A university didactic proposal for teaching genetic drift in biological sciences

Abstract

This paper presents a teaching proposal for the concept of genetic drift in the Genética de Poblaciones course (Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto). Teaching experience shows that students often struggle to understand the role of genetic drift in evolution, and that the alternative conception that evolutionary change occurs exclusively through natural selection persists. To address this obstacle, a teaching sequence based on the Dialogic Problematizing Inquiry (DPI) strategy is proposed, aiming at fostering active knowledge construction and integration of evolutionary forces. The proposal is organised into three stages: (1) preliminary activities designed to elicit prior ideas and problematize the maintenance of polymorphisms in natural populations, through reading and computer simulations; (2) activities during the unit, focused on modelling “gene sampling” and exploring the effect of population size on genetic drift, using analog and digital resources; and (3) a final integrative stage in which students analyse problem-based situations involving the combined action of evolutionary forces. This approach promotes dialogue, argumentation, and active student participation, shifting teacher-student interaction from a transmissive model toward collective construction of knowledge. The sequence favours the identification of conceptual obstacles and contributes to a deeper understanding of stochastic processes in evolution, which are essential for interpreting population genetic dynamics.