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Take Your Medicine; It's Good For You. Teaching Quantitative Principles To Biologists
Author(s) -
Springer Michael
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.30.1_supplement.104.1
Subject(s) - curriculum , engineering ethics , computer science , biological sciences , data science , psychology , engineering , pedagogy , computational biology , biology
Recent advances in automation and technology have changed the nature of life science research. Experiments now often generate large amounts of quantitative data – far too much for a person to sort through or to analyze by hand. Both academic institutions and funding agencies have recognized the need for programming and quantitative skills, but most life sciences educational programs have not yet integrated these skills into their curriculum. Compounding this problem, the life sciences, and in particular biology has historically attracted students who were often the least quantitatively inclined science majors. I will discuss our efforts to integrate quantitative methods into our curriculum, with an emphasis on using active learning approaches to engage and motivate students. Support or Funding Information This work was supported by the Bertarelli Program in Translational Neuroscience and Neuroengineering and by NSF grant 1349248