Enhancing Course Content by Cognitive Styles: A Case Study with Bioinformatics at High Schools

This paper describes a systematic approach to improved the design of the bioinformatics course by taking advantage of students´ learning styles. Even though the results pertain to introductory bioinformatics modules presented to high school students, the approach is general enough to be applied to effective pedagogy in any area at any level. The design of the course traditionally depends on the available resources as well as the needs of employing organizations. In recent years, however, the focus has shifted to the students´ preparation and the ways in which they learn. Most people tend to be more skilled in some knowledge acquisition abilities than in others. For this reason, students are inclined to favor a particular learning style. It is said that a person´s learning orientation is perhaps the most important determinant of his or her educational attainment. This suggests that we can optimize the module text for a balanced comprehension by the prevalent learning styles observed in the learning population, perhaps by including more visuals or graphics to facilitate intuitive learners and by incorporating formulations and sequencing preferred by analytical learners