Biology Concept Inventory and Biotechnology Concept Inventory to assess conceptual understanding in the biological sciences

Welcome. Our goal is to generate, test and distribute tools needed to determine what students are thinking (about science) and whether they learning what teachers think they are teaching. We assume that such information will encourage rigorous learning of science in general, and biology in particular.

Why? Because a wide range of personal, social, ethical, economic and political decisions depend upon understanding basic biology and how science generates working knowledge of the world around and within us.

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science - Charles Darwin.

News:

Understanding of molecular interactions and its implication for understanding evolutionary processes in preparation.
Concept inventories versus standardarized tests - which tool for which problem? in preparation.
Student understanding of energy & chemical bonding (an Ed's Tools based project) in preparation.
Klymkowsky, M.W. & K. Garvin-Doxas. 2008. Recognizing Student Misconceptions through Ed's Tool and the Biology Concept Inventory. PLoS Biology, 6:e3 (1-14).
Garvin-Doxas, K. & M.W. Klymkowsky. 2008. Understanding Randomness and its impact on Student Learning: Lessons from the Biology Concept Inventory (BCI). Life Science Education, in press.
Klymkowsky, M.W. 2007. Teaching without a textbook: a strategy to focus learning. CBE Life Sci Educ 6:190-193.

Supported in part by the NSF, a John Doctor prize from the
Society for Developmental Biology

and by profits from the Bioliteracy shop at cafepress.com