‘The blue print of life’: an educational pack for secondary school biology

Abstract

Genetics is a fundamental area of study because it helps us understand the basis of life. It is important that students grasp the concepts well when learning about genetics in secondary school. For several students, genetics is considered to be one of the hardest topics in Biology due to its abstract nature. Students often have prior knowledge and their own ideas about genetics concepts, which is likely to become a barrier to learning genetics meaningfully. This study reviews the literature on common misconceptions which students have about genetics and the challenges they encounter when learning it, with reference to ways of how one could teach genetics in order to avoid such obstacles. The main aim of this dissertation is to develop an educational pack that provides secondary school biology teachers with effective teaching strategies for the instruction of genetics. The pack consists of a set of activities which could be used for teaching and learning genetics in the classroom. The majority of the activities are based on a discovery learning approach in order to allow students to think critically and analytically. Many of the activities are also based on a cooperative learning strategy aimed to arouse students’ interest and enthusiasm, as well as to encourage students to participate actively. The educational pack was distributed to ten biology teachers from different schools such that feedback and recommendations with regards to the pack are attained. The feedback was then evaluated and any necessary modifications of the activities were implemented in accordance to teachers’ suggestions.