Moving away from dogmatic knowledge dissemination in a cell biology module: Examples from Singapore

Abstract

A surge in the amount of information in the discipline of Cell Biology presents a problem to the teaching of undergraduates under time constraints. In most textbooks and during lectures, students in Singapore are often taught in a dogmatic manner where concepts and ideas are expounded to them. The students in turn passively receive the materials and when they feel overloaded, tend to focus on memorising information for the purpose of assessments. Here, I describe the selective use of published experimental data during my lectures in a southeast Asian university, as an attempt to move away from this common mode of teaching in this region. The use of experimental data to encourage problem-based learning is not new, however, I used this method as a platform to encourage students to derive concepts on their own that would previously have been stated for them. The surveyed undergraduates were deemed very capable of analysing data and drawing appropriate conclusions. It was concluded that by not dictating concepts to these cohorts that the students gained more from generating their ideas themselves, and this added to their training to develop analytical skills. © 2013 G. Scott, The Higher Education Academy.