Teachers FIRST: From Interesting Research to Scientific Teaching

教师第一项目（从有趣的研究到科学的教学）旨在为高中教师提供背景和工具，以超越分子生物学的中心法则（DNA -> RNA ->蛋白质）在他们的教学中，并让他们的学生参与基因组科学及其对个性化医疗保健的影响的有意义的讨论。在该项目的第一阶段，教师将被介绍给当前研究的一系列分子故事，说明技术的最新进展是如何推动个性化基因组医学的发展。一个广泛的创新，以学生为中心的教学材料将在这个项目中创建，包括（i）细胞景观，过渡学生的思维从细胞到分子世界，（ii）中心法则建设工具包，（iii）物理模型和基于计算机的（Jmol）特定蛋白质的探索。教师将接受明确的培训， 使用这些材料将当前研究的每个分子故事的中心元素与高中阶段教授的化学和生物学的基本概念联系起来。 在该项目的第二阶段，教师将被介绍给科学教学的原则-和挑战，应用相同的实验严谨性，他们的教室，研究人员在他们的实验室应用。将协助教师小组制定个性化的研究计划，研究在他们的教室中使用该项目的教学材料的影响。从夏季研讨会开始，并继续在课堂上实施这些共享研究计划，教师将被鼓励成为教育工作者专业社区的积极参与者-致力于记录他们的课堂创新对学生学习的影响，并与他人分享教育研究的结果。 在这个项目的最后阶段，分子故事和相关的教学材料将通过科学奥林匹克竞赛中的蛋白质建模活动传播给全国高中学生和他们的老师。48个州的9,000多名学生将接触到个性化基因组医学的故事，因为他们构建了在分子故事中发挥关键作用的蛋白质的物理模型。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The Teachers FIRST project (From Interesting Research to Scientific Teaching) aims to provide high school teachers with the background and tools to go beyond the Central Dogma of Molecular Biology (DNA -> RNA -> Protein) in their teaching, and to engage their students in meaningful discussions of genomic science and its implications for personalized health care. In the first phase of this project, teachers will be introduced to a series of molecular stories of current research that illustrate how recent advances in technology are driving the development of personalized genomic medicine. A broad range of innovative, student-centered instructional materials will be created in this project, including (i) cellular landscapes that transition students' thinking from the cellular to the molecular world, (ii) a central dogma construction kit, and (iii) physical models and computer-based (Jmol) explorations of specific proteins. Teachers will then receive explicit training in the use of these materials to connect the central elements of each molecular story of current research to the basic concepts of chemistry and biology that are taught at the high school level. In the second phase of this project, teachers will be introduced to the principles of scientific teaching - and challenged to apply the same experimental rigor to their classrooms that researchers apply in their laboratories. Teams of teachers will be assisted in the development of individualized research plans in which the impact of implementing the project's instructional materials in their classrooms will be studied. Beginning in a summer workshop and continuing into the implementation of these shared research plans in their classrooms, teachers will be encouraged to become active participants in a professional community of educators - committed to documenting the impact of their classroom innovations on student learning and to sharing the results of that education research with others. In the final phase of this project, the molecular stories and related instructional materials will e disseminated to a national audience of high school students and their teachers though a Protein Modeling event in the Science Olympiad competition. More than 9,000 students in 48 states will be exposed to stories of personalized genomic medicine as they construct physical models of proteins that play key roles in molecular stories.