Biotechnology education for HKIEd teacher trainees

Biotechnology has become an important modern advance which has significant social implications. While it is getting more exposure in the news, awareness of its nature, applications, and social impact among teacher trainees and school teachers and students are limited. In Hong Kong Institute of Education, serious efforts have been demonstrated by science staff to incorporate biotechnology curriculum materials for existing and new Science and General Studies modules in Certificate of Education Courses (primary and Secondary) as well as BEd and PGDE Courses which had been validated or in the process of being validated. Since the number of hours allocated to Biotechnology education in the different modules are limited, it is important to fully understand various groups of teacher trainees’ attitudes and knowledge of biotechnology before one can develop meaningful and relevant curriculum materials, teaching strategies and activities. The initial findings of an on-going project have been presented (STEC, 98). A more in-depth study has been conducted mainly by interviews of teacher trainees to elicit their views of the biotechnology curricula as well as their learning needs. Concurrently a number of hands-on experiments on biotechnology have been continuously adopted from both foreign and local sources. Multimedia teaching resources on biotechnology, such as CD Roms, videos and relevant issue-based materials are obtained and teaching guidelines regarding their use in the teaching and self-study purposes are being worked out. It is hoped that the information obtained will be useful for future curriculum planning in various courses. Copyright © 2000 The Hong Kong Institute of Education.