Analogies for Teaching Mutant Allele Dominance Concepts英文文献资料.docVIP

Creative Education 2012. Vol.3, Special Issue, 884-889 Published Online October 2012 in SciRes (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/ce) /10.4236/ce.2012.326133 Analogies for Teaching Mutant Allele Dominance Concepts Rebecca L. Seipelt-Thiemann Biology Department, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, USA Email: rebecca.seipelt@ Received August 29 , 2012; revised September 27 , 2012; accepted October 9 , 2012 th th th Analogies connect new and familiar concepts and ideas by providing a comfortable and known frame- work within which students can integrate new concepts. Use of analogies to aid understanding of abstract and/or complex ideas is commonly used in molecular sciences, such as genetics, molecular biology, and biochemistry. Five analogies for different mechanisms of mutant allele dominance, a seemingly counter- intuitive idea in genetics, were designed and assessed in an upper division undergraduate/masters level course. Each of the five mechanisms, haploinsufficiency, acquired function, poison product, increased ac- tivity, and inappropriate expression, was described in the context of a human disease and molecular mechanism and followed by a descriptive analogy which mirrored the molecular mechanism using real world items or a video clip. The majority of students reported increased interest, understanding, and en- gagement following the analogies, as well as decreased confusion. Keywords: Analogy; Genetics; Allele Dominance Introduction a non-intuitive concept, mutant allele dominance. Dominance and recessiveness are terms used to describe both phenotypes and alleles/genes. However, students generally simply accept the use of the terms without understanding why a mutant allele is considered dominant or recessive or how the alleles actually genera