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10 Education:Learning to Think About the Elephant
Pages 157-161

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From page 157...
... Being able to predict the behavior, fate, or ecological impact of even one organism, like the elephant introduced at the beginning of this report, requires detailed information about many of its own components, its surroundings and history. This report suggests that we can better understand the elephant by asking cross-cutting questions than by keeping our eyes closed and grasping at one part or the other of the large and complex animal.
From page 158...
... Perhaps one reason biology education focuses on facts and observations is that being self-reflective about theory is harder. Another reason may be strategic, especially when discussing evolutionary theory, because of the need to avoid suggesting that evolution is "merely" a speculation, as many people interpret the term.
From page 159...
... In 1875, Thomas Henry Huxley and Henry Newell Martin published the first general biology laboratory textbook, A Course of Practical Instruction in Elementary Biology (London: Macmillan and Co.) to provide an introduction to the principles of biological sciences through direct experience of living systems.  The student was intended to dissect specimens to ask questions and discover how the parts are put together and how they work.  The intention was to introduce ways of thinking in science and not just a collection of facts.  In the United States, William Sedgwick and Edmund Beecher Wilson published General Biology in 1893 and then in 1896 introduced students directly to interactive ways of studying life.
From page 160...
... However, it seems appropriate to support further development of pedagogical approaches, educational materials, and learning systems that recognize the complexity of the biological sciences and their interconnectedness to other systems. To teach science as it is really done, and to truly promote more effective teaching and learning at all levels from K-12 through postdoctoral training and faculty development, will require self-reflection about both how science works and how to learn to do it better.
From page 161...
... . Courses that explicitly discuss how one's theoretical and conceptual framework affects what one chooses to observe and what tools one applies guides one's experimental strategy and helps make sense of one's results and will ­ allow students to become aware of the integral role that theory plays in the practice of biology.


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