Science Bridge versucht auf allen Ebenen die Lehre in der modernen Biologie zu verbessern. Dieses Projekt richtet sich zunächst an Studenten im BSc Studiengängen, soll aber in Zukunft auch eine Plattform für Schüler und für fortgeschrittene Studenten der Lebenswissenschaften bieten.
Science Bridge aims at improving teaching at all levels. This project first addresses students in the BSc curriculum but will be extended for pupils at secondary schools as well as for advanced students.
At the XX ICG (International Congress of Genetics) in Berlin in August 2008, a session “Teaching Genetics” was held. Andrew Moore from EMBO, Dave Micklos from Cold Spring Harbor, Tony Griffiths from Vancouver and Wolfgang Nellen from Kassel presented ways to improve the quality of teaching and to solve the problem why genetics is considered so “difficult” by pupils and students. The Powerpoint presentations of the talks are freely available on the Science Bridge website.
Following the congress, Martin Fenner, Matt Brown and Wolfgang Nellen started a discussion on Nature Network (NN) on the possibilities to use blogs, internet groups or forums for teaching purposes.
As a result, the first group “Basic Genetics Questions” (BGQ) has been opened in Oct. 2008. Up to now, about 30 students from Indonesia and Germany have registered and we are all learning by this practical exercise how to best organize the forum. The German Genetics Society (GfG) is a partner of this activity and observes BGQ as a pilot program for possible future online teaching projects.
Based on the basic genetics lecture at Kassel University in the Winter Semester, two or three questions will be posted weekly by the administrators of the group (usually on Fridays or Saturdays). Participating students may work on the problems and post their answers until Tuesday. Discussions among students are encouraged, solutions may be posted by individuals or by groups of students.
Preferably from Tuesday on, students may comment and discuss the answers of all participants.
On Thursday, the administrators/tutors join in and comment on the solutions.
On Friday a new round begins.
Posts by students will come from the account of an individual registered participant. If working in groups (strongly suggested!), all names of this group should be given in the post.
Read the question! Think about it and discuss in your group or with your friends. Write your answer or suggestion in the comments field of the forum and give your name and the names of your group members. Keep your answers as short as possible and only as detailed as absolutely necessary. Do not write long stories on everything you know but only what is relevant for the question! You may use text books and the internet for finding answers. It is good scietific practice and helpful for you and the other participants if you reference the sources that you used (link tool in the forum).
The tutors cannot judge the contribution of an individual participant to an answer. The course is non-obligatory and is not graded. Students participate “just for the fun of it”. There is no pressure to answer the questions! If participants skip a week or two, nobody will be offended. At least in Kassel, however, students know that working on “basic genetics questions” is a valuable training for future exams.
This is a closed group on NN, meaning that only invited participants can view and post contents. Students have to ask an administrator to invite them (list of administrators see below). Participants then register with NN. They are required to fill out their NN profile so they can be identified and other participants know who is in the group. You are welcome to tell your friends and colleagues about the forum and they may ask an admin for an invitation to participate.
This is no longer an official course at Kassel University. We will try to attract students and administrators/tutors from other countries, especially Science Bridge partners. Since English is the language of science, participants receive additional training. Perfect English is not required! To make a post understandable is not so difficult!
All interested students may ask an administrator for an invitation. We especially invite our partners in Indonesia and Hungary to join in! The course is recommended for undergraduate students participating in “Basic Genetics” or an equivalent. We are aware that students may have substantially different background, therefore comments may be on very different levels. Do not give up if you find that some students are more advanced on a certain topic than you are! They probably know less on other topics!
The number of participants may be limited depending on the number of administrators/tutors. At present, approved registration is open to everyone, in the future Science Bridge membership may be required.
We have some “observers” in the forum. These are lectureres or others interested in online teaching and you can find out who they are by reading their profile. They may comment on general features of the forum and thus help to improve the efficiency of the group.
The moderators/administrators will comment on your answers and they will take care that the participants keep to the rules. The admins can invite participants upon their request. They will remove offensive postings and also postings that are off topic or inappropriate for this forum. Admins and moderators may also place announcements that are relevant for this forum. Student participants may use the Science Bridge forum for announcements.