Teaching quantitative biology: goals, assessments, and resources

Teaching quantitative biology: goals, assessments, and resources

More than a decade has passed since the publication of BIO2010, calling for an increased emphasis on quantitative skills in the undergraduate biology curriculum. In that time, relatively few papers have been published that describe educational innovations in quantitative biology or provide evidence of their effects on students. Using a "backward design" framework, we lay out quantitative skill ...

Approaches to biology teaching and learning: from assays to assessments--on collecting evidence in science teaching.

As scientists, we are accustomed to operating in a professional culture of evidence. Evidence is employed in the public discourse of science to support new ideas within a field and refute old ones. We can refer to this form of evidence— thorough, detailed, extensively reproduced and analyzed—as a summative form of scientific evidence. It is this summative form of evidence that is presented in c...

Aligning goals, assessments, and activities: an approach to teaching PCR and gel electrophoresis.

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and gel electrophoresis have become common techniques used in undergraduate molecular and cell biology labs. Although students enjoy learning these techniques, they often cannot fully comprehend and analyze the outcomes of their experiments because of a disconnect between concepts taught in lecture and experiments done in lab. Here we report the development and i...

More Than Metaphor: Online Resources for Teaching Cancer Biology

Resources Teaching and Precepting

Core Teaching Skills: Effective teaching behaviors and objectives are outlined in this University of Washington, School of Medicine toolbox targeted at small group teaching in a medical school. Several modules, including goal setting, giving feedback and common teaching challenges can be found by clicking on those topics listed at the left of the screen. The overview and detail of a skills prac...