Reform of Undergraduate Biology Education: Biological Inquiry and Integrative Biology.

本科生物教育改革：生物探究与综合生物学。

• 批准号: 9950289
• 负责人: Diane Robertson
• 金额: $ 7.5万
• 依托单位: Grinnell College
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1999
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1999-06-01 至 2003-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9950289&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Reform; Undergraduate; Biology; Education; Biological

The College is reforming its biology core curriculum to enhance student learning of the process of biology, give introductory students authentic research experience, present modem, integrative biology to majors, and enhance opportunities for interdisciplinary study. Biology's rapid expansion challenges educators, who must teach clear biological principles amidst an overwhelming and ever-growing amount of information. A promising approach to this challenge is to use research-based learning to move away from teaching biology as a collection of facts and toward teaching biology as it is actually practiced. Meanwhile, the growth of integrative research fields suggests that advances in biology are becoming increasingly dependent on integration across sub-disciplines. We propose an introductory curriculum that combines extensive research-based study within an integrative framework. With support to enhance equipment, technology, and instruction, we will introduce three new semester-long courses. The first is a small enrollment introductory course that will apply the model of having students pose questions, design experiments, analyze data, and communicate scientific information, by focusing on integrative topics that will often be related to individual faculty members' research. The second and third courses are a two-semester sequence focused on organismal problem solving. Each course applies a research-based style to develop explanations for organismal function, mainly at the levels of cells and molecules (semester 1), or mainly at the levels of individuals, populations, and communities (semester 2). Multi-week laboratories will synthesize information across levels of biological organization from molecules to ecosystems, with concepts, model systems, and data developed in the first semester being revisited and applied in the second. We expect this new core curriculum to develop substantially the level of interest and scientific preparation of our students.

该学院正在改革其生物学核心课程，以加强学生对生物过程的学习，为入门学生提供真实的研究体验，向专业呈现现代、综合生物学，并增加跨学科学习的机会。生物学的迅速发展对教育工作者提出了挑战，他们必须在铺天盖地且不断增长的信息量中教授清楚的生物学原理。应对这一挑战的一个有希望的方法是使用研究性学习，从将生物学作为事实集合来教授，转向按照实际情况进行生物教学。与此同时，综合研究领域的增长表明，生物学的进步越来越依赖于跨子学科的综合。我们提出了一个入门课程，将广泛的研究性学习结合在一个综合的框架内。在加强设备、技术和教学的支持下，我们将推出三门新的为期一学期的课程。首先是一门招生人数较少的入门课程，该课程将采用让学生提出问题、设计实验、分析数据和交流科学信息的模式，专注于通常与个别教职员工的研究相关的综合主题。第二和第三门课程为期两个学期，重点是解决生物体问题。每门课程都采用一种以研究为基础的方式来解释生物体的功能，主要是在细胞和分子水平(第一学期)，或主要在个人、群体和社区水平(第二学期)。为期数周的实验室将综合从分子到生态系统的生物组织水平的信息，第一学期开发的概念、模型系统和数据将在第二学期重新讨论和应用。我们希望这一新的核心课程能大大提高学生的兴趣水平和科学准备。