RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Diagnostic assessments of student thinking about stochastic processes
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 053991
DO 10.1101/053991
A1 Michael W. Klymkowsky
A1 Katja Koehler
A1 Melanie M. Cooper
YR 2016
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/05/20/053991.abstract
AB A number of research studies indicate that students often have difficulties in understanding the presence and/or the implications of stochastic processes within biological systems. While critical to a wide range of phenomena, the presence and implications of stochastic processes are rarely explicitly considered in the course of formal instruction. To help instructors identify gaps in student understanding, we have designed and tested six open source activities covering a range of scenarios, from death rates to noise in gene expression, that can be employed, alone or in combination, as diagnostics to reveal student thinking as a prelude to the presentation of stochastic processes within a course or a curriculum.