TRANSMISSION OF GENETIC INFORMATION:
MOLECULAR BIOLOGY THROUGH INQUIRY

BISC 567-910

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

  1. Active participation in the course

    • Attendance at the summer sessions (Aug 2-6)

    • Attendance at the 3 evening meetings during the 1999-2000 academic year (dates to be determined during the summer sessions)

    • Oral presentation of group-generated preliminary ideas for adaptation of course materials in home classrooms (a group presentation; August 6)

    • Oral presentation of results of individual home classroom activities in molecular genetics (given during the last course meeting of the year)

  2. An outline (1 page) of how you plan to present a molecular genetics activity during the coming school year. Although this should reflect the group-generated ideas that will be presented in the oral presentation, each student should prepare an outline, specific for their classroom. Due August 6.

  3. Participation in evaluation and planning for fall & winter meetings.

  4. A reflection paper due at the last class meeting of your classroom experience.
Required Elements of Reflection Paper
  • Description of your student population (district, school, grade, number of students, other relevant information)

  • Content A brief description of the project in enough detail to make your plan usable by other teachers. Discuss the ways in which the project addresses the Delaware Science Content Standards and the Performance Indicators. Describe the barriers to teaching molecular genetics (e.g., student misconceptions, lack of resources, interest & motivation of students, lack of student prior knowledge)

  • Pedagogy Describe your methods of instruction. Specify the materials that you used. Describe how the project differs from your previous presentation of the material in this broad content area. How does this exercise address the barriers previously mentioned?

  • Assessment Design or choose one open-ended assessment task to evaluate student understanding of the molecular genetics concepts presented in your project. This might be a performance assessment or a written response. Provide a rubric for the task. Include at least two student responses to this task: one, which is exemplary, the other which "shows promise, but needs improvement."

  • Teacher reflection/Summary Did the project achieve its goals? What was the student response? Explain how you would modify the project if you elect to use it again.
Reflection paper due at last evening meeting.
Please submit to:

Dr. Richard S. Donham
University of Delaware
200 Academy Street, Room 103
Newark, DE 19716

This page is part of the course materials for BISC 567: Transmission of Genetic Information: Molecular Biology through Inquiry, taught August 2 to 6, 1999 at the University of Delaware. Please send any comments to Richard Donham (donham@udel.edu).