DESIGN OF A MASTER’S LEVEL COURSE ON PLANT REPRODUCTIVE BIOLOGY AND BIOTECHNOLOGY

When teaching biotechnology, it is not always easy to find previously existing information in order to have a reference for the design of new courses. This is the case of the course on “Plant Reproductive Biology and Biotechnology” taught within the frame of the Masters on Plant Breeding at the Universitat Politècnica de València, in Valencia, Spain. For a Masters in Plant Breeding, plant reproductive biology is considered as an important topic in order to acquire a minimal basis to understand more complex concepts to be taught in further courses. In parallel, plant reproductive biotechnology constitutes a set of useful tools that plant breeders should know to be able to use them. Therefore, it seems essential to compile an amount of information as wide as possible to provide the student with a global view of the topic, but also as detailed as possible in order for the student to be able to understand and apply it.

In this paper, we present our experience in the design of a Master’s level course on “Plant Reproductive Biology and Biotechnology” adapted to a context of plant breeding studies. In particular, we focused on the difficulties imposed by the lack of previous experiences to be based on, on the diversity of bibliographical sources and materials that must be considered, and on the hereogeneity of student backgrounds, which constitute additional drawbacks in the design of such a course. We believe that our experience could be useful to those facing similar problems when designing new courses, either related to this topic, or far from it.