Learning organizationIn business management, a learning organization is a company that facilitates the learning of its members and continuously transforms itself. The concept was coined through the work and research of Peter Senge and his colleagues. Learning organizations may develop as a result of the pressures facing modern organizations; this enables them to remain competitive in the business environment. There are many definitions of a learning organization as well as typologies of kinds of learning organizations.
Science educationScience education is the teaching and learning of science to school children, college students, or adults within the general public. The field of science education includes work in science content, science process (the scientific method), some social science, and some teaching pedagogy. The standards for science education provide expectations for the development of understanding for students through the entire course of their K-12 education and beyond. The traditional subjects included in the standards are physical, life, earth, space, and human sciences.
Learning communityA learning community is a group of people who share common academic goals and attitudes and meet semi-regularly to collaborate on classwork. Such communities have become the template for a cohort-based, interdisciplinary approach to higher education. This may be based on an advanced kind of educational or 'pedagogical' design. Community psychologists such as McMillan and Chavis (1986) state that four key factors defined a sense of community: "(1) membership, (2) influence, (3) fulfilment of individuals needs and (4) shared events and emotional connections.
Scientific methodThe scientific method is an empirical method for acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century (with notable practitioners in previous centuries; see the article history of scientific method for additional detail.) It involves careful observation, applying rigorous skepticism about what is observed, given that cognitive assumptions can distort how one interprets the observation.
Scientific literacyScientific literacy or science literacy encompasses written, numerical, and digital literacy as they pertain to understanding science, its methodology, observations, and theories. Scientific literacy is chiefly concerned with an understanding of the scientific method, units and methods of measurement, empiricism and understanding of statistics in particular correlations and qualitative versus quantitative observations and aggregate statistics, as well as a basic understanding of core scientific fields, such as physics, chemistry, biology, ecology, geology and computation.
Scientific communityThe scientific community is a diverse network of interacting scientists. It includes many "sub-communities" working on particular scientific fields, and within particular institutions; interdisciplinary and cross-institutional activities are also significant. Objectivity is expected to be achieved by the scientific method. Peer review, through discussion and debate within journals and conferences, assists in this objectivity by maintaining the quality of research methodology and interpretation of results.
Genetic linkageGenetic linkage is the tendency of DNA sequences that are close together on a chromosome to be inherited together during the meiosis phase of sexual reproduction. Two genetic markers that are physically near to each other are unlikely to be separated onto different chromatids during chromosomal crossover, and are therefore said to be more linked than markers that are far apart. In other words, the nearer two genes are on a chromosome, the lower the chance of recombination between them, and the more likely they are to be inherited together.
