 | |||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
| Curriculum Development > College > Comprehensive Programs > Biological Perspectives > Key Features | |||||||||||||||||
|
Biological PerspectivesKey Features Program Components Key Features Active, Collaborative, and Inquiry-based Instruction Biological Literacy Flexible Format The Commons: An Environmental Dilemma Program Components
Biological Perspectives is based on the premise that students must be engaged and involved if the hard work of learning is to occur well. Instruction that promotes active learning involves students in doing more than just reading and listening. Thus, students using Biological Perspectives think about, discuss and write about the content they are learning. They also organize, analyze, synthesize and evaluate information and use biological concepts to explain novel situations, solve problems and make decisions In addition to promoting active learning, Biological Perspectives uses a variety of collaborative learning strategies. These strategies involve students in learning from and with each other, encourage joint intellectual effort and include suggestions for both in- and out-of-class assignments. Finally, Biological Perspectives uses inquiry-based strategies. Inquiry-based strategies teach students how biologists see the world, how they think about what they see and how they draw conclusions that are consistent with new observations and current knowledge. More than any other strategy, inquiry-based strategies say to students, "This is science as a way of knowing." Biological Literacy Biological Perspectives is built on the definition of biological literacy proposed in Developing Biological Literacy (BSCS, 1993) and Achieving Scientific Literacy (Bybee, 1997). In this definition, biological literacy is viewed as a continuum of knowledge and skills through which students move toward a more complete and useful understanding of biology. The four families, or categories, of instructional strategies used in Biological Perspectives offer faculty a concrete mechanism for helping students grapple with course content in ways that promote their growth toward such an understanding. Typically, students enter high school and college classrooms with "nominal literacy." A person with nominal literacy recognizes some terms and concepts as belonging to the domain of biology, but has only a rudimentary and frequently inaccurate understanding of their meaning or significance. To move beyond nominal literacy, students must correct and refine their understanding of these terms and concepts. At the "functional literacy" threshold, students can correctly answer questions such as, "What is it?" "What does it do?" "Where does it occur?" and "To what is it related?" Biological Perspectives uses a specific set of instructional strategies--primarily "Family 1, Devices to Organize Content"--to help students ask and answer these questions, learn the language of biology and see relationships, similarities and differences. With basic understandings in place, students are ready to use their understanding of biology in more independent ways. Students who are developing "conceptual and procedural literacy " are able to state, explain and provide examples of key biological principles and they are also able to recognize these principles at work in novel situations. Biological Perspectives promotes students' development of structural literacy with two families of strategies. Strategies in "Family 2, Writing to Learn," give students low-risk opportunities to practice describing and explaining what they are coming to understand. Strategies in "Family 3, Group Approaches," challenge students to express their understanding to others and to examine, refine, modify and expand their own and others' ideas. Further along the continuum of biological literacy, students move into "multidimensional literacy" in which they begin to understand the place of biology in human experience and can tackle examining and debating issues at the intersections between biology and society. In the case studies, role plays and structured controversies of "Family 4, Real Life Applications," students apply what they know to a variety of complicated, multidimensional questions and problems. These strategies challenge students to analyze and evaluate complex scientific and social issues and to practice making informed decisions about socially relevant questions. Flexible Format Biological Perspectives offers students and faculty a flexible format that allows them to personalize their learning and teaching in ways that best meet the students' learning needs and best suit the instructor's teaching style. The student text (Biological Perspectives) and the laboratory manual (Thinking Biologically)--are presented in a shrink-wrapped, three-hole-punched format that is ideal for inserting into a binder and for supplementing with class notes, additional information and copies of completed assignments, quizzes and exams. With this format, students and faculty can take only the sections of the text that they need to class and also can remove, exchange and rearrange text pages to suit their individual learning and teaching needs. Additionally, the design of the student text and the instructional recommendations in Teaching Tools encourage students and faculty to learn and teach reflectively, that is, to think about what they are doing and how they are doing it and to adjust their learning and teaching styles to best meet the requirements of the content and the learning climate. The wide margins and the extensive discussion questions of the student text encourage students to work both individually and collaboratively to grapple actively and creatively with course content. Likewise, Teaching Tools offers faculty a wide range of teaching strategies and encourages faculty to choose those strategies that address best who their students are and the goals they have for them. The Commons: An Environmental Dilemma In 1968, the journal Science published a controversial and thought-provoking essay titled, "The Tragedy of the Commons" by Garrett Hardin, professor of human ecology at the University of California at Santa Barbara. The essay triggered a storm of debate among scientists and policymakers about managing our natural resources and controlling population growth. Are the resources we share in common really vulnerable to a tragedy of the commons? Can the tragedy of the commons be connected to human population growth? BSCS's award-winning instructional CDROM, The Commons: An Environmental Dilemma, uses videos, simulations, animations and inquiry-oriented classroom activities to stimulate a new generation of students to explore and debate the modern-day relevance of the tragedy of the commons. Some of the concepts introduced in The Commons CD include the benefits and uses of natural resource commons, the tragedy of the unmanaged commons, strategies for managing a commons, human population growth across time, exponential and logistic population growth, carrying capacity, environmental impact, "boomster" and "doomster" views of the earth's present and future condition and the influence of people's actions on the present and future state of the world. |
||||||||||||||||
BSCS is a non-profit organization. © Copyright 2007 BSCS All Rights Reserved