• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.34 no.8
• /
• pp.767-778
• /
• 2014

Many biologists and various educational associations define evolution as a unifying theme as well as a central idea in biology. In this study, teacher education programs were developed as 18-hour courses on understanding the unified role and significance of evolution in biology, and their effectiveness was tested. As factors for the program content, enhancement of the acceptance of evolution, reinforcement of the conception of evolutionary theory, and recognizing and practicing evolution as the unifying nature of evolution were considered. Hands-on activities, self- and peer-evaluation, and projects based on the small teams including frequent questioning and feedback by instructors were considered methodological factors. Six in-service biology teachers and seven pre-service teachers took part in the programs of the graduate school of H university to testing their effectiveness. They were effective in improving the acceptance of evolution, the understanding of evolutionary mechanism, the perception on the unified role of evolution. The programs also induced a positive change in self-evaluation for knowledge of evolution and perception on importance of evolution in biology. Subsequent studies on whether the changed perceptions of the teachers who participated in the programs reflect on their biology classes in secondary schools after finishing the graduate program are required.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems Conference
• /
• 2003.09a
• /
• pp.353-357
• /
• 2003

Although it is more and more well accepted that modeling is a help for experimental biology, little is known about how to integrate physiological processes in general. The fact that no general theory exist in biology has big consequences, the most important being the difficulty to integrate biological phenomena. 1 will present a solution for the three dependent following issues: i) in an appropriate theoretical framework, integration consists in coupling models that each describe physiological mechanisms (formalization is a necessary condition to integration); ii) a biological theory with its own concepts leads to unifying principles in biology that are different from and complementary to physical principles; iii) such a formalized theory consists in a representation in terms of functional interactions and a specific formalism(S-Propagator). Hence a biological theory is of a topological and geometrical nature, in contrast to physical theories that are of a geometrical nature. An application to the interpretation of intelligence is proposed, based on the "intelligence"of movement.

• Journal of the Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
• /
• v.5 no.1
• /
• pp.28-35
• /
• 1994

Research on biological aspects on adult depression has been subjected to more than 25 years of systematic research, while biologic investigations regarding childhood and adolescent depression are only now being initiated. Although no unifying, explanatory theory of the biologic etiology of childhood depression emerges from the results of studies reviewed above, the findings do support that biological factors may be involved in the genesis of childhood depression. The research reviewed in this paper suggests that age and pubertal factors have major effects in most biological markers of depression. Some of these markers, like sleep EEG and neuroendocrine markers should be broken down by decades during adult life span. Thus, although adult data are very valuable points of departure for biological research on child and adolescent depression, it is very hard to transfer the adult data to prepubertal children and adolescents, ignoring the biological changes that take place in growth and development, pubety and aging. A great deal of work in basic developmental neuroscience remains to be done. It will be crucial for further advances in this field to determine the normal patterns of neurotransmitter interaction in this age group and to study children at high risk for depression. It will be also crucial to use primate models of depressive illness in order to be able to answer the many queations that cannot be investigated in humans for ethical issues. Conclusively, much closer collaboration between developmental and neurobiological and behavioral studies in primates and in humans will be essential for further development.