November
29, 2012
Best
Practices in Teaching Biology
Hypothesis: Biology can be taught in a way that
students and their teachers will feel better about their lives as a whole, feel
more optimistic about the upcoming week, make progress toward important
personal goals (academic, interpersonal and health-based), feel higher levels of
the positive states of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, attentiveness and
energy, be more likely to report having helped someone with a
personal problem or having
offered emotional support to another, have a greater sense of feeling connected
to others, sleep longer and arise feeling more rested, be more empathic and
understand the perspective of others, believe in the interconnectedness of all
life with a commitment to and
responsibility to others, and
place less importance on material goods.
Biology can be taught in a way that students and their teachers are less
likely to judge their own and others success in terms of possessions
accumulated, be less envious of others; and are more likely to share their
possessions.
How can the teaching of biology
have these effects? The most
direct way would be to have biology students and teachers keep a gratitude
journal and experience these changes according to the Robert Emmons research at
the following website:
As well as keeping a gratitude journal, biology and
science might be taught from a perspective of gratitude. We can be personally grateful for all
the forces and conditions that are present and must be present for life on this
planet. Biology facts can be
taught showing how they personally effect every student, and how they make the
life of the student possible.
Instead of testing only for the information learned
by students “Best Practices in Teaching Biology” would study other ways the
teachings affect the students.
What would be the simplest way to measure these
other effects? What effects would
be monitored? Would optimism be
measured? Would a sense of well
being be measured?
Hopefully biology teachers will want to study their
students as closely as biologists study their research subjects.
Why is there an urgent need to study the effects of
learning biology? I think of two
readers of Richard Dawkin’s The Selfish Gene. One reviewer on amazon.com said he was depressed for 20
years after reading The Selfish Gene.
Jeffrey Skilling read The Selfish Gene and thought
his life and his work should make full use of The Selfish Gene as he
interpreted it. According to the
following website
http://www.emory.edu/LIVING_LINKS/empathy/Reviewfiles/Seed.html
“Former Enron CEO Jeffrey
Skilling claimed he was inspired by Richard Dawkins’ book The Selfish Gene
when he implemented a system known as “rank and yank” that sought to apply
nature’s lessons to the energy industry. Skilling had all employees in the
company ranked every six months. Then he offered lavish bonuses to the top 5
percent while the bottom 15 percent were relocated or fired.
This
system of ruthless competition advanced just the type of personalities that one
would expect: crazy people. As one Enron employee put it, “If I’m going to my boss’s office to
talk about compensation, and if I step on some guy’s throat and that doubles
it, then I’ll stomp on that guy’s throat.”
http://www.thersa.org/fellowship/journal/archive/winter-2009/features/how-bad-biology-killed-the-economy
Enron went on to bankruptcy. Jeffrey Skilling was
sentenced to 24 years in prison and
fined $45 million. The pensions of some 20,000
Enron employees were devastated in varying degrees as well; 62% of the company
pension plan was in worthless Enron stock.
http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Enron+Corporation
It
appears how biology is taught effects the lives of students. How might we find the best practices in
teaching of biology?
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