Faculty Seminar – Faculty of Education in Science and Technology, Technion
Lecture and Speaker Details
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Speaker full name: Prof. Ravit Golan Duncan; Graduate School of Education, Rutgers University
Seminar date: 1/7/2025; 14:30-15:30
The title of the lecture: Consequential Genetics Education: Investigating Racial Health Disparities in Diabetes
Abstract (500 words max): Research in genetics education has shown that students and adults espouse problematic deterministic and essentialist views that contribute to racial bias. Thus far instructional antidotes have focused on countering these views by promoting more complex understandings of population and multifactorial genetics. While such countering is necessary, we have argued this is insufficient and that in addition we need to focus instruction on the socio, political, and historical dimension of human genetics. Towards this end we have developed a high school genetics unit focused on the phenomenon of diabetes. In this unit students learn about the biological and genetic basis for diabetes as well as the environmental factors that are risk factors for this complex condition. In examining the role of the environment students explore the sociopolitical contexts that have resulted in dispossessed neighborhoods and stressful living conditions that create high risk environments. The unit was implemented in two high school classrooms and initial findings suggest that students shifted away from essentialist and deterministic views of genetics. Students also developed a nascent sociopolitical awareness that recognizes environments as non-neutral and harmful, however, students rarely connected this reality to broader sociopolitical forces like racism and how such forces create harmful environments.
Speaker Bio
Ravit Golan Duncan is a professor of Learning Sciences with a focus on Science Education at the Rutgers Graduate School of Education. Dr. Duncan has several lines of research that focus on epistemic practices, justice-oriented teaching, and learning progressions. She spends much of her time designing instructional materials that are aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards and that also promote meaningful and consequential learning for students. Dr. Duncan coordinates and teaches in the Biological Sciences Certification Program; preparing the future secondary teachers in New Jersey. She is an Associate Editor for the Journal of the Learning Sciences. This year she is was the Past President of the International Society of the Learning Sciences.
Hosted by: Prof. Ayelet Baram-Tsabari
Other information:
Email of lecturer: ravit.duncan@gse.rutgers.edu
