The development of education modules about dual use issues will benefit from the application of the science of learning, creative use of online education, and explicit planning to “teach the teachers.” Developing dear learning outcomes for the dual use modules is a first step. This report broadly frames these outcomes, which can be articulated in more specific terms for individual modules. Active learning strategies are more likely to engage the learners and support retention. The real world nature of dual use problems can be effective in engaging students and supporting their learning, if attention is paid to the social learning aspects of group work, as well as the cognitive aspects of learning. Online modules will allow the scaling of the educational effort and active learning strategies and assessment tools can be embedded into the technology-enabled delivery. Here the context of the learner needs to be considered and online modules need to be adaptable in different settings.

Finally, explicit planning for faculty development is essential, ranging from including teaching tips in the curricular material to workshops at professional research society meetings. As part of its charge, the committee sought to develop an understanding of: ” The extent to which dual use issues are currently being included in postsecondary education (undergraduate and postgraduate) in the life sciences; ” In what contexts that education is occurring (a work, informal settings, as stand-alone general training, and in what fields); and formal course or part of more. ” What educational materials addressing dual use research in the life sciences already exist. The committee’s primary information gathering took place during an international workshop, held over two-and-a-half days in November 2009 at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw; the agenda and participants list for the workshop may be found in Appendix B.

Two background papers commissioned for the meeting provided an indication of the types and frequency of biosecurity-related courses or modules at a selection of higher education institutions in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe, Japan, and Israel (Revill et al. 2009), as well as examples of currently available online educational materials (Vos 2009). These back-ground papers, distributed to all of the participants before the workshop, several other reports made available on the project website (American Association for the Advancement of Science [AAAS] 2008; Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention [BWC] 2008; NRC 2009f; Federation of American Societies in Experimental Biology [FASEB] 2009; NAE 2009; National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity [NSABB] 2008), and presentations at the workshop provided the basis for discussion.

To inform its work further in preparing the report, the committee and the project staff also drew on additional studies and resources, which are cited and discussed in the body of this report. Learning things is not limited to the scentific area. Instead it also has relations with some other things like speaking a language or using software, including Rosetta Stone Arabic and Rosetta Stone Chinese. If you have a creative mind, you will make all your own differences in the end!