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In her book "Revitalizing Undergraduate Science: Why Some Things Work and Most Don't" (Tucson, Arizona: Research Corporation, 1992), education analyst Sheila Tobias draws a sharp distinction between innovation and change. Innovations often cluster around issues like course materials that do not upset long-established ways of teaching and learning. Yet without connections to the deeper issues of culture and expectations, innovations tend not to lead to lasting change because they do not alter what really matters. "What hinders students," Tobias writes, "are the pace, the conflicting purposes of the courses (to, variously, provide an introduction, or lay a foundation for a research career, or weed out the 'unfit'); attitudes of their professors and fellow students; unexplained assumptions and conventions; exam design and grading practices; class size; the exclusive presentation of new material by means of lecture; and the absence of community — a host of variables that are not specifically addressed by most reforms." According to Tobias, lasting change rests on several key factors: a willingness to deal with complex and essentially political issues, a commitment to incremental improvements that reflect local conditions, and an infrastructure that can support the process of change. One place where these three things have come together is the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The process began when several key faculty members decided that the balkanization of the life sciences at Wisconsin had gone too far. At the end of the 1980s, more than 700 faculty members in the life sciences were scattered throughout two colleges, three schools, and 37 departments, from agronomy and anthropology to wildlife ecology and zoology. Entering students quickly were funneled into one of the departments, from which they were unlikely to emerge. Responsibility for teaching introductory biology was so diffuse that one entry-level course consisted mainly of seniors who had been denied admittance in earlier years. The departmental structure at the university was too entrenched to be reorganized without a struggle. So Paul Williams, a professor in the College of Agricultural Science, and a group of colleagues tried a different route. They convinced the administration to back a campus-wide Center for Biology Education that would provide a locus for faculty members interested in teaching. "Disciplines and departments are very isolating," says Williams, "but the commonalities in educating students are very strong." One key decision Williams and the others made was to put the culture of research at the University of Wisconsin to work for education. They offered a series of competitively awarded minigrants to faculty members interested in teaching reforms. They also organized a single-credit course for freshmen called "Ways of Knowing Biology," where small groups of students spend successive weeks in the laboratories of different professors observing research firsthand. And they organized a series of lunchtime discussion groups, called "Biology Instruction Brownbags," where faculty members could get together to talk about what they were doing. Out of such small steps has come lasting reform. A computerized database for students describes the different courses and majors in the life sciences available at Wisconsin. New introductory courses are again serving lower-division students. And the laboratories for the honors biology course have been completely redesigned to revolve around open-ended problems and investigative experiences. More recently, Williams has been leading a push to replicate the University of Wisconsin's success on a national level. For the past several years he has been overseeing the Coalition for Education in the Life Sciences, or CELS, which was established in 1991 by 30 scientific and teaching organizations to promote literacy in the life sciences. CELS has held four national meetings to define biological literacy, explore innovative teaching styles, and discuss institutional change. A focus of CELS's work has been the involvement of professional societies in the process of change. Because of their central position in research communities, professional societies have unique opportunities to influence education. "If something happens within your own professional society, then it's a part of your culture," says Williams. "It's a way to bring together kindred souls in a way that doesn't threaten anyone." |
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he rapid evolution of information technologies underscores the forces
of change in undergraduate biology education. But focusing on innovations
can be deceptive. Go into many biology classes today and you'll see a lecture
style that has not changed in decades. Some scientists are masters of this
style, engaging and inspiring their students, but many biology faculty members
adopt the lecture format mainly because it is the most familiar to them.
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