Coupling Mathematics and Life Science Courses

现代生物学的每个领域都依赖于定量概念，但生命科学学生的定量训练很少与生物学联系起来，许多生物学学生未能意识到其相关性。该项目的目标是创建统一的课程，培养学生解决生命科学问题的定量方法。该项目将把大学的统计学入门课程与普通生物学实验室课程结合起来，并开发中学水平的教学单元。本项目之所以能产生长远效益和广泛意义，关键在于形成一个包括中学教师在内的跨学科的教学圈。这个协作团队将致力于通过综合的、基于项目的、解决问题的方法来教授科学和数学。它汇集了教育和主题专家。在当地，该项目将修改波特兰大学和朴茨茅斯中学生物学和数学的教学方式。它将通过学生与教师的实习以及大学教育学院的教学方法课程对未来的教师产生影响。由于将开发、现场测试、评估和传播统计、普通生物学和中学教学单元相结合的灵活教学模块，该项目的成果将有助于国家层面科学/数学教育的系统性改革。

Every area of modern biology relies on quantitative concepts but the quantitative training of life science students is rarely connected to biology and many biology students fail to appreciate its relevance. The goal of this project is to create a unified curriculum which develops the students' quantitative approaches to problems in the life sciences. This project will couple an introductory statistics course with a general biology laboratory course at the University and develop teaching units for the middle school level. The key to the long term benefits and widespread significance of this project is that a teaching circle will be formed which is interdisciplinary and includes middle school teachers. This collaborative team will be united by commitment to teach science and mathematics from an integrated, project-based, problem-solving approach. It brings together education and subject matter experts. Locally, this project will revise the manner in which biology and mathematics are being taught at the University of Portland and Portsmouth Middle School. It will impact future teachers through student-teacher placements and through the University's teaching methods courses in the School of Education. Because flexible teaching modules which couple statistics and general biology and teaching units for middle schools will be developed, field tested, evaluated, and disseminated, the outcomes from this project will contribute to systemic reform of science/mathematics education at the national level.