Equipment to Interface Modern Technology with Critical Thinking in the Genetics Laboratory

宾夕法尼亚印第安纳大学生物系正在实施改革，以创建一个有凝聚力的、以学生为中心的自然科学学习社区；生物学专业的新课程，强调动手，体验式学习，并逐步为半独立的学生提供更多的研究机会。作为准备成为生物教师的学生的必修课和新课程的顶点课程，遗传学课程将引入三个组成部分：(1)为课程提供分布式计算环境，以便利用互联网上可用的遗传分析程序；(2)一系列强调现代分子遗传学的新实验，为发现和合成提供了机会；(3)在课程的实验部分增加一个学生研究项目。该设备还被用于在职教师的周六讲习班和一套流动工作站。职前生物教师正在协助讲习班，并有机会在学生教学期间利用工作站。

The Department of Biology of Indiana University of Pennsylvania is implementing reforms to create a cohesive, student-centered natural sciences learning community; a new curriculum for Biology majors, stressing hands-on, experiential learning and providing progressively greater opportunities for semi-independent student research. Three components are being introduced into the Genetics course, a course required for students preparing to be biology teachers and the capstone course of the new curriculum: (1) a distributive computing environment for the course to enable utilization of genetic analysis programs available on the Internet; (2) a set of new experiments emphasizing modern molecular genetics and providing opportunities for discovery and for synthesis; and (3) addition of a required student research project to the laboratory segment of the course. The equipment is also being used in Saturday workshops for in-service teachers and in a set of traveling workstations. Preservice biology teachers are assisting with the workshops and are being given the opportunity to utilize the workstations during their student teaching.