Reimagining genetics and molecular biology teaching in CityU

"The past decade has seen a quantum leap in genetics and molecular biology, the foundation of modern biology. Our students today will inherit a world that is rapidly being transformed by personal genome sequencing, synthetic biology and other toolboxes of molecular biology technology. Genetics (BCH3012) is currently a core course for the students of the Applied Biology BSc programme. We plan to conduct a study on pedagogy that will provide the basis for the revision of this course, by turning the existing ""lecture-based"" course into an ""activity-based"" one. This grant will support a research assistant who will survey genetic courses in other universities, especially for innovative and inexpensive lab ideas. The outcome of this project will be a revamping of this existing genetics course through the increase of the quantity and quality of the lab component and the introduction of more discovery-based elements. "