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Teaching Genetics: Past, Present, and Future
Michelle K Smith1, William B Wood2
1School of Biology and Ecology and Maine Center for Research in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) Education, University of Maine, Orono, Maine 04469 michelle.k.smith@maine.edu.
Abstract:
Genetics teaching at the undergraduate level has changed in many ways over the past century. Compared to those of 100 years ago, contemporary genetics courses are broader in content and are taught increasingly differently, using instructional techniques based on educational research and constructed around the principles of active learning and backward design. Future courses can benefit from wider adoption of these approaches, more emphasis on the practice of genetics as a science, and new methods of assessing student learning.
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