Development of an Effective Strategy to Teach Evolution

Abstract

This study proposes a new instructional strategy and corresponding materials designed from various alternative frameworks to help students understand evolution as a biologically acceptable theory. Biology teachers have normally taught the evolutionary mechanism by means of comparing Lamarckism with natural selection. In this study, a new instructional strategy in which the Lamarckian explanation is first excluded because Lamarckism is known to be subsumed in a learner's cognitive structure as a strong preconception of evolution is suggested for teaching evolution. After mutation theory is introduced, Darwinism including natural selection is explained separately during the next class hour. Corresponding instructional materials that aid student understanding of the evolutionary mechanism were developed using recently published articles on human genetic traits as scientific evolutionary evidence instead of the traditional evolutionary subject matter, giraffe neck. Evolutionary evidence from human genetic traits allows students to exclude anthropocentric thoughts effectively and raise concern for the phenomenon of evolution positively. The administered instructional strategy and materials in this research improved student conception, concern, and belief of evolution and it is believed that they helped students understand the evolutionary mechanism effectively.