Subject: Curriculum - cross-discipl Science (Palfreyman)

Posted by Prof. Dr. Niall Palfreyman on 12/9/2005
In Reply To:Curriculum - cross-discipl Science (Palfreyman) Posted by John Heinbokel on 12/8/2005

Message:

>Niall,
>
>You've been more active to date than I on this List

I doubt that. Typically I write an enthusiastic comment to the list and then get distracted and so miss the responses to my comment.

>Perhaps, a non-trivial
>starting place might even be to wrestle a bit more on defining just
>what it is we'd be trying to accomplish: what will our students be able
>to do better, if we're successful in such an endeavor?

I'm unsure to what extent it's relevant to what we're talking about here, but I've included below an extract from the preliminary draft of an article I'm currently writing on combining these student groups in my work. I present it only as a trigger for further thoughts.

>I'd appreciate a short definition or description of just what
>'bioinformatics' is.

The definition of bioinformatics is unfortunately still in flux. It was introduced in the late 90's to describe the essentially database work on data from the human genome project, but many of us are working at getting the term to be understood more widely than that. After all, the meaning of data lies ultimately in the dynamical effects of that data on the world, so dynamics must at least be part of the endeavour to understand genome data.
Here at Weihenstephan we understand bioinformatics to simply be the application of informatics (computer science) to biological models.

Best wishes,
Niall Palfreyman.

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In this chapter I have sought to provide justification for four basic ideas. First, students can be divided into (at least) two distinct problem- solving cultures: T-students preferentially use rules to construct real effects, whereas B-students preferentially use real data to construct rules. Second, these two thinking styles form complementary and necessary aspects of problem-solving behaviour, whose relationship lies in the recalling and retelling of stories which model our experience of the world.
Third, story-telling is a fundamentally social activity, and can therefore be promoted by encouraging students to engage in group problem-solving activities in which they recount to each other their experiences of the subject matter being learned. Such activities should contain both classification and experimental components. Finally, using such story- telling activities in class leads to a rapprochement of the two cultural groups in which each starts to perceive the usefulness of the other.