Bioinformatics in the K-8 Classroom: Designing Innovative Activities for Teacher Implementation

At the intersection of biology and computer science is the growing field of bioinformatics—the analysis of complex datasets of biological relevance. Despite the increasing importance of bioinformatics and associated practical applications, these are not standard topics in elementary and middle school classrooms. We report on a pilot project and its evolution to support implementation of bioinformatics-based activities in elementary and middle school classrooms. Specifically, we ultimately designed a multi-day summer teacher professional development workshop, in which teachers design innovative classroom activities. By focusing on teachers, our design leverages enhanced teacher knowledge and confidence to integrate innovative instructional materials into K-8 classrooms and contributes to capacity building in STEM instruction.

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Information Needs and Information Seeking Behaviours of Elementary and Middle School Social Studies and Cultural Heritage Teachers in Taiwan

IASL Annual Conference Proceedings ◽

10.29173/iasl7619 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Shan-Ju Lin Chang

Keyword(s):

Middle School ◽

Social Studies ◽

Cultural Heritage ◽

Information Seeking ◽

Information Needs ◽

Practical Applications ◽

Library System ◽

Collection Data ◽

Questionnaire Surveys ◽

Elementary And Middle School

Employing both qualitative and quantitative approaches, this study seeks to systematically analyze the information needs, seeking, and use behaviors of elementary and middle school social studies and cultural heritage teachers in Taiwan, and to relate the findings to digital library system design. In-depth interviews and questionnaire surveys were used for data collection. Data was analyzed qualitatively and statistically in order to answer a number of questions regarding: the information needs for teaching social studies courses, information seeking and collecting behaviors, difficulties encountered while searching for information for teaching, factors influencing information needs and seeking behaviors, and teacher expectations of educational websites covering related subjects. Our results suggest practical applications and implications for education policy makers and library system designers.

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Design, Development, and Evaluation of a Teacher Workshop Enhanced with DNA Instructional Cases to Impact Content Knowledge and Confidence

Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-based Learning ◽

10.14434/ijpbl.v14i1.28724 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 14 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Michele Shuster ◽

Krista Glazewski ◽

Christopher Villa

Keyword(s):

Content Knowledge ◽

Design Development ◽

Scientific Content ◽

Classroom Activities ◽

Teacher Confidence ◽

Professional Development Workshop ◽

Case Based Learning ◽

Teacher Professional ◽

Genetics Knowledge ◽

Teacher Workshop

In an effort to address K-8 teacher confidence in STEM and increase basic genetics knowledge to a level consistent with its importance in society, we have developed, implemented, and evaluated a 7-day teacher professional development workshop. The overarching goal of our workshop is to facilitate the implementation of innovative DNA-based classroom activities in K-8 classrooms by (i) increasing teacher content knowledge, (ii) increasing teacher confidence in teaching STEM, and (iii) developing teacher interest in using engaging activities, so they are empowered to teach new content in compelling ways. We relied on case-based learning to provide relevance and context to scientific content that was not initially familiar to many of the teachers. Here we describe the workshop and its evaluation. Overall results suggest positive gains in teacher learning, confidence, and interest in the scientific content, as well as the intention to incorporate the scientific content and activities into their teaching.

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