biochem pedagogy

[cowbert]

What is the purpose of actually testing people's memorization of metabolic pathways when

Comments

[yrch]

I used to get that feeling all the time when I was in school, and definitely still do now that I'm training students. There's way too much emphasis on memorizing stupid little details that can be easily looked up in any chart (which all of us professionals do, constantly) and not nearly enough on overall concepts and actual useful information. When something goes wrong with a test or whatever here, all the troubleshooting gets done by like 2 or 3 individuals, because we're the only ones who have enough functional knowledge to be able to pinpoint the problem and fix it. It's all really very backwards.

my $0.02 posted from middle school mayhem

[geologygirl]

From a much lower ed. level I agree to a point, but the kids I deal with assume that they can lookup everything - and that whatever they find on the web is accurate and complete. They don't have the background info to evaluate new info or concepts. Some basic memorized facts atleast gives them a starting point.