Om kandidaten:
Leonie Johann har siden 2015 vært ansatt som universitetslektor i naturfag ved Nord universitet og i stipendiatstilling fra 2018-2021. Hun har diplom (tilsvarende norsk mastergrad) i biologi fra Tyskland.
Leonie Johann har tidligere arbeidet som blant annet prosjektleder i FIRST Scandinavia og kursleder i Forskerfabrikken hvor hun hadde ansvar for å organisere og gjennomføre naturvitenskapelige prosjekt for barn og unge. Hun har alltid vært opptatt av å finne måter å formidle naturvitenskaplige konsepter slik at de blir relevante og forståelige for allmenheten.
Tittel på avhandlingen:
Facing educational Challenges in Molecular Life Science – A Thesis to reconstruct Cell Membrane Biology for Upper Secondary Teaching and Learning
Tittel på prøveforelesningen:
Opportunities and challenges with inquiry based teaching and learning
Tidspunkt for prøveforelesning: 10. juni 2022 kl. 10.00
Tidspunkt for disputas: 10. juni 2022 kl. 12.00
Sted: Nord universitet, Bodø: Elias Blix (A13). Arrangementet blir også strømmet.
Disputasleder: Professor og studieprogramansvarlig Anne Marit Valle
Bedømmelseskomité:
- Førsteopponent: Clas Olander, professor, Malmö Universitet, Malmö, Sverige
- Andreopponent: Lena Tibell, professor emerita, Linköping Universitet, Norköping, Sverige
- Komitéleder: Anna Marie Holand, førsteamanuensis, Nord Universitet
Veiledere:
- Hovedveileder: Fredrik Rusk, Førsteamanuensis II, Nord universitet, og docent Åbo Akademi, Finland
- Medveileder: Jorge Groß, Professor, Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg, Tyskland
Sammendrag:
This thesis consists of three individual (substudies) articles and one kappe document. It aims at proposing an empirical- and theoretical-based educational reconstruction of cell membrane biology (CMB) for the upper secondary level.
Substudy I deals with analytically scrutinising relevant scientific literature to identify and select core ideas essential for upper secondary CMB education. In substudy II these ideas were used as a framework to empirically collect upper secondary students’ conceptions (n=9) in individual interviews and subsequently deduce potential challenges and opportunities for CMB education. As a result, a learning environment consisting of specifically designed educational content, learning goals and teaching tools was constructed. Two teaching experiments with small student groups (n=3 / group) were carried out in substudy III to empirically explore the impact of the learning environment on students’ learning processes.
Outcomes of the thesis suggest an approach to upper secondary CMB learning and teaching which somewhat differs from existing approaches: it contextualises CMB within biological processes and mechanisms on the evolutionary and individual organism level. In doing so, it explicitly takes into account the most essential scientific core ideas at stake while at the same time addressing identified students’ learning difficulties. To promote students’ learning processes, a combination of multiple analogies, such as thought experiments, two-dimensional depictions, and three-dimensional models of cell membrane components, were found to be powerful teaching tools. When following a clear design and scaffolded by cooperative learning environments, these seem beneficial because they explicitly visualise concrete aspects of everyday experience students can use to construct meaningful understanding of CMB.
In Norway and across the globe, the educational opportunities, and challenges of molecular life science (MLS) have been recognised: knowledge produced in this rapidly developing field of scientific innovation greatly impacts our everyday life, illustrated by the current Covid-19 pandemic, at the same time as it becomes less accessible for the general public. By means of empirically reconstructing CMB for the purpose of upper secondary education, this thesis contributes with practical and theoretical knowledge for how this under-researched MLS topic can be fruitfully implemented at the upper secondary level so that it may become meaningful for students’ everyday life and manageable by teachers.