The need to support bioinformatics training has been widely recognized by scientists, industry, and government institutions. However, the discussion of instructional methods for teaching bioinformatics is only beginning. Here we report on a systematic attempt to design two bioinformatics workshops for graduate biology students on the basis of Gagne's Conditions of Learning instructional design ...

Although several research groups within institutions in Nigeria have been involved in extensive malaria research, the link between the research community and policy formulation has not been optimal. The workshop aimed to assist post graduate students to identify knowledge gaps and to develop relevant Malaria-related research proposals in line with identified research priorities. A training need...

Over the past two years, through an NSF RCN UBE grant, the ASBMB has held regional workshops for faculty members and science educators from around the country that focused on identifying: 1) core principles of biochemistry and molecular biology, 2) essential concepts and underlying theories from physics, chemistry, and mathematics, and 3) foundational skills that undergraduate majors in biochem...

Since the beginning of educational assessment, there has been interest in modeling more than just what a student knows. However, the ease of measuring relatively simple knowledge and skills through multiple-choice tests has led to a field that has largely focused on what is easy to measure. In recent years, there has been increasing interest in automated assessment of students in a broader rang...

In this report we present a new approach to evaluation of curriculum. Many of us who have been engaged in curriculum reform efforts have been dissatisfied with the wait-ahd-see approach required when classical evaluation of a new curriculum is used. We have in mind evaluation by comparing pretests and posttests, with an analysis of posttest grade-placement distributions as a function of pretest...

Fifty-six children were included in a study that evaluated the effectiveness of a garden program designed to teach health and nutrition to second through fi fth grade-level children. The specifi c objectives of the research project were to evaluate the effect of the program on nutritional knowledge of the benefi ts of eating fruit and vegetables, nutritional attitudes toward fruit and vegetable...

Statistics should be considered as a tool by the animal experimenter in much the same way that a chemical analysis or a radiation counter is used as a tool. Too often statistics is considered as something magical which can restore order out of chaos and perhaps absolve the experimenter from mistakes in logic and procedure. It is true of course that the statistician through his knowledge of stat...

INTRODUCTION A framework for the definition of generic objectives for community-based education (CBE) was developed for undergraduate medical programmes, particularly for developing countries. To probe the validity of the set of CBE objectives generated by this approach, opinions from a wider audience were sought. METHOD Questionnaires were sent to 72 medical schools in 36 developing countrie...

Current medical school curricula predominantly facilitate early integration of basic science principles into clinical practice to strengthen diagnostic skills and the ability to make treatment decisions. In addition, they promote life-long learning and understanding of the principles of medical practice. The Pathology Competencies for Medical Education (PCME) were developed in response to a cal...

To prepare students to be effective practitioners in an increasingly diverse United States, medical educators must design cross-cultural curricula, including curricula in women's health. One goal of such education is cultural competence, defined as a set of skills that allow individuals to increase their understanding of cultural differences and similarities within, among, and between groups. I...