A concept inventory for molecular life sciences : how will it help your teaching practice?

Textbooks for biology are getting bigger and bigger with each edition, but does this mean that our students are learning more? Most of us would answer no to this question. In fact, the learning by our students is sometimes seen as disappointing, as the core concepts or the 'big ideas' of biology appear to be obscured by rote learning of detailed content. Educators have recognised that the information explosion in biology, particularly in the molecular life sciences, has created a significant problem in selecting what core concepts and principles we should be teaching our students (1). Another