Integrating bioinformatics into senior high school: design principles and implications

B RIEFINGS IN BIOINF ORMATICS . VOL 14. NO 5. 648 ^ 660 Advance Access published on 10 May 2013 doi:10.1093/bib/bbt030 Integrating bioinformatics into senior high school: design principles and implications Yossy Machluf and Anat Yarden Submitted: 5th February 2013; Received (in revised form) : 4th April 2013 Abstract Keywords: bioinformatics education; high school; authenticity; learning environment; domain-specific knowledge; revised Bloom’s taxonomy INTRODUCTION Dramatic progress in biological understanding, coupled with major advances in experimental techniques, novel approaches and computational analyses, are transforming the sciences of biology, biotechnology and medicine. Yet, these exciting new fields and areas of science are rarely integrated into science classrooms or textbooks. This pattern leaves high school science education lagging behind cutting-edge scientific discoveries, which hold great potential for supporting students’ understanding and eliciting their interest and motivation to learn science. Biology in the 21st century is expanding from a purely laboratory-based science to an informationaided one [1]. Massive growth in information, due to experimental and technological advances, has led to ‘an absolute requirement for computerized databases to store, organize, and index the data and for specialized tools to view and analyze the data’ [2]. Bioinformatics, an emerging interdisciplinary field, Corresponding author. Yossy Machluf, Department of Science Teaching, Weizmann Institute of Science, P.O. Box 26, Rehovot 76100, Israel. Tel.: þ972-8-9342273; Fax: þ972-8-9342279; E-mail: . Yossy Machluf is a Senior Intern in the Department of Science Teaching, Weizmann Institute of Science. He is a researcher, science educator and curriculum developer in the fields of biotechnology and bioinformatics. Anat Yarden is an Associate Professor and head of the Life Sciences Group at the Department of Science Teaching, Weizmann Institute of Science. ß The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: Bioinformatics is an integral part of modern life sciences. It has revolutionized and redefined how research is carried out and has had an enormous impact on biotechnology, medicine, agriculture and related areas. Yet, it is only rarely integrated into high school teaching and learning programs, playing almost no role in preparing the next generation of information-oriented citizens. Here, we describe the design principles of bioinformatics learning environments, including our own, that are aimed at introducing bioinformatics into senior high school curricula through engaging learners in scientifically authentic inquiry activities. We discuss the bioinformatics-related benefits and challenges that high school teachers and students face in the course of the implementation process, in light of previous studies and our own experience. Based on these lessons, we present a new approach for characterizing the questions embedded in bioinformatics teaching and learning units, based on three criteria: the type of domainspecific knowledge required to answer each question (declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge, strategic knowledge, situational knowledge), the scientific approach from which each question stems (biological, bioinformatics, a combination of the two) and the associated cognitive process dimension (remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, create). We demonstrate the feasibility of this approach using a learning environment, which we developed for the high school level, and suggest some of its implications. This review sheds light on unique and critical characteristics related to broader integration of bioinformatics in secondary education, which are also relevant to the undergraduate level, and especially on curriculum design, development of suitable learning environments and teaching and learning processes. Integrating bioinformatics into senior high school BIOINFORMATICS EDUCATIONç AN OVERVIEW Despite the tremendous growth in the number of bioinformatics tools and databases to empower scientific research, only minor increase have been seen in the number of educational resources [7, 8]. Donovan [9] claimed that ‘given the growing disparity between the rapidly evolving world of research and an entrenched culture of science education, the future of science depends on our commitment to preparing future scientists to work with ‘‘big data’’’. The origin of bioinformatics education lies in self-teaching and apprenticeship-like models, where pioneers in the field taught themselves and each other, relying on personal experience and key articles (e.g. [10]). Today, training programs are being established for bioinformatics services and faculties [11–16]. The need to prepare 21st-century scientists has led to a paradigm shift in biology and bioinformatics education [17–23], striving to mirror today’s research trends and keeping science curricula current. Initially, efforts were invested in developing structured certificate and degree programs to teach bioinformatics at the graduate [24–27] and undergraduate [14, 28–32] levels. However, the challenge of bringing the complex and contemporary science of bioinformatics to the high school classroom is only now being addressed (see further on). A key question is ‘what are the standards of bioinformatics education at each educational level (from high school to secondary and tertiary levels)?’ The standards, in turn, should be integrated into policy, curriculum, instruction and assessment to support meaningful learning. Standards can be defined in terms of scientific practices, unifying cross-cutting concepts, and discipline-related core ideas [33]. Key themes to foster students’ realization of the real-life contribution of bioinformatics, to promote their understanding and to increase their interest are ‘integration’ and ‘context’ [18, 23, 29]. The term ‘integration’ means that fundamental concepts and ideas (or knowledge) as well as competencies (or practices) of each discipline (biology, computer sciences, mathematics, etc.) should be connected and integrated, rather than presented as separate discipline-specific units. The term ‘context’ means that the concepts, ideas and practices should be taught in relevant scientific contexts, using a problem-based approach [34–36], rather than as a collection of instructions in a recipe book. Of note, although the graduate-level programs are mainly designed to teach the fundamentals of bioinformatics, focusing on sophisticated computation, mathematics and informatics [27, 29], at the high school level, curricula usually use ‘simple’ bioinformatics as a teaching tool and provide students with a toolbox of technical skills and thinking abilities in bioinformatics [37]. Standards and objectives of bioinformatics education should be consistent with the educational framework (university versus high school, formal versus nonformal), targ (...truncated)