How to realize the educational potential of laboratory work in genetics

Abstract

Teachers are not always sufficiently aware of the educational potential of certain teaching activities, and are thus prone to miss excellent opportunities of achieving a teaching objective with which they are perfectly familiar, and which they do, as a rule, strive to attain. This paper presents excerpts from the manual which accompanies a novel laboratory block in advanced genetics for 11th–12th grade level (17–18 year olds). Teachers are given the opportunity to decide for themselves which of the given alternatives would be suitable for their purposes, their objectives, and their pupils. The manual assists (but does not coerce) teachers to arrive at their own decision, by showing clearly the educational advantages and disadvantages of each option, and suggests ways of realizing the educational potential of each to the fullest.