Frailty in the Teaching of Meiosis

Abstract: In addition to requiring enormous abstraction, the teaching of Cell Biology involves complex topics such as meiosis. In this particular case, the implications of learning are enormous because various contents in other disciplines, as well as technological applications, depend on this knowledge. We used two assessment instruments (AI) to map the learning of meiosis in four undergraduate programs. The first was designed to measure the level of knowledge that students bring from high school, the second to assess the depth of learning that happens in the meiosis lesson in the four programs. Both AI reveal marked differences across the different programs and point out difficulties associated with the learning of meiosis, which converge to relevant aspects that can assist in the exploration of the contents in lessons, such as the quantification of gene variability, which is not understood by the vast majority of students.