A Journey from Content to Concept Teaching in a Biology Classroom, in the Context of Blended Learning

Abstract

Conceptual teaching was developed three decades ago as an alternative to conventional teaching approaches. It promised a significant shift in teaching practices across different disciplines and age groups. Traditionally, science subjects in high school tend to be content-heavy. Teaching science, especially biology, is still rooted in teaching methods that facilitate factual understanding and low-road transfer of knowledge. As a result, students’ knowledge remains compartmentalized. Students rarely make connections with other disciplines and transfer their biological knowledge to new situations. Bringing concepts to biology is a challenging task. Despite compelling evidence for concept-based teaching, there are few examples of how it can be implemented and replace content-based teaching. This article describes the changes to teaching instructions in biology over the last decade as well as the main challenges that prevent incorporating novel teaching approaches in a biology classroom. The author suggests concept-based teaching as an effective alternative to conventional, content-focused teaching and offers some ideas for implementing concepts into teaching biology in the context of blended learning.