Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA 98225, USA.
CBE Life Sci Educ. 2013 Jun 1;12(2):215-29. doi: 10.1187/cbe.12-08-0134.
We report on the development of a life sciences curriculum, targeted to undergraduate students, which was modeled after a commercially available physics curriculum and based on aspects of how people learn. Our paper describes the collaborative development process and necessary modifications required to apply a physics pedagogical model in a life sciences context. While some approaches were easily adapted, others provided significant challenges. Among these challenges were: representations of energy, introducing definitions, the placement of Scientists' Ideas, and the replicability of data. In modifying the curriculum to address these challenges, we have come to see them as speaking to deeper differences between the disciplines, namely that introductory physics--for example, Newton's laws, magnetism, light--is a science of pairwise interaction, while introductory biology--for example, photosynthesis, evolution, cycling of matter in ecosystems--is a science of linked processes, and we suggest that this is how the two disciplines are presented in introductory classes. We illustrate this tension through an analysis of our adaptations of the physics curriculum for instruction on the cycling of matter and energy; we show that modifications of the physics curriculum to address the biological framework promotes strong gains in student understanding of these topics, as evidenced by analysis of student work.
我们报告了生命科学课程的开发情况，该课程针对的是本科生，其模式借鉴了商业上可用的物理课程，并基于人们学习的方式。我们的论文描述了协作开发过程以及在生命科学背景下应用物理教学模式所需的必要修改。虽然有些方法很容易适应，但其他方法则带来了很大的挑战。其中的挑战包括：能量的表示、定义的引入、科学家观点的放置，以及数据的可重复性。在修改课程以应对这些挑战的过程中，我们逐渐认识到这些挑战反映了两个学科之间更深层次的差异，即入门物理——例如牛顿定律、磁场、光——是一种研究两两相互作用的科学，而入门生物学——例如光合作用、进化、生态系统中物质的循环——则是一种研究关联过程的科学，我们认为这就是两个学科在入门课程中的呈现方式。我们通过分析我们对物理课程的改编，以教授物质和能量的循环，来说明这种紧张关系；我们表明，为了适应生物学框架而对物理课程进行修改，可以促进学生对这些主题的理解，这一点可以通过对学生作业的分析得到证明。
