Several Suggestions for Teaching of Reproduction in General Biology as A University Liberal Education Curriculum Based on Analyses of Corresponding High School curricula

Recently, importance of biology has increased, so does attention on biology education. In the book called 『Vision and Change』 by AAAS, six core competencies of biology were suggested. The Ministry of Education also has suggested five core competencies of all science curricula including biology at Korean high school. Referring these competencies we compared contents of general biology curricula between university and high school. In this study, we chose a big feature of life, reproduction, as an object of the research. Between the two curricular of high school and university, key concepts and number of concepts included showed no big difference. In contrast, arrangement of key concepts and points emphasized are more coherent in university curriculum. In addition, connectivity of key concepts is high in the curriculum. As a result, university curriculum seems to be more helpful for students in understanding meaning and significance of concepts. Also (it is understandable that) range and depth of university biology curriculum are more than that of high school. Due to these differences, students at universities are likely to be advantageous in developments of scientific competences such as experimental mind and evolutionary perspective. Taken together, these differences found in chapters on reproduction seem to enable students in universities to develop ability to use modeling and simulation, ability to use scientific reasoning including quantitative reasoning, ability to apply the process of science, and ability to tap into the interdisciplinary nature of science more easily. Using these results, it is also anticipated that university instructors can use these advantages in raising students