Teaching for genetics literacy in the post-genomic era

Research in genetics and genomics is advancing at a fast pace, and thus keeping up with the most recent findings and conclusions can be very challenging. At the same time these recent findings and conclusions have made necessary a reconceptualization of genes and heredity, both in science and in science education, beyond the mostly gene-centred view of the twentieth century. The teaching of genetics at schools should have a key role in helping students achieve genetics literacy. However, the literature on research in genetics education reports persistent difficulties and misunderstandings. We first consider the public understanding of and the attitudes towards genetics. Then, we review the most recent literature and present the most typical conceptions found among secondary students in various countries, ages and backgrounds. We argue that particular factors such as intuitive thinking, teachers, textbooks, and the media affect students’ development of erroneous or outdated ideas related to genetics. Finally, we suggest how these problems might be addressed in order for genetics teaching at the secondary level to fulfil the aim of contributing to students’ genetics literacy in the current post-genomic era.     

Fragmentation and Interrogation as an Approach to Integration

This article tracks the generative role of research and fragmentation as a means for integrating technology and form within an architecture technology lecture class and a co‐requisite design studio. The complexity of teaching building systems integration within a design studio context is achieved by removing any expectation of building design completion on a comprehensive scale. Typically, in a comprehensive studio, students will design an entire building at a general scale, but at the expense of detailed technical design. However, with use of building fragments, students will design a building corner or a structural bay in great detail while leaving the rest of the building less developed. With our approach, integration occurs through interrogation of case‐study buildings and student projects in the technical course which is complemented by a series of fragmental design studies in the studio. We propose that designing fragments encourages constructive thinking at multiple scales rather than design as a singular problem solving process. As a result, design is not seen as the creation of objects, but as the guidance of multiple, simultaneously acting forces into an integrated assembly. The co‐requisite technical course also embraces fragmentation for research purposes: three professors provide three different technical (structures, environment and construction) and conceptual viewpoints for three distinct building pairs. Various forces within those building pairs are compared to illuminate strategic thinking for comprehensive building design. The intense focus on selective technical systems within these building pairs is intended to support the same development of integrative strategic thinking in the studio.     

Toward Integration: From Quantitative Biology to Mathbio-Biomath?

In response to the call of BIO2010 for integrating quantitative skills into undergraduate biology education, 30 Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Program Directors at the 2006 HHMI Program Directors Meeting established a consortium to investigate, implement, develop, and disseminate best practices resulting from the integration of math and biology. With the assistance of an HHMI-funded mini-grant, led by Karl Joplin of East Tennessee State University, and support in institutional HHMI grants at Emory and University of Delaware, these institutions held a series of summer institutes and workshops to document progress toward and address the challenges of implementing a more quantitative approach to undergraduate biology education. This report summarizes the results of the four summer institutes (2007–2010). The group developed four draft white papers, a wiki site, and a listserv. One major outcome of these meetings is this issue of CBE—Life Sciences Education, which resulted from proposals at our 2008 meeting and a January 2009 planning session. Many of the papers in this issue emerged from or were influenced by these meetings.     

Training on the project: a quantifying approach to competence development

In the project ‘Competence-Driven Project Portfolio Analysis’ (CDPPA), an integrated system for supporting R&D project selection, staff assignment and activity scheduling with special consideration of the strategic development of competencies has been designed and implemented prototypically. The system has been field-tested at the Electronic Commerce Competence Center (EC3), a public–private partnership R&D enterprise. Experiences from this trial application are summarised and discussed, particularly concerning data collection and competence measurement, the benefits and limits of the chosen multi-criteria decision analysis approach, the evaluation of introduced changes to the decision-making processes, and the transparency of the formal planning model and its components.     

Patellofemoral pain,body morphology and alignment in female pubertal dancers: One-year follow-up

The aim of this study was to assess changes in body morphology, anatomical alignment and prevalence of patellofemoral pain (PFP) in young female dancers along one year of pubertal growth, and to identify the risk factors related to PFP in these young dancers. Both legs of 60 dancers were evaluated during grade 7 and again after 1-year. At each of these points in time, the dancers were interviewed concerning their background, and anthropometric measurements, lower-limb physical examinations and knee ultrasound scans were performed. Morphological parameters changed significantly from baseline to follow-up. PFP was found in 53.3% of the dancers’ knees at baseline. At follow-up, 55.4% of the asymptomatic knees at baseline developed PFP, and only 9.4% of the symptomatic knees at baseline recovered. Lower BMI was identified among dancers who developed PFP during follow-up compared with dancers with no PFP, either at baseline or at follow-up. A positive grinding and positive Patellar Inhibition Test (PIT) were found to be risk factors for PFP at follow-up. A high prevalence of young dancers suffered PFP, from injuries they sustained mostly during the 1-year of dance practice. Parameters predisposing the dancers to PFP should be identified at early stages of dance class.     

The physiological cost of velocity coupling during tennis groundstrokes

Velocity coupling denotes a perceptual motor behaviour known to occur during coincidence timing tasks. Individuals have been shown to increase their effector limb speed with increases in stimulus speed during interceptive tasks. However, little is known about the physiological effects of velocity coupling. The aim of this study was to determine the physiological cost of velocity coupling during tennis groundstrokes. Eight male and eight female competitive tennis players volunteered to perform three 4-min bouts of continuous groundstrokes against balls projected from a tennis ball machine at speeds of 18, 22, and 27 m x s(-1) (65, 79, and 97 km x h(-1)) and a frequency of 14 balls per minute, the order of which was counterbalanced. Breath-by-breath pulmonary gas exchange, heart rate, locomotion time, and limb acceleration were measured throughout each of the 4-min bouts. Capillary blood samples (for blood lactate analysis), rating of perceived exertion, and difficulty rating were taken at the end of each bout. Increasing ball speed did not influence the locomotion time between groundstrokes but did result in a bilateral increase in both the mean upper- and lower-limb acceleration (all P < 0.05). Velocity coupling behaviour increased oxygen uptake, blood lactate concentration, heart rate, rating of perceived exertion, and perceived task difficulty (all P < 0.05). It would appear, therefore, that velocity coupling influenced tennis groundstroke behaviour and indirectly modified the concurrent cardiopulmonary and metabolic responses.     

How persistent and general is the contextual interference effect?

The persistence and generality of the contextual interference (CI) effect was tested using a rapid sequential aiming task. Participants (N=48) practiced three movement patterns for three blocks of 18 trials under a blocked (BL) or random (RA) schedule. Movement patterns were displayed and KR provided throughout practice and testing. A 24-hr delayed knowledge of results (KR) retention test included three blocks of 18 trials, followed by a transfer test of a single new movement pattern. In contradiction of the CI effect, RA practice provided an advantage for RA retention only, not BL retention. Furthermore, group differences at transfer were not persistent. Hence, RA practice does not necessarily provide enhanced, context-free learning, but it is essential training for task switching. Overall the findings reveal limited persistence and generality of the CI effect.     

Counseling disabled persons throughout the period of further education and training

In this paper the special problems and needs of disabled adults during vocational rehabilitation in rehabilitation centers will be analyzed. For this purpose, the goals and measures of ideal counseling in regard to vocational choice, work and training adjustment, and social adjustment are compared with the results of evaluation studies and studies with drop-outs of these facilities. Conclusions are derived by which measures counselors can contribute essentially to the disabled trainees being better enabled to handle their adjustment problems more effectively.Paper presented at the International Round Table for the Advancement of Counseling Consultation on Counseling Disabled People and their Families, July 4–8, 1987, Vienna, Austria.