English secondary schools is particularly intense in the teaching and learning of Information Technology (IT). Teaching and learning IT are inherently constructivist activities, and IT teachers who attempt to implement learning programmes designed from predominantly behaviourist perspectives quickly find that these are less effective. A new pedagogy is needed that is theoretically sound, that goes beyond a cookbook approach, and that guides teachers in using constructivist approaches within an education system grounded in an inimical behaviourist paradigm. This paper takes some tentative steps in this direction. © 1999 IFIP, published by Kluwer Academic Publishers