CONCEPT-DRIVEN TEACHING AND ASSESSMENT IN INVERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY

The effectiveness of a new Biology curriculum, which emphasized the un derstanding of concepts rather than the transfer of information, was e valuated through student writing. The key concept is that the form of an organism is dictated by its evolutionary history and by the organis m's adaptation to its environment. When practicals were designed so th at students used key concepts to solve problems, students demonstrated their conceptual understanding more clearly This was manifested in th e students' ability to assert a claim and support it with rational arg ument. Detailed information resulted in practicals reverting to inform ation-gathering exercises, and consequently student writing become pur ely descriptive. When an assigned task was too structured, students at tempted to provide an ideal answer by reverting to rote-learned inform ation. This was manifested in students providing content-based respons es. These results suggest that for a concept-driven curriculum to be s uccessful there must be coherence between curricular goals, curricular methods, task design, and assessment practices.