Teaching Advanced Genetics Without Lectures

In an effort to increase student engagement and therefore student learning, an advanced genetics course was developed in which traditional lectures were eliminated. Instead, students were required to complete reading assignments before each class meeting, and those readings were then the topic of group discussion. Assigned readings alternated between text assignments and articles from the primary literature. Students were made accountable for their own preparation by the administration of a quiz at the start of each class. Group discussion of the topics engaged students in the learning process and readministration of the quiz at the end of class allowed them to benefit from the group interaction and understanding. Interspersing text readings and primary literature led to student understanding of how genetic knowledge is acquired and interpreted and how experimental detail leads to the construction of general models.