Short-term Workshops Research Articles

Impact of Prolonged Professional Development on Teachers’ Confidence in Using Inquiry-Based Learning in the Classroom

Professional development (PD) programs for science and agriculture teachers designed around the inquiry-based learning (IBL) teaching strategy could help to improve science proficiency amongst our high school students. PD that continues over a longer period of time is more effective than short-term workshops. The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of a prolonged PD program on teachers’ confidence in using IBL strategies for teaching animal sciences content. The following research questions guided this study: RQ1: What were participants’ perceptions of a prolonged PD program? and RQ2: How did the prolonged PD program influence the participants’ confidence in using IBL? For this project, the teachers completed three online modules focused on best practices for using IBL in the classroom and then participated in a five-day in-person PD program that was offered in Tennessee and Nebraska during June and July of 2022. Basic qualitative methodology was used, and four focus groups were conducted. The following themes emerged: perceptions of the PD and confidence in using IBL. Allowing teachers to work through the IBL activities as students appeared to increase their confidence in using IBL to teach animal science concepts in the future.

A QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS OF TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ CONTENT KNOWLEDGE IN PHYSICS

This research examined the extent of content knowledge in Physics of teachers and students, as well as its correlation to the contributing factors that affects the extent of content knowledge in Physics among the teachers and students. Based on the computed data, the researcher found a significant relationship between the age, sex, undergraduate specialization, and years in service of teachers profile and the teachers self-evaluation on the extent of content knowledge in Physics. It was also revealed that the teachers self-evaluation on the extent of content knowledge in Physics and the following contributing factors: availability of resources, attendance to trainings and seminars, technological fluency, and research engagement in physics related studies. However, the Peer observation and coaching of Contributing Factors was not observed to have any significant relationship to the teachers self-evaluation on the extent of content knowledge in Physics. The level of students content knowledge in Physics as to test scores has a descriptive equivalent of Satisfactory and verbally interpreted as Average. Moreover, the availability of resources, exposure to practical work, study habits, and teacher factor of contributing factors was observed to have a significant relationship to the test scores based on the computed data. Based on the self-evaluation of the teachers and students, it is recommended to conduct targeted seminar or training in least learned competencies in Physics for various proficiency levels of teachers. There are a lot of trainings implemented on the teaching strategies but only none to few focuses on the mastery of subject content. There should be short-term workshops and trainings on the use of laboratory apparatus and equipment to improve teachers technological fluency. The education sector should also focus on provision of credible and comprehensive learning materials (online or printed) that are aligned with the national standard, appropriate to the level of knowledge of the learners, supplements student learning, and is easy to understand. To bridge learning gaps, it is also recommended to conduct remediation or intervention in Mathematics and English as it has an impact on conceptual understanding of Physics is recommended for students.

Laying a foundation for critical professional development through a research–practice partnership

ABSTRACT Much of the formal professional development teachers experience consists of short-term workshops that maintain – rather than disrupt – the systems of power that reproduce educational inequities. In response, some scholars have advocated critical professional development (PD) as a means of supporting teachers’ interrogation of these inequities and empowerment to effect change. Critical PD is based on Paulo Freire’s ideas of dialogue, problem-posing, and praxis, and it tends to emerge within grassroots organisations that function independently from the school systems. There are two drawbacks to this autonomous structure, however: the legitimacy problem, or the fact that the pedagogies advocated within these groups may be difficult to implement without the institutional support of participants’ districts; and the resource problem, or the fact that teachers’ time and efforts within these independent organisations is typically uncompensated. In this essay, we describe a research – practice partnership in which we co-developed critical PD on culturally responsive teaching with district leaders. The form of the PD, critical action research, allowed the participants to engage in problem-posing and praxis in order to analyse systems of power and their own positionalities within these systems. Recommendations for those with and without access to research – practice partnerships are offered.

Concretization of Sustainable Urban Design Education in the Project Based Learning Approach—Experiences from a Fulbright Specialist Project

While there is a growing general awareness of sustainable development challenges among the students in Poland, the transition from a general notion to specific applications on various scales of designing the built environment is still a challenge. The described experience was aimed at setting up engaging learning experiences to improve education in sustainable urban design. In the presented case, introducing sustainability issues in urban design education was fostered by sharing international best practices and experiences through a Fulbright Specialist project, which allowed a range of means and opportunities to share knowledge and expertise in sustainable urban design. The Fulbright Specialist Program provides short-term consultancies of U.S. established professionals as experts on curriculum, faculty development, institutional planning, etc. In the discussed project, implemented in Poland, an American expert in real estate and sustainable urban development shared her experiences with an integrated sustainable approach to planning, development and design. The project demonstrated successful ways of maximizing the impact and knowledge-sharing in various activities: lectures, workshops, consultancies and TEDx talks. This experience shows how short-term workshops backed by a foreign specialist can trigger inspiration and opportunities for synergy in incorporating environmental, social and economic sustainability in education and campus design.

Field and Lab Protocols: Achievements of the DNAqua-Net Working Group 3

We review the progress made in building capacity and consensus around field and laboratory methods during the course of the DNAqua-net programme, including short-term scientific missions, training courses, workshops and ring tests. We highlight the challenge of methodological standardisation, where in some cases the same written protocol employed by different laboratories may not always give the same results, but in other cases almost identical results can be obtained using different methodological workflows. As the field of DNA-based biomonitoring moves increasingly into practical application, we consider how end-users can best ensure quality and consistency of results, while also enabling continued technical innovation, which will continue to move the field forwards. We also reflect on the benefits of multi-stakeholder forums such as DNAqua-net for bridging the research-policy gap and accelerating the application and impact of research. Finally, we introduce a major output from the working group: A Practical Guide to DNA-based Methods for Biodiversity Assessment, which synthesises current knowledge to help end-users or those new to the field to understand the methodological choices that have to be made, and the trade-offs implicit in those choices.

Cost-Effectiveness of Instructional Coaching: Implementing a Design-Based, Continuous Improvement Model to Advance Teacher Professional Development

Schools devote substantial resources to teacher professional development each year. Yet studies show much of this investment is directed toward ineffective short-term workshops that have little impact on instructional change or student outcomes. At the same time, more intensive job-embedded forms of professional learning, such as instructional coaching, require substantially more resources than traditional professional development. We report the results of a two-year study assessing the cost-effectiveness of instructional coaching through a design-based, continuous improvement research model. We study iterative, inquiry cycles in which educators collect data and make changes to the coaching model based on multiple rounds of implementation. We determined the effectiveness of coaching during each iteration by tracking the number of times teachers and coaches reached student-outcome based goals set during the coaching cycle. We assess the cost of implementing the coaching model for each of the three iterations by monitoring staff time allocations and other resource use. Results show that across five schools, the cost of the coaching intervention decreased substantially from the first iteration to the second iteration but increased moderately during the third iteration. Our findings suggest that coaching programs can become more cost-effective over time, as coaches and teachers refine their work together. While specific design features of the study limit generalizability of our findings, the study demonstrates how improvement science or design-based research can be combined with cost-effectiveness research to improve practice in local settings.

The relevance of training specialists in the Health Technology Assessment in the world and Ukraine

Based on generalization of the modern international experience the areas of development of the methodology for training specialists in Health Technology Assessment (НТА) system have been determined; they reflect the categories of information consumers, the goal, methods, organizers and intermediaries of knowledge transfer. The analysis of the market of educational services, educational curricula and Internet resources in the field of НТА has been conducted. Based on the results they are classified into 4 groups – academic programs, professional improvement and continuing education, short-term training and information for various target groups, online courses at the pre-graduate level and for postgraduate training. According to the all-Ukrainian survey the necessity for training specialists in the field of “expert in assessing health technologies” has been confirmed. Based on the information needs, requirements of stakeholders and international experts in НТА a qualification characteristic, and on its basis – the professional academic program, have been developed at the National University of Pharmacy, as well as training of the corresponding specialists has been started. In the future, it is planned to expand educational services and conduct short-term courses and workshops, as well as online training of specialists in НТА at the postgraduate level.

African New Towns: An adaptive, principle-based planning approach

The New Towns (mixed use urban developments planned and built from scratch) initiated across the African continent since 1990 are overwhelmingly designed and built according to urban planning models from the previous century (Watson 2013; Marcinkowski 2018; Keeton and Provoost 2019). This has produced a generation of New Towns with rigid physical infrastructure and strict building regulations, that do not support the spatial manifestations of the ‘informal’ sector. As a result, these New Towns may become insular enclaves and informal settlements may develop adjacently to them. Residents of these adjacent areas may not have access to the services and amenities offered within the New Towns (Keeton and Provoost 2019). Coupled with the implicit vulnerabilities of emerging and threshold economies, the contextual mismatch of the imported urban models exacerbates spatial segregation at an urban scale. Additionally, contemporary New Town models often do not take current climate variability or future climate change threats into account. As implemented in the African context, they rarely respond effectively to surrounding natural landscapes or environmental sensitivities (Keeton and Nijhuis 2019). Building on the arguments that (1) equal access to resources is a key component of sustainable development and that (2) urban planning benefits from new linkages between critical social theory and environmental science, this research proposes that applying adaptive urban planning principles to New Towns in the African context can increase ecological sustainability and social inclusivity (WCED 1987; Fainstein and Campbell 2012). The objective of this research is therefore to address the spatial challenges of African New Towns by developing an alternative planning and design approach that acknowledges both social and environmental dimensions, as well as the constant state of change that all cities exhibit. This is done by addressing four main research questions: (1) What are the spatial problems of African New Towns caused by the application of common planning approaches? (2) What are the principles of a more adaptive and sustainable planning and design approach and how can they address these problems? (3) How and to what extent can the adaptive planning and design principles be improved and applied? And finally, (4) As a result of the findings, how can adaptive planning approaches and the related principles be implemented? The research first identifies the spatial challenges specific to contemporary African New Towns through a combination of empirical data collection and literature review. The research moves forward to bring these shared spatial challenges together with a set of guidelines for New Towns originally written by Michelle Provoost as an addition to UN-Habitat’s New Urban Agenda (Provoost 2016). The analysis of shared spatial challenges is used to revise, expand and refine these guidelines into a set of adaptive planning and design principles specific to African New Towns. The resulting principles are then tested by applying them through case study analysis of three existing New Towns to establish their universality as well as their ability to acknowledge local specificities. In the final phase of the research, two short-term workshops validate the results by testing implementation of the principles in two African New Towns (Tatu City, Kenya and Mahonda, Zanzibar). The research concludes that the adaptive planning and design principles can be an effective starting point for stakeholders involved in the development of New Towns across Africa. It furthermore concludes that these principles must be adapted locally to meet the individual urgencies of different sites. This research contributes to the existing body of literature on contemporary African New Towns (Watson 2014; Murray 2017; Van Noorloos and Kloosterboer 2018; Keeton and Provoost 2019). Notably, most authors working on this topic primarily employ internet sources or a single case study to build their arguments, which can be problematic in the African context where remotely-sourced data is often unreliable and New Towns as a group exhibit vast divergences that may limit the transferability of results from individual case studies. This research therefore fills a knowledge gap by bringing together empirical evidence acquired during fieldwork in Angola, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, and Tanzania, combined with literature review and the results of interdisciplinary workshops to support its claims. It also contributes to the current debate on normative assumptions regarding planning in the Global South (Watson 2002; Watson 2016; Cirolia and Berrisford 2017), and directly addresses the disconnect between academia and practice regarding contemporary African New Towns (Grubbaur 2019; Keeton and Provoost 2019). Finally, this study aims to provide an alternative approach for planners, developers and decision-makers initiating tomorrow’s New Towns in Africa.

Financial Obligations in the Implementation of Free Fee Primary and Secondary Schools Education in Arusha District Council – Tanzania

The government of the United Republic of Tanzania in early 2014 introduced offering primary and secondary schools education without school fees. The main objective of this study was to find out if the government grants to enhance free fee education in public primary and secondary schools in Arusha District Council were used efficiently. The first specific objective was to find out if the head teachers/headmasters draw up budgets for their schools according to priorities of the school needs, the second specific objective was to ensure competency on financial management in public schools; and the third specific objective was to find out if monitoring and controlling of the institutions budget was carried out by head of public schools in collaboration with stakeholders. The findings have shown that the government grants for free fee education were appreciated. It was discovered a shortage of teachers with financial accounting qualifications at the targeted schools which raises a concern to look out how to fill the gap by employing the qualified ones. Short term seminars or workshops were doubted if they could make someone competent in handling school finances. Stakeholders were involved in schools budget preparation and support. Key words: Government grants, free fee education, budgets, monitoring and controlling of the institutions budget. DOI: 10.7176/JEP/11-9-24 Publication date: March 31 st 2020

African New Towns

The New Towns (mixed use urban developments planned and built from scratch) initiated across the African continent since 1990 are overwhelmingly designed and built according to urban planning models from the previous century (Watson 2013; Marcinkowski 2018; Keeton and Provoost 2019). This has produced a generation of New Towns with rigid physical infrastructure and strict building regulations, that do not support the spatial manifestations of the ‘informal’ sector. As a result, these New Towns may become insular enclaves and informal settlements may develop adjacently to them. Residents of these adjacent areas may not have access to the services and amenities offered within the New Towns (Keeton and Provoost 2019). Coupled with the implicit vulnerabilities of emerging and threshold economies, the contextual mismatch of the imported urban models exacerbates spatial segregation at an urban scale. Additionally, contemporary New Town models often do not take current climate variability or future climate change threats into account. As implemented in the African context, they rarely respond effectively to surrounding natural landscapes or environmental sensitivities (Keeton and Nijhuis 2019). Building on the arguments that (1) equal access to resources is a key component of sustainable development and that (2) urban planning benefits from new linkages between critical social theory and environmental science, this research proposes that applying adaptive urban planning principles to New Towns in the African context can increase ecological sustainability and social inclusivity (WCED 1987; Fainstein and Campbell 2012). The objective of this research is therefore to address the spatial challenges of African New Towns by developing an alternative planning and design approach that acknowledges both social and environmental dimensions, as well as the constant state of change that all cities exhibit. This is done by addressing four main research questions: (1) What are the spatial problems of African New Towns caused by the application of common planning approaches? (2) What are the principles of a more adaptive and sustainable planning and design approach and how can they address these problems? (3) How and to what extent can the adaptive planning and design principles be improved and applied? And finally, (4) As a result of the findings, how can adaptive planning approaches and the related principles be implemented? The research first identifies the spatial challenges specific to contemporary African New Towns through a combination of empirical data collection and literature review. The research moves forward to bring these shared spatial challenges together with a set of guidelines for New Towns originally written by Michelle Provoost as an addition to UN-Habitat’s New Urban Agenda (Provoost 2016). The analysis of shared spatial challenges is used to revise, expand and refine these guidelines into a set of adaptive planning and design principles specific to African New Towns. The resulting principles are then tested by applying them through case study analysis of three existing New Towns to establish their universality as well as their ability to acknowledge local specificities. In the final phase of the research, two short-term workshops validate the results by testing implementation of the principles in two African New Towns (Tatu City, Kenya and Mahonda, Zanzibar). The research concludes that the adaptive planning and design principles can be an effective starting point for stakeholders involved in the development of New Towns across Africa. It furthermore concludes that these principles must be adapted locally to meet the individual urgencies of different sites. This research contributes to the existing body of literature on contemporary African New Towns (Watson 2014; Murray 2017; Van Noorloos and Kloosterboer 2018; Keeton and Provoost 2019). Notably, most authors working on this topic primarily employ internet sources or a single case study to build their arguments, which can be problematic in the African context where remotely-sourced data is often unreliable and New Towns as a group exhibit vast divergences that may limit the transferability of results from individual case studies. This research therefore fills a knowledge gap by bringing together empirical evidence acquired during fieldwork in Angola, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, and Tanzania, combined with literature review and the results of interdisciplinary workshops to support its claims. It also contributes to the current debate on normative assumptions regarding planning in the Global South (Watson 2002; Watson 2016; Cirolia and Berrisford 2017), and directly addresses the disconnect between academia and practice regarding contemporary African New Towns (Grubbaur 2019; Keeton and Provoost 2019). Finally, this study aims to provide an alternative approach for planners, developers and decision-makers initiating tomorrow’s New Towns in Africa.

Assessment of Critical Challenges Facing Small Business Enterprises: A Survey of Small Businesses in Woliso Twon, Ethiopia

Small businesses development has received a great attention as priority area for economic growth and transformation mainly for emerging economies. The study aimed to assess the challenges facing small business enterprises of Woliso town, Ethiopia. The research type used in the study was descriptive research. The study employed the primary data which obtained from small business owners through questionnaires. The total population of the study was 940 small business enterprises and out of which 272 was taken as a sample using probability sampling technique. Data obtained from primary sources were processed through SPSS version-22. Finally, to assist the interpretation processes pie charts, frequency tables, and bar graphs were used. The study concluded that, access of finance, informal business sectors, high tax rate, bureaucratic leadership, lack of accounting skills, shortage of finance, were potential challenges of small business enterprises in the study area. The study suggested that, there is a need for short term training, workshops, and seminar in order to fill the skill and knowledge gap of small business owners. Keywords: Critical, Challenges, Small Business Enterprises DOI : 10.7176/RJFA/10-3-04

Issues on Primary Education and Teachers in Cambodia: Implications to Education Development Cooperation

본 연구는 아시아의 개발도상국가인 캄보디아의 열악한 교육 문제를 해결하기 위한 근간으로서 초등교육 환경과 교사 쟁점을 분석하고 제 발전 방향을 탐색하는데 목적이 있다. 이를 위해 캄보디아의 초등교육 환경과 그 특성은 무엇인지 분석하고, 교육 개혁을 이끄는 주체로서 ‘교사’에 주목하면서 캄보디아 초등교사 양성 제도 및 교사의 자격 수준의 제 실태를 고찰하였다. 그 결과 캄보디아 초등교육 환경 특성과 쟁점에서는 여전히 열악한 교육 여건과 질적으로 낮은 교육접근성 문제를 파악하였고, 교사의 낮은 역량 및 교육의 질 저하, 그리고 초등교사의 현직 연수 시스템 취약 문제를 분석하였다. 그리하여 교육의 질을 향상시키기 위한 다양한 방향 탐색이 제안되었다.This study seeks to examine current status and issues on primary education environment and teachers in Cambodia, a country that has a poor education environment and low educational achievement I analysed the features and limitation of education. Major findings revealed the primary school students’ low accessibility on education and poor competencies and qualification of primary school teachers, which have hindered a quality of education in Cambodia. Central implications were produced to improve the quality of education and training system for primary school teachers. First, sustainability should be embedded from the initial design to the performance evaluation of the projects. Second, we should carry forward a customized training project that can meet the needs of primary school teachers in Cambodia. Third, the Education ODA project should be institutionalized into the national mechanism of the credit accreditation system, including the incentives of participating. Fourth, in-service training should ensure the inclusiveness and accessibility for the disadvantaged in remote areas. Fifth, short-term workshops for teachers should be avoided, but intensive programs including mentoring should be expanded. Finally, we should support the establishment of autonomous teacher- learning communities based on school level across the Cambodia, which could establish the social capital of the teaching profession in a long term.

Подготовка арбитров в спортивной борьбе

Purpose: the analysis of problems in the training of referees in wrestling. Material and methods: theoretical analysis and generalization of literary sources, pedagogical observation. Results: the analysis and generalization of the opinions of experts shows that the success of the complex of judicial activities caused by the judges' experience, knowledge of the techniques and tactics of wrestling and a high level of development of professionally important psycho-physiological functions. Conclusions: given the lack of professional officiating freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling, the preference shall be given independent forms of training short-term precompetitive workshops not only for training, but and for testing of individual capabilities of individual judges.

The Rural Educational Tourism at the Farm

Abstract The consumer of rural and farm tourism has evolved in the direction of being associated with types of fun and educational leisure activities. Tourism consumers search for new types of tourism, such as: farming entertainment. The aim of an educational trip in the rural areas is: to know the life and activity of the farmers, to create a positive image of the agriculture in the eyes of the next generations/ urban resident consumers. The educational rural tourism has various activities, i.e.: basic classes/ full courses/ short term workshops on the school farms. The educational activities for children include: floral arrangements, cooking classes on the farm, preparing natural herbal remedies, demonstrations of traditional ways of obtaining beer and wine, experience historical reconstruction of the traditional villages, etc. The recreational rural tourism includes: art of the plants, agricultural labyrinths, wine tasting tourism, vegetable picking, identification of spontaneous plant and wildlife species, etc. The authors present the steps have to be followed in order to develop new brand tourism products that meet the requirements for consumer's education.

A Profile of Chinese Family Therapists

It is helpful for professional organizations, policy makers and regulators, third-party payers, and clients to have access to empirical data about family therapists and the practice of family therapy. Nevertheless, there is no such data available in China. This study attempts to fill this gap by profiling Chinese family therapists. A questionnaire was designed and delivered to family therapists and trainees. A total of 117 questionnaires were collected and analyzed. The findings show that the majority of Chinese family therapists are female, in the age range of 31–40 years, hold master’s degrees, and attend continuous training programs that last 20–40 days over 2–3 years and short-term workshops for family therapy training. They are mainly motivated by the need for personal growth in their career choice. Most of them work in the institutional setting. They have worked in the counseling field for 6.6 years on average, and they have practiced family therapy for an average of 3.4 years. They perform counseling for 9.2 h per week, and 4 h involve working with families. They received an average of 30.6 h of family therapy supervision in the past year. They mainly see individuals and families with adolescents, and their approach is eclectic. This paper compares the findings in China with findings from North America, discusses possible reasons for differences in the findings, and provides suggestions for future development and studies of family therapy in China.

Sport psychology group consultation using social networking web sites.

A social networking Web site, Facebook, was used to deliver long-term sport psychology consultation services to student-athletes (i.e., soccer players) in 30- to 60-min weekly sessions. Additional short-term team building, group cohesion, communication, anger management, injury rehabilitation, mental toughness, commitment, and leadership workshops were provided. Cohesion and overall relationships between both the student-athletes and the sport psychology consultants benefited from this process. Social networking Web sites offer a practical way of providing sport psychology consulting services that does not require use of major resources.

Improving practice with target inquiry: high school chemistry teacher professional development that works

High school chemistry teachers' experiences learning science through lectures and verification labs make it difficult for them to transition to inquiry-based approaches called for in the U.S. National Science Education Standards. Unfortunately, widely implemented approaches to teacher professional development (PD) aimed at reform, such as short-term workshops and fragmented courses, have not been effective. Target Inquiry (TI), a new model for high school chemistry teacher PD, attempts to incorporate research-driven features of PD into a coherent, rigorous, and in-depth program. TI has three core experiences delivered over 2.5 years which have been shown to positively affect teaching methods and student outcomes, including a chemistry research experience, inquiry materials adaptation, and action research. TI has been implemented and studied over the past 4 years with a demographically diverse teacher cohort to examine teacher and student outcomes of the model. The Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol (RTOP) was used to evaluate TI teacher instructional quality before, during, and after TI participation. A repeated-measures ANOVA yielded significant increases with high effect sizes in RTOP total (N = 6, p = 0.001, η2 = 0.80) and subscale scores over four years. Follow-up tests showed that it took two years of TI (including the research experience and materials adaptation) to produce detectable gains in scores. Qualitative data from teacher interviews and implementation journals described instructional changes that align with the quantitative results. These findings show that TI produces measurable improvements to teacher practice and promises to improve high school science instruction on a broader scale.

Successful Leadership Development for Women STEM Faculty

The Leadership Institute, funded by the National Science Foundation to encourage women faculty in engineering and science to prepare for academic leadership roles, was designed to increase the accessibility of such training for faculty in the Midwest by providing short-term workshops within their geographic area at low cost. The leadership training was limited to women who had already received tenure and focused on the portable business and leadership skills women need to make a successful entry into department chair and dean positions. The participants learned about budgeting conventions at their home campuses, but most of the training was designed to generally equip them for academic leadership roles. This article describes the training and reports the results of longitudinal data collection to document the movement of women faculty into named leadership positions and assess the effectiveness of the leadership training

Bioinformatics education in India

An account of bioinformatics education in India is presented along with future prospects. Establishment of BTIS network by Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Government of India in the 1980s had been a systematic effort in the development of bioinformatics infrastructure in India to provide services to scientific community. Advances in the field of bioinformatics underpinned the need for well-trained professionals with skills in information technology and biotechnology. As a result, programmes for capacity building in terms of human resource development were initiated. Educational programmes gradually evolved from the organisation of short-term workshops to the institution of formal diploma/degree programmes. A case study of the Master's degree course offered at the Bioinformatics Centre, University of Pune is discussed. Currently, many universities and institutes are offering bioinformatics courses at different levels with variations in the course contents and degree of detailing. BioInformatics National Certification (BINC) examination initiated in 2005 by DBT provides a common yardstick to assess the knowledge and skill sets of students passing out of various institutions. The potential for broadening the scope of bioinformatics to transform it into a data intensive discovery discipline is discussed. This necessitates introduction of amendments in the existing curricula to accommodate the upcoming developments.

A survey of interests in teacher training of health science faculty. Interests in teacher training.

In excess of 1000 members of the faculty at the University of Illinois Medical Center completed and returned an 'Educational Needs Inventory'. In general, respondents displayed a willingness to pursue several educational topics, through short-term seminars and workshops, an interest that was unrelated to present time commitments. Questionnaire results also documented that nearly 50% of the faculty had educational training in the past and perceived this training as valuable and useful to people in instructional roles.