The why, when, and how of computing in biology classrooms

Abstract

Many biologists are interested in teaching computing skills or using computing in the classroom, despite not being formally trained in these skills themselves. Thus biologists may find themselves researching how to teach these skills, and therefore many individuals are individually attempting to discover resources and methods to do so. Recent years have seen an expansion of new technologies to assist in delivering course content interactively. Educational research provides insights into how learners absorb and process information during interactive learning. In this review, we discuss the value of teaching foundational computing skills to biologists, and strategies and tools to do so. Additionally, we review the literature on teaching practices to support the development of these skills. We pay special attention to meeting the needs of diverse learners, and consider how different ways of delivering course content can be leveraged to provide a more inclusive classroom experience. Our goal is to enable biologists to teach computational skills and use computing in the classroom successfully.

Insight from Biology Program Learning Outcomes: Implications for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment

“…For example, there have been recent calls highlighting the growing importance of computational skills in biology ( Rubinstein and Chor, 2014 ; Stefan et al. , 2015 ; Wright et al. , 2020 ).…”

Bioinformatic Teaching Resources – For Educators, by Educators – Using KBase, a Free, User-Friendly, Open Source Platform

“…The perception of coding or using a computer for data analysis outside of basic spreadsheets may elicit feelings of inadequacy in the students (Cline and Prokop, 2019). These deep-seated feelings could translate into the students disregarding the assignment or not fully understanding the greater concepts of the exercise, so it is important to provide an accessible and inclusive framework that focuses on knowledge generation (Wright et al, 2020).…”

Enzyme Kinetics Analysis: An online tool for analyzing enzyme initial rate data and teaching enzyme kinetics

“…8 It is not efficient for researchers worldwide to be duplicating efforts by writing code that others have done previously. Coding is also not always a core skill of most biology syllabuses meaning that researchers may need to gain the ability or best-practice knowledge to write efficient scripts, 9 compounded by the already interdisciplinary nature of enzyme kinetics. 10 This can also mean that code may have errors.…”