Teacher's Guide


A teacher's guide to teaching molecular biology as an Inquiry course and complete answer key, Molecular Biology Concepts for Inquiry: A Guide to Inquiry, has been published as a paperback and Kindle eBook! 

This curriculum guide describes how an introductory college molecular biology course can be taught through inquiry using the BSCS “5E” Inquiry method of learning science. It is intended to frame a course that makes use of the textbook Molecular Biology: Concepts for Inquiry and the companion student workbook Molecular Biology Concepts for Inquiry: The Exploration Workbook. This curriculum is appropriate for college courses and high school courses taught at the college level.

Additional teacher resources:


This guide provides a detailed curricular plan for how inquiry experiences might be used effectively in a molecular biology course that aims to maximize conceptual understanding and the application of logic. A combination of experiments, class activities and discussions of textbook readings are used in lieu of direct lecture. All of the pages from the student workbook are replicated here and are accompanied by answers and pedagogical suggestions for how these inquiry experiences might be guided by the teacher. Each lesson includes pedagogical commentary, roles of stages of inquiry, a list of concepts taught, relevant student misconceptions, estimated timing, materials, answer keys, and related workbook pages with at-a-glance marginal notations describing the stage of inquiry and the role of the teacher.

Although this guide was written primarily for teachers it was formatted with the intention that students learning molecular biology on their own could also use this book as an answer key, with answers separate from workbook pages.

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES:
Students explore evidence through logic to construct an understanding of concepts and eliminate misconceptions. Students elaborate on their understanding by applying it to new situations. These activities are intended to be conducted in a classroom where an instructor periodically guides student thinking in small groups and leads class discussions of key concepts following activities. Answer keys are included. Inquiry activities include: introductory biochemistry, how proteins contribute to modes of inheritance, the structure and function of fluorescent proteins, the conceptual basis of PCR, the function of restriction enzymes and their use in engineering, the design of the mutagenesis of fluorescent proteins through Gibson assembly, analysis of an iGEM device, the design of a Golden Gate assembly of gene parts, epigenetic inheritance in imprinted diseases, analysis of the genetics of cancer (childhood vs. adult; inherited predisposition vs. sporadic), genome instability at telomeres, evaluation of next-generation DNA sequencing strategies, and the design of a CRISPR RNA to cure a genetic disease. A subset of the class activities focuses on pre- or post-experiment analyses that could either stand alone or could be used as a conceptual framework around which experiments could be conducted.

EXPERIMENTS:
Suggested wet lab experiment protocols are provided. The roles of these experiments in the overall inquiry strategy is described in this guide.

CLASSROOM DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
These open-ended questions serve as the basis for class discussions following Molecular Biology: Concepts for Inquiry textbook reading assignments. Answer keys are included. Readings and discussions substitute for most direct lecture in explaining concepts and they are accompanied by online self-assessment reading comprehension quizzes. The author will distribute quiz questions to instructors for their editing or individuals may take the author’s quizzes. Textbook image slides are available upon request by contacting the author.

UNIT SELF-ASSESSMENTS:
Questions and answer keys.

APPENDICES AND REFERENCE MATERIALS:
Essential concepts and workbook appendices.


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