| Project | GenScope |
| Contact | Paul Horwitz |
| paul@concord.org | |
| URL | http://genscope.concord.org |
| Project description | We are exploring ways of using a computer-based manipulative to help students learn to reason about genetics at multiple levels. We have created a tool called GenScope which represents, and allows the manipulation of, genetic information at six different levels: DNA, chromosomes, cells, organisms, pedigrees, and populations. Manipulations made at any one of these levels are instantly reflected, as appropriate, at each of the others. We have been evaluating the educational effectiveness of this software with students at the high school and middle school levels, with particular emphasis on at-risk inner-city students. |
| Theoretical background | Our project is in the tradition of others in which the emphasis is on the support of inquiry through student-centered software. Starting from the seminal ThinkerTools Project, we can trace our origins through such other projects as Model-it, SimCalc, and RelLab. We differ from these, in part, because of our interest in urban education and our choice of domain. |
| Challenges | Our findings, based largely on a collaboration with co-workers from the Educational Testing Service, indicate the need to study the transfer of knowledge gained from interactions on the computer to performance on language-based, paper-and-pencil assessment instruments. We are exploring alternate modes of assessment (e.g. embedding the assessment with the learning), as well as ways of connecting students' interaction with the computer model to real-world experiments and experience. |
| Partnership | We are particularly interested in partenering with research groups interested in issues of assessment of learning in a technology-rich environment. |