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Article: Solving your personal equation: An example from genetics studies
- Article from:
- The American Biology Teacher
- Article date:
- February 1, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright National Association of Biology Teachers Feb 1996. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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RECENTLY Robert Yager and others have promoted the constructivist learning model and some of its applications in science education. Yager's discussion brought to mind a good example of how individual conceptions and prior experience can influence outcomes in scientific work. We may think of this in terms of a parable and a paradigm. First I will tell the parable, then I will describe the paradigm. Although the example discussed here is one in classical genetics, the problem is one that microbiologists and molecular biologists also deal with every day, whenever they classify organisms or responses into positive vs. negative, active vs. inactive, present vs. absent. Sometimes the decision is ...