Teaching biotechnology through case studies—can we improve higher order thinking skills of nonscience majors?

Abstract

ABSTRACT:Teaching nonscience majors topics in biotechnology through case studies is the focus of this research. Our Biotechnology, Environment, and Related Issues module, developed within the Science for All framework, is aimed at elevating the level of students' scientific and technological literacy and their higher order thinking skills. The research goal was to investigate nonscience major students' ability to use various thinking skills in analyzing environmental and moral conflicts presented through case studies in the Biotechnology Module. The research population consisted of about 200 nonscience majors in eight classes of grades 10 -12 from heterogeneous communities. We found a significant improvement in students' knowledge and understanding and higher order thinking skills at all academic levels. The scores that low academic level students achieved in the knowledge and understanding category were higher than their high academic level peers' scores. In the higher order thinking skills-question posing, argumentation, and system thinking-a significant difference in favor of the high academic level students was found. The gap that had existed between low and high academic level students narrowed. Most students reported that the biotechnological topics that they had studied were interesting and relevant. Based on these results, we advocate a curriculum that exposes students to scientific controversies through case studies with environmental and moral implications. Our research has shown that this approach is likely to contribute to developing scientific and technological literacy along with higher order thinking skills of nonscience majors.

High School Students' Reasoning in Making Decisions about Socio-Ethical Issues of Genetic Engineering: Case of Gene Therapy

“…Applying controversial cases is consistent with other more general investigations of decision-making processes (11,22,39,41,51), informal reasoning (23,25,28,33,43,50) as well as those specifically targeting SSI with biotechnology roots (9,20,26,40,41).…”

A Translational Bioengineering Course Provides Substantial Gains in Civic Scientific Literacy

“…9,23 Using learning science guidelines 4 we designed and taught a novel project-based course to increase civic scientific literacy associated with healthcare among undergraduate non-science majors. The course, entitled BME 301: Bioengineering and World Health, uses the development of new biomedical technologies as a platform.…”

Os Temas Controversos na Educação Ambiental

“…Estas opiniões têm sido apoiadas por diversas investigações (DORI, TAL e TSAUSHU, 2003;REIS, 1997 REIS, , 1999 REIS, , 2001SADLER e ZEIDLER, 2004;SOLOMON, 1992;ZOHAR e NAMET, 2002). Apesar de todas as evidências empíricas das potencialidades educativas da discussão de questões controversas, estas actividades não fazem parte das experiências educativas da maioria das aulas de ciências, mesmo quando as questões controversas integram os conteúdos curriculares.…”

“…Algumas investigações permitiram constatar um impacto bastante significativo da discussão de estudos de caso sobre controvérsias, relacionadas com implicações ambientais e morais de propostas na área da biotecnologia, no nível de conhecimentos científicos e técnicos sobre as temáticas em causa e de capacidades de pensamento de nível elevado (nomeadamente, formulação de questões e argumentação) (DORI, TAL e TSAUSHU, 2003;YERRICK, 2000;ZOHAR e NAMET, 2002). Nestes estudos, também foi evidente o interesse suscitado, entre professores e alunos, tanto pela metodologia (discussão de estudos de caso) como pelo tema das actividades utilizadas.…”