Program aimed at representing biology in the classroom

Science is about inquiry, investigation and discovery, yet many studies show that most introductory biology courses at major research universities exclude these elements from lectures – and even labs.

To truly represent biology in the classroom, the UW is hosting a summer program during which faculty nationwide share their expertise in research and education. Together they are developing innovative teaching materials that engage students in the very learning process that attracts biologists to the field.

Now in its second year, the program is called the National Academies Summer Institute on Undergraduate Education in Biology. This year’s participants include 19 teams of faculty – mostly pairs of junior and senior faculty, including department chairs and administrators – from large research universities. They are meeting in Madison from Aug. 16-20.

Most introductory biology courses at research universities tend to be extremely large, sometimes enrolling as many as 1,000 students, says Jo Handelsman, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute professor, plant pathologist and co-director of this year’s summer program. “Collectively, the Summer Institute’s participants will teach about 22,000 biology students in the coming year.”

These large enrollments, she adds, present unique barriers to providing effective instruction, taking into account that students differ in their learning styles, course preparation and even personal backgrounds.

In small groups comprised of members from the same university, participants in the summer program will work together with other undergraduate biology education innovators to develop instructional materials that they can test and evaluate at their own institutions.

“Studies show that students retain about 10 percent of what they learn in lectures,” says Handelsman, adding that what else they retain comes from teaching themselves outside of the classroom.

“We want to capitalize on this self-teaching and integrate active learning into the classroom and lab,” she says.

Like students in a freshman biology course, the participants will attend modules developed by leaders in science education that bring inquiry-based learning into the classroom. They will watch demonstrations, solve case studies and even perform experiments in the lab. Handelsman says, “It’s very hard to teach in a particular manner if you yourself were never taught in that manner.”

One goal is to introduce more problem-based learning and cooperative group learning into these large courses, says Millard Susman, a emeritus genetics professor and former director of the Center for Biology Education, who was involved in the conception and planning of the Summer Institute. “Learning requires a lot of active participation by the student.”

Summer Institute participants also will learn about and discuss current research in science education, opportunities to build their teaching and mentoring skills, and techniques for introducing new material and technology into their own classrooms.

But Handelsman and others want to do more than develop new instructional materials that enhance classroom learning. As they do in their scientific fields, they want to test and evaluate the effectiveness of these new teaching methods.

“We advocate a rigorous approach to teaching undergraduate biology that’s scientifically sound,” she says.

The summer program emerged from a national report that looked at the state of undergraduate biology education and concluded that faculty development is an integral part of improving biology education, particularly at large research universities. This year’s program, says Handelsman, is one vehicle moving toward that goal.

During the program, the faculty participants also will have the opportunity to share their academic research, some of which is in science education, during seminars scheduled across campus.