Feeding an ever-growing human population, providing healthcare for everyone, and mitigating human stresses upon ecosystems are among the world’s most urgent 21st century challenges. Biology could be part of the answer, but undergraduate biology classes are typically stuck in the last century, with lackluster teaching techniques that alienate students and prevent them from attaining the science literacy.

Now a group of undergraduate faculty have released a report that culls their most effective and modernized teaching techniques for biology, with the fundamental effect of making biology classes more student-centered. The summary report, “Vision and Change: A Call to Action,” was released at the AAAS Annual Meeting.

The National Science Foundation funded the report, and AAAS’s Education and Human Resources programs helped coordinate its development and dissemination. Many of the ideas discussed in the report were fleshed out during a summer 2009 AAAS/NSF conference in Washington, D.C., attended by 500 faculty members, education administrators, and policymakers.

The new approaches focus on making biology classes more relevant to students’ lives, as a way to draw them into the subject. Getting more undergrads interested in biology is not just a way to create more biologists, but to better inform students about making decisions that involve an understanding of biology.

“It’s personal and national security interests at stake,” said Karen Kashmanian Oates, deputy division director in the National Science Foundation’s Directorate of Education and Human Resources. Biology courses should convey modern biological discoveries, be outcomes-oriented, inquiry-based and relevant to human life, said Kashmanian Oates, providing background information on the report to attendees at the AAAS meeting.

The summary report also urges that the subject matter be modernized, so that the excitement of discoveries in biological science is conveyed in the classroom.
“We’re “in a midst of a revolution of how we understand the world,” said Carol Brewer, faculty member of the University of Montana and co-chair of the Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education Advisory Board, which coordinated the summary report. “It’s not your grandparents’ biology anymore, so why should the courses be offered in such a similar way?” she said at the AAAS meeting.

Brewer said that not only do we know more about science, but we know more about how people learn. “Less is more,” she said. “It’s time now to get over the depth vs. breadth debate. You cannot pack everything we know about biology into one or two survey courses.”

Instead of cramming in facts in an attempt to deepen knowledge, Brewer said that the “Vision and Change” report includes recommendations for student-centered classrooms and learning outcomes. Action items include focusing on a conceptual framework rather than on cramming in factoids; giving students ongoing, effective and timely feedback on their progress; and paying more attention to testing techniques.

What’s next? Speakers at the AAAS Annual Meeting’s “Vision and Change” discussion encouraged attendees to take home the summary report and to distribute copies to their colleagues. The group will have another meeting in another couple of years to see how effectively the recommendations have been implemented.