Breaking the disciplinary barriers: A concept-centered approach to the teaching of biotechnology
Teaching a concept solely from one disciplinary perspective tends to focus learning from its particular viewpoint. This approach is contrary to the actual day to day learning which is interdisciplinary by nature. It may also hinder conceptual interpretations that could enrich the learning process due to the limits imposed by a single discipline. The Puerto Rico Math and Science Partnership (AlACiMa by its Spanish acronym) is an NSF-funded partnership between the University of Puerto Rico, the Puerto Rico Department of Education, and private enterprises aimed at improving science and mathematics learning for K-12 students. AlACiMa promotes innovations in the K-12 classrooms, based on constructivism, active teaching strategies and the effective use of curricular materials. As part of the Empowering Schools Component we offer a series of workshops to teachers from K-12 during a summer session followed by six additional workshops during the school year. During last year we developed a series of immersion units for the intermediate and high school levels based on curricular contexts. For the intermediate level we developed an immersion unit on the concept of water and another one on compost. For high school we developed one based on biotechnology as the context through which to present the concept of the structure and expression of DNA. In all of these cases the units were developed by teams of chemists and biologists working together in their development. The idea was to offer the workshops from both a chemical and biological perspective, as seamlessly as possible, so that they were neither a biology nor a chemistry workshop but one centered on the properties of DNA. The units were offered during an intensive six day summer workshop that continues during the academic year.
