McGuire, who teaches genetics at Rutgers University, had attended a Science Education for New Civic Engagements and Responsibilities (SENCER; www.sencer.net) Summer Institute. On his return, he began to make small shifts in his teaching approach, sharing course-relevant current events and assigning "one-minute papers" at the end of each class.

As a result, more of his students began earning As and Bs, and they were connecting science to their lives and to society as a whole. Impressed and reinvigorated, McGuire returned to the SENCER Summer Institute in subsequent years, bringing colleagues to also benefit from the experience.

The SENCER program, which began formally in 2001, was the vision of David Burns; Karen Oates, currently Peterson Family Dean of Arts and Sciences at Worcester Polytechnic Institute; and Ric Wiebl, currently director of the American Association for Advancement of Science's (AAAS) Center for Careers in Science and Technology; among others. "We didn't invent anything; we gave a name to it. Aristotle was doing the same kind of thing," said Burns, now the principal investigator of SENCER. With initial funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), SENCER fostered a community of faculty members who recognized the power of giving students a stake in their own learning. "Students need to have clear vision of what is done in the field of biology, why it matters, and what it has to do with the human condition," explained Burns.

Myles Boylan, a program director at the NSF, where he has been a member of the Division of Undergraduate Education since 1984, was attracted to SENCER's team approach and its focus on engaging science students civically in issues of national importance. Prior to joining the NSF, Boylan had worked with students who had the opportunity to connect a service learning experience with courses. "I realized they would remember this for the rest of their lives, because what they are doing matters," said Boylan. To counteract a strong antiscience movement, he added, scientists realize that students need to become informed citizens.

SENCER, now a project of the National Center for Science and Civic Engagement at the Harrisburg University of Science and Technology, has reached over 1300 faculty members. The program hosts annual institutes, organizes symposia, facilitates regional groups, publishes a journal, develops model courses, and connects faculty members with SENCER faculty mentors to provide inspiration and support. "We start where the student is, and through the study of a matter of civic consequence and interest to the learner, we get deep[er] and deeper into the core of disciplinary knowledge. Hence we teach 'through' the issue 'to' the basic science, making it relevant," explained Burns. The faculty members benefit greatly from the experience, too, as McGuire described in Reinventing Myself as a Professor: The Catalytic Role of SENCER (http://serc.carleton.edu/sencer/backgrounders/reinventing_myself_professor.html): "SENCER reconnected us with our students. We want to share our excitement about science, and we want them to do well."

Penny Bernstein, associate professor of biological sciences at Kent State University at Stark, had always worked to make her courses inquiry based and relevant to students' lives. After attending a SENCER Summer Institute in 2010, she found a new way to apply the SENCER principles. "I realized that I could put together a course to actively engage students in local environmental issues," she said. The goal of the 2011 "Environmental Media" class was not to have students simply learn about and describe local water-quality problems but to have them actually work with community partners to identify and communicate solutions to the public.

The project evolved into a living network focused on the regional watershed, connecting Bernstein's Stark Campus students, colleagues in other departments, four other institutions in the area, and local community agencies and citizen groups. The course—a collaboration with another biology colleague and three colleagues from the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at both the Stark and Kent campuses—will be offered again in 2012, and Bernstein and colleagues hope to develop an environmental media minor.

Examples such as this are just what SENCER's founders envisioned. Still, one of the top suggestions made by undergraduate students in 2007, as reported in Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology: A Call to Action, was for the opportunity to participate in discussions "about how biology [affects] our lives" and for "courses designed around real-world issues." McGuire, now a full professor and master teacher at Rutgers, and a SENCER senior associate, acknowledged that the program has a long way to go: "It would be wonderful if in 10 years, we had transformed the entire academic world, but we are just getting started."

BioScience 62: 341

doi:10.1525/bio.2012.62.4.5

Simply regurgitating the biological knowledge generated by the scientific community or conducting "cookbook" laboratory experiments does not result in genuine understanding or excitement on the part of students, Carter and other speakers stressed. Instead, the nature and process of science, the unifying concepts and connections to the real world, and the problems encountered and discoveries made by scientists are what make biology come alive.

The story of biology is far more complex and fascinating than straightforward facts or neatly labeled diagrams of structures and systems. Although exams can motivate students, the key to using these extrinsic motivators to increase student understanding lies in the way the assessments are designed and what they measure. Those involved in developing the new Advanced Placement Biology exam told convocation participants that the exam will include a greater number of higher-order-thinking questions and will ask students to demonstrate a solid understanding of evolution. It will require students to apply their knowledge in new ways and is a solid example of how exams of the future can drive improvements in student learning.

Although extrinsic motivators are certainly important, educators should also consider the role they play in igniting students' interests and creating lifelong learners who truly appreciate and understand biology and the nature of science. Field experiences are one of many ways to motivate students intrinsically, suggested David Mindell of the California Academy of Sciences. "We have a real disconnect between students and the natural environment," commented Mindell. Allowing students to explore the outdoors through research projects is a proven way to encourage them to inquire deeply about the world in which they live. This in turn opens up opportunities for engaging them in more sophisticated learning experiences.

Offering opportunities to explore and test scientific questions using primary data can also engage students, said John Jungck, professor at Beloit College and cofounder of the BioQUEST Curriculum Consortium. BioQUEST has a vast collection of teaching resources, including Beagle Investigations Return with Darwinian Data, which allows students "to develop investigations that explore evolutionary phenomena in a realistic manner" (bioquest.org/products/ files/2349_BIRDD.pdf).

Robert Pennock, professor at Michigan State University and coprincipal investigator of the BEACON Center for the Study of Evolution in Action, told the convocation participants, "If we hope to effect a change in attitude toward evolution and science in the public and in our students, we cannot simply wield more data; we must first reach their hearts and engage their minds." He encouraged scientists to remember what initially got them interested in their fields and to find ways to spark similar enthusiasm in their students.

Others, including Paul Beardsley, formerly with the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) and currently at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, said that if students see the relevance of biology to their own lives, they will be more motivated to delve into the subject matter and gain a deeper understanding of it. "Intrinsic motivation seems to be especially important for students that are underrepresented in the sciences and students that initially have low expectations for success," he added. Resources such as the National Institutes of Health's Curriculum Supplement on evolution and medicine (http://science.education.nih.gov/customers.nsf/HSEvolution.htm), developed by BSCS, can change students' perspectives of biology.

One place to find out more about motivating students is on the Science Education Research Center (SERC) at Carleton College's Web site (http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/affective/motivation.html). This compilation of resources includes information about types of motivation, suggested strategies with concrete examples, presentations from a SERC workshop on student motivation and attitudes, problems and suggested solutions, and a list of Web sites, books, and journal articles. The Web page is part of a larger resource called the "Affective Domain," which contains a wealth of information about "attitudes, values, beliefs, opinions, interests, and motivation."

Regardless of the strategies used, the more educators know about what motivates students and what works to engage them, the better their students will be able to take ownership of their own learning. And that is essential if we are to increase the biological literacy of today's students, who are tomorrow's politicians, school board members, precollege teachers, and voters.

BioScience 62: 16
doi:10.1525/bio.2012.62.1.5

"We thought we could do a better job to help students retain conceptual knowledge from one course to the next and also to help students identify early on what you can do with a biology major," says Professor David Koetje, who coteaches the course with Associate Professor Amy Wilstermann.

In Bio123, students learn core biological concepts while developing their problem-solving and quantitative skills and applying their new knowledge to societal challenges related to food, the environment, energy, and health. The students work in teams and do not read a traditional textbook. Instead, they read trade books, such as Anthony Barnosky's Heatstroke: Nature in an Age of Global Warming and Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. "We spend time explaining to the students our rationale for doing the course this way and why we emphasize teamwork," Wilstermann says.

Courses such as this address critical needs identified by both the research and the education communities. The research community is increasingly interested in drawing connections between biological research and its application to societal issues, as is evidenced in the National Research Council's A New Biology for the 21st Century. The 2009 report highlights four of the major challenges facing our global society and argues that the biology community must "demonstrate that basic science research is not distinct from society but is a critical ingredient in developing innovative solutions to societal problems." The report stresses that addressing the major challenges requires an interdisciplinary, collaborative approach.

For its part, the education community's 2011 Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education report emphasizes that both faculty and students want to see courses connect biological concepts to real-world issues. The report outlines "core competencies" for students, including understanding the interdisciplinary nature of biology and developing communication skills. This report also states the need to prepare future biologists to work collaboratively "to address complex and increasingly interdisciplinary problems."

Many of these problems, such as those caused by climate change, the lack of a sustainable food supply, or reliance on nonrenewable energies, stem from years of shortsighted practices that will negatively affect future generations' quality of life. Sustainable solutions must take into account environmental, economic, and social implications, says David Hassenzahl, founding dean and professor at Chatham University's School of Sustainability and the Environment in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He stresses the need for a holistic picture, saying, "Sustainability means treating as coequals environment, economics, and social justice and avoiding focus on any one of them." Students need to be inspired and prepared to join the scientific community's sustainability efforts.

Framing is critical when introducing global challenges and the impacts of unsustainable past practices to students. "One of the things we constantly wrestle with," says Koetje, "is providing a realistic picture of the situation while giving them hope." He and Wilstermann do not want to scare students into action. Instead, they provide students with information, tools, and experience so they can contribute to solving complicated problems.

"It turns students off when people are pessimistic," agrees Hassenzahl, adding that focusing solely on society's problems can lead to fatalism. "We should be innovative and optimistic," he says, and encourage students to think about how we can improve our quality of life as we put less demand on the planet.

Another new project is under way to support faculty who want to engage students in sustainability topics and connect course content to the "big questions" that students face as active citizens. Over the next couple of years, the project, called Mobilizing Disciplinary Societies on Behalf of Our Students...and Our Planet, will bring together societies representing a wide range of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines to collectively assemble resources and provide professional-development opportunities for faculty. The project, funded by the US Department of Education's Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, is a collaboration among Project Kaleidoscope, Mobilizing STEM Education for a Sustainable Future, and the Disciplinary Associations Network for Sustainability.

Cathy Middlecamp, distinguished faculty associate at University of Wisconsin at Madison and one of the project's leaders, notes that, too often, faculty use teaching methods that do not support the ways in which people learn, the needs of the world, or the job market. By focusing on sustainability, students can experience firsthand the relevance of their STEM courses and can gain insight into how they can contribute to solving challenging global problems both throughout their lives and through their own career choices. Says Middlecamp, "We need to match our curriculum to the needs of our students and our planet."

BioScience 61: 751
doi:10.1525/bio.2011.61.10.4

Fortunately, there are three new initiatives for improving the undergraduate biology experience for students, each targeting different segments along the education system continuum. The first of these initiatives focuses on precollege biology teaching and learning. The College Board is making significant revisions to the Advanced Placement (AP) Biology course and exam (http://advancesinap.collegeboard.org/science/biology). Teachers who were hard-pressed to cover the extensive AP Biology course outline in one year will welcome the changes. The revised AP Biology course emphasizes students' application of biological concepts, the use of quantitative reasoning, and the development of scientific skills. The final products will be officially released for use during the 2012–2013 academic year, and many experts believe that the changes will also influence undergraduate biology education.

Next, the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) and Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) joined forces to focus on improving undergraduate learning for premedical students majoring in biology. The two organizations assembled a committee charged with elucidating the knowledge and skills that are essential for future physicians. The resulting Scientific Foundations for Future Physicians (www.hhmi.org/grants/sffp.html), published in 2009, outlines competencies for premedical undergraduates, as well as for medical school students. The report recommends that premedical students be able to demonstrate a solid understanding of specific scientific concepts and skills as evidence of their preparation for medical school.

AAMC's Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) is set to be revised in 2015, with proposed changes in line with the AAMC–HHMI recommendations (www.aamc.org/initiatives/mr5/preliminary_recommendations). "Now is the time for science faculty to get involved" in ensuring that undergraduates are prepared for these changes, notes HHMI Senior Program Officer Cynthia Bauerle.

Finally, the National Science Foundation (NSF) funded and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is facilitating the redesign of undergraduate biology education for all students, regardless of their future career aspirations. Vision and Change in Undergraduate Education: A Call to Action (http://visionandchange.org/finalreport), published in February 2011, is the culmination of five years of work.

Vision and Change, as it is commonly known, originated in discussions among staff members from two directorates at NSF: the Education and Human Resources directorate and the Biological Sciences directorate. They acknowledged the need for a stronger connection between biology as a research endeavor and biology as an undergraduate experience for students. From 2006 to 2007, with NSF funding and additional support from HHMI and the National Institutes of Health, AAAS held a series of face-to-face meetings across the country with undergraduate students, faculty members, and professional society leaders. Participants discussed a wide range of topics, including what courses should look like, how to better prepare faculty, how to influence institutional change, and what barriers to improving undergraduate biology education remain.

The meetings were followed in 2009 by an invitational conference attended by hundreds of people engaged in undergraduate biology education, including faculty members, students, and administrators. Using the outcomes of the meetings as a starting point, the conference participants divided into groups to further explore assessment strategies, student research experiences, faculty development, student learning, institutional change, and unifying concepts and competencies. In the months that followed, a working group synthesized the results and produced a final report, which was released at the 2011 AAAS annual meeting.

The report makes three major recommendations: (1) All undergraduate biology curricula should include the described "core concepts for biological literacy" and "core competencies and disciplinary practice," (2) students' learning must be the focal point for teaching, and (3) there must be full-scale institutional investment to improve undergraduate biology education. To inspire change, the report also shows how these goals can be achieved, giving snapshots of success stories at colleges and universities, within professional societies, and through student-centered programs.

As with any report of recommendations, publication is just the first step. Implementation, followed by evaluation, will be the critical next steps. Of the three initiatives presented here, the Vision and Change report will be the most challenging to implement. The kinds of changes it describes will not be driven by an exam, as were the AP Biology revisions, or by entrance requirements, as was the AAMC–HHMI report. Instead, improvements to biology education for all students will need to be driven by the entire community, including faculty, institutions, funding agencies, and employers.

BioScience 61: 512
doi:10.1525/bio.2011.61.7.5

With additional funding from the National Science Foundation, the UE project team sent out a call for applicants to form a Teacher Advisory Board (TAB) that would help expand the UE Web site for undergraduate educators. The response was overwhelming. "In two weeks, close to 60 people responded for eight TAB spots," Scotchmoor says. The TAB was officially established in late 2009 with a group of diverse members. "Each brings a very different perspective to the conversation, based upon individual experiences, expertise, and teaching environments," says TAB member Jason Wiles, of Syracuse University.

After a year of hard work, the team unveiled an expanded and enhanced UE Web site in early 2011. Faculty can find a wide variety of teaching materials for many types of undergraduate settings and audiences. "It provides resources for labs, class projects, homework assignments, class discussions, and guidelines for implementation," says TAB member Robin Bingham, from Western State College in Colorado. In many cases, she says, it is possible to take a UE activity and use it right away in the classroom. With her upper-division evolutionary biology students, she uses the "Evo in the News" articles (http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/news/newsarchive_01), which take a story in the popular news media and explain it from an evolutionary perspective.

"Each story includes links to primary literature and discussion questions so that students can learn how to use the data and see how they support the scientist's conclusions," explains Anna Thanukos, UE's principal editor.

The UE team has developed other activities that use data from the primary research literature, such as the "Visualizing Life on Earth" module (http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/ldg_01). Based on the work of David Jablonski at the University of Chicago, the module guides undergraduates through the logic of interpreting data, says Thanukos, to give them experience in generating expectations from hypotheses and have them work with data to answer evolutionary questions.

Ensuring that there are resources that help teachers engage students in the real science of evolutionary biology is exactly why Kristina Curry Rogers joined the TAB. "I'm involved in TAB because I feel very strongly that communicating about evolution is one of the most important (and most challenging) topics that we need to teach our students," says Rogers, who teaches at Macalester College in Minnesota. She and others are currently working on a UE toolkit for faculty interested in starting an evolution journal club.

The part of UE that TAB member Jennifer Katcher, of Pima Community College in Arizona, uses most is the Evolution101 section on phylogenetic trees (http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/0_0_0/evo_05). "There aren't many resources that explain it at an appropriate level for undergraduates, and this does the best job that I've seen," she says. Fellow TAB member Jim Smith at Michigan State University agrees: "I have used—and send a lot of people to—the phylogenetics pages, which for me always leads to some other interesting and informative place."

Understanding Evolution project staff also used feedback they received over the past year to revise the site's navigation and to add new tools. Visitors can now post a review, rate resources, connect content within the site, and access new guides and teaching tips for using original UE materials in the classroom.

Despite all of their recent accomplishments, the TAB and UE project team are not slowing down. During the January 2010 TAB meeting, they outlined their plans for 2011 and dove into developing the next new set of materials, including an interactive syllabus, questions to actively engage students in class, and new hands-on labs. "I continue to be in awe of the TAB's dedication and creative energy," Scotchmoor says, adding that she and Thanukos are amazed by what the group accomplishes each time they meet.

Members of the TAB are equally full of praise for the UE staff and the project as a whole. "I feel so lucky to have the opportunity to work with this outstanding group," says Bingham. Smith adds, "I think the work that is being done by UE is not only important but incredibly well done."

BioScience 61: 270
doi:10.1525/bio.2011.61.4.6

At present, a competitive application process determines which institutions become part of NGRI. The goal is to make the experience readily available to all who are interested within the next few years. Participating faculty receive curricular resources and a framework to infuse genomic research into a yearlong course, as well as connections to other faculty in the SEA network. Undergraduates taking part in the courses become bacteriophage "hunters," sampling their local environments for novel bacteriophage species. In the first semester, students isolate, characterize, and purify phages, completing a preliminary characterization of the phages' DNA before sending it to the sequencing center. The following semester, students annotate their phages' DNA sequences and select one to submit to GenBank. They present their research to fellow students at their home institutions, and selected students give presentations at an annual SEA symposium.

"The program has shown that freshmen can be engaged in real research that is moving science forward," Jordan says. Because resources are limited, she says, NRGI replaced the one-on-one apprenticeship model with peer mentoring, where individual students assist entire classes. Many institutions use graduate student mentors, but at institutions where this is not possible, upper-level undergraduate students mentor their peers.

Cabrini College became part of NGRI in 2009 through the initiative of science faculty members Melinda Harrison and David Dunbar. One of Dunbar's senior advisees, Katie Mageeney, was a natural fit for the role of peer mentor. "It was self-evident she would do this. She has all of the skills needed and a great rapport with students," Dunbar says. But he and Harrison had no idea how significant Mageeney's influence on their students would be.

During the 2010 SEA symposium at HHMI, they shared their course evaluations. "One of the big items that came out of students' responses," Harrison says, "was that the students started thinking about science more seriously in terms of careers." At the symposium, David Lopatto, a psychology professor at Grinnell College whose work includes research on the benefits of undergraduate research experiences, heard their presentation. Lopatto encouraged Dunbar and Harrison to explore Mageeney's impact on the freshman students more deeply. "He helped us develop an instrument that would allow us to specifically evaluate the benefits and merits of peer mentoring on research in the classroom," Dunbar explains. The results were striking.

According to Lopatto, there are two very different but equally necessary elements to successful research experiences for students: the structural environment and the emotional and social environment. Dunbar and Harrison provided the first element by setting the stage, integrating the research into the course, and ensuring the proper equipment and tools were available. According to the survey results, Mageeney provided the other key element.

"Katie went beyond the call of duty," Dunbar says. She was there for the students, available around the clock, both in person and through e-mail. Mageeney was not only an accomplished science student but also a resident assistant and athlete, and this, according to Harrison, inspired the students under her mentorship. "They loved Katie," Harrison adds, "they clearly trusted her and felt more comfortable going to her rather than to their teachers."

Dunbar and Harrison now realize the influence that having a great peer mentor has on the success of their program. But finding another Mageeney may be easier said than done. "It's not simply putting an undergraduate student in the room with the freshmen," Dunbar says. He and Harrison plan to outline the qualities necessary to identify future peer mentors for their course, and they hope to pay their peer mentor next time to compensate for the time commitment. That will require additional support from their institution.

Cabrini College's example illustrates that, when the right elements are in place, undergraduate research can be transformative for the students. Assessment data across NGRI institutions show similar impacts, Jordan says, both on retention and performance, even in at-risk student populations. The SEA is building the case for administrative support for undergraduate research at all institutions. "We are trying to open the eyes of some of the administrators," she says, while she allows that this will be a significant paradigm shift.

BioScience 61: 18
doi:10.1525/bio.2011.61.1.6

The iPod is not the only ubiquitous m-learning device. Any technology that connects wireless or mobile phone networks to Web-based public or private services can be used. Other examples include smartphones, PDAs (personal digital assistants), handheld gaming devices, netbooks, and specialty technologies such as those used in science labs. At California State University, a satellite dish connects field archaeologists using mobile devices to the classroom. Instead of lab notebooks, geology students use netbooks equipped with global positioning and geographic information systems software on field trips.

M-learning should be familiar territory in many ways. Educators have already discovered the value of e-learning, which has extended education beyond the classroom. And institutions that offer distance education courseware have acquired the technological know-how of connectivity and digital content distribution. Most of us are comfortable using digital or Web-based resources to support learning, and many teachers and instructors are skilled at creating modules for custom learning. M-learning takes what we already know to the next level. "It works and reaches places other learning cannot," writes Jill Attewell, m-learning manager for the Learning and Skills Development Agency, London. "We know that m-learning can empower and engage. We know that the engagement and motivation can continue beyond the initial 'gadget honeymoon.'"

Some skeptics refer to m-learning as "e-learning lite" because they think it delivers only snippets of coursework. But its potential is growing. Rural students in Arkansas riding three hours to school in the Sheridan school district are given iPods or laptops to study science on schoolbuses that are equipped for wireless Internet access. A Web site devoted to m-learning, Learning in Hand, started by an elementary-school teacher in Arizona, includes lesson plans for handheld devices. Project Numina at University of North Carolina, Wilmington, develops science and mathematics education software for mobile devices. Learner-centered modules are being developed at the University of Michigan for K–12 students who use mobile technology. At Eastern Washington University, assessments, quizzes, and surveys are conducted using software for blended delivery; that is, a combination of offline, online, and mobile devices.

New m-learning resources continue to be developed. The Wireless Instructional Initiatives project at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, investigates best practices for teaching and learning with new technologies. An m-library is being created at the University of Athabasca in Canada. The University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business continues to improve SPIKE, its intranet, which ties the entire student experience together into a single, customizable interface. The Human Computer Interaction Lab at the University of Maryland also develops advanced user interfaces to study how people experience new technologies. And Seton Hill University in Pennsylvania is experimenting with how the tablet (a wireless computer that allows a user to take notes with a digital instrument or on a touch screen) can change classroom learning.

This and other anecdotal evidence shows that portable technology tools engage students and promote learning. However, empirical data to support these claims are thin. A large-scale study in the works, Project K-Nect, tracks high-school students in North Carolina who use smartphones to study math. The program's evaluation results show that using these devices as learning aides has had a measurable impact on student achievement (read the report at www.tomorrow.org/research/ProjectKnect.html). Interestingly, almost two-thirds of the students reported taking additional math courses as a result of smartphone use, and more than 50 percent are now considering a career in a math-related field as a result of participating in Project K-Nect. Such studies typically examine the effectiveness of only specific devices, applications, software, or activities; they are not yet broad enough to produce data that illustrate if and how sustained m-learning can enhance education.

Empirical evidence will come, as it did for e-learning. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project's ongoing survey, by 2008, 77 percent of teens owned a game console, 74 percent owned an iPod or MP3 player, 71 percent owned a cell phone, and 60 percent had a desktop or laptop computer (see http://pewresearch.org/ pubs/1315/teens-use-of-cell-phones). Students already know how to use the technology. It is up to teachers to add academic value to these tools.

BioScience 60: 682
doi:10.1525/bio.2010.60.9.4

BIO2010 urged much deeper connections between the biological sciences and mathematics, the physical sciences, and computer science. In addition, the report called on faculty to move out of the lecture hall and into the field and lab to help develop hands-on learning and higher-order thinking in their students.

"There's been an incredible response," says John Jungck, vice president of the International Union of Biological Sciences and professor of biology at Beloit College. "One of the real highlights has been the collaboration between mathematicians and biologists in developing courses, majors, labs, and undergraduate research programs."

Claudia Neuhauser, director of graduate studies in biomedical informatics and computational biology and vice chancellor of the University of Minnesota, Rochester, credits BIO2010 with influencing curricula around the country. "It's viewed as a very critical piece in catalyzing change in biology education," she says. Instead of using lectures to cram all of biology into students' first year, she says, professors more frequently are introducing new students to major themes and better quantitative and critical thinking skills, as BIO2010 recommended.

New majors have emerged, such as computational biology and bioinformatics. "The flowering of so many of these programs illustrates it's not within traditional disciplines of biology and mathematics but the cross-fertilization that's extraordinarily exciting," says Jungck.

Holly Gaff, chair of the Bio SIGMAA section of the Mathematics Association of America and assistant professor at Old Dominion University, says, "The biggest change is the availability of funds from agencies like NSF [National Science Foundation] and NIH [National Institutes of Health] for math-biology education." With money comes change, she says.

Jungck and Gaff organized a conference at the National Academies of Science in May, "Beyond BIO2010," to highlight success stories and look toward the future of biology education (see http://bioquest.org/beyondbio2010/ abstracts/). Among the outstanding examples:

• At Sweet Briar College, professors of mathematics and biology collaborated on a new biomathematics curriculum.
• Utah State University created a biology and applied mathematics instruction model and uses realworld projects to bring math into the biology lab.
• North Carolina A&T State University, a historically black college, developed campus-wide biomathematics research and training programs to inspire undergraduate students to pursue research careers.
• In California, the five Claremont colleges created an open-ended research program that brings together interdisciplinary teams to tackle math-biology projects in the lab.

BIO2010 spurred a number of other important follow-up initiatives, such as Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education, a 2009 conference that drew 500 faculty and students.

The NSF launched the Undergraduate Biology and Mathematics (UBM) grants program. "The UBM is one of those outcomes from BIO2010 that has the capability of being expanded in a variety of ways to encourage integrative undergraduate education," says AIBS Board member Lou Gross, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and mathematics at University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and director of the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (www.NIMBioS.org). Through the UBM, small teams of biology and mathematics faculty and students tackle different research projects at their universities. Since 2004, 48 UBM grants, ranging from $173,000 to $905,000, have been awarded.

The NRC launched an annual BIO2010-inspired summer institute. "Since 2003 we've been bringing together 40 to 50 faculty from research-intensive universities to spend a week talking about science and education and trying to create a cadre of individuals who are committed and knowledgeable about these issues," says Adam Fagen, senior program officer with the Board on Life Science at the NRC. More than 250 faculty have completed the program, directly affecting 100,000 students each year. Biology education as a distinct discipline has taken off, Fagen adds, and is a fundamental area of scholarship on par with plant or molecular biology.

In the past, an obstacle to transforming biology education has been the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT). BIO2010 noted that science departments feel pressure to teach to the test, to the exclusion of other important topics. Here, too, has been progress. In 2009, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Association of American Medical Colleges issued a report, Scientific Foundations for Future Physicians, which drew on BIO2010 recommendations and urged a more interdisciplinary, integrated approach to undergraduate education. The report is expected to influence the questions on the MCAT in coming years.

Despite tangible progress, challenges persist. Departmental silos remain major barriers to creating interdisciplinary study. Most community colleges are not yet on board with new biology curricula and teaching methods. "One of the main challenges is assisting faculty to know what works," Gross says. "The evaluation associated with these initiatives is extremely difficult to establish when you're doing individual kinds of grants, which is mostly what NSF has done."

He and Jungck say what is needed is a broad, well-funded initiative by the NSF for undergraduate biology—just as chemistry, physics, and calculus undergraduate education had. "We need to have a much bigger investment in community colleges and the first two years of undergraduate education at all institutions," Jungck says.

BioScience 60: 496
doi:10.1525/bio.2010.60.7.4

The CLIMB program abandons the traditional apprentice model for research experiences, says Rick Grosberg, its principal investigator and an evolutionary ecologist. Unlike many undergraduate research experiences, CLIMB does not assign a project or enlist students in current faculty research. Each year a cohort of biology and math majors in their junior or senior year becomes part of an interdisciplinary collaborative team that uses "mathematics and computation to answer state-of-the-art questions in biology" (http://climb.ucdavis.edu/). Says Grosberg: "The notion of how you formulate a question out of all possible questions, and how you turn it into research objectives that are implementable, is something that most programs don't teach students."

Julia Svoboda is a graduate student researcher who, since the program's inception in 2006, has studied how CLIMB students develop their understanding of science and modeling. "The most important thing the students do is articulate a research question, but this takes a very long time," Svoboda says. Over the years she has developed a series of structured activities to provide students with a more systematic approach. "At first they just need help talking with one another," she explains. As they become comfortable sharing ideas, they move on to more reflective reading and writing assignments, which they discuss. Then come the brainstorming sessions, which Svoboda facilitates. Park says her seven-member team benefited from these meetings as they worked to define their biological research question and the mathematical or computational tools they would use to address it. "By the end, they are comfortable approaching professors and much more integrated into the scientific community," Svoboda says.

As part of the community, the students witness the dynamics between the CLIMB faculty. "Initially, the students wonder why we are arguing," Grosberg said, referring to the frequent debates he has had about the cohort's research questions with Sebastian Schreiber, a theoretical ecologist and mathematician. But the students soon recognize that the faculty are exploring the pros and cons of their research approach. "A lot of students view our process of doing science as formulaic," says Grosberg. "They think faculty know the approach and how to make it all just happen, so to watch us go back and forth, the students realized that even formulating a question is challenging."

Schreiber agrees: "The students learn that some of the hardest work in science is coming up with the questions." Schreiber admits he was astounded when he first learned that CLIMB requires students to develop their own research questions. After three years with the program, however, he is now clearly in favor of the model. "The students are forced to mature in many ways as potential researchers," he says, "because they have to identify what is important, what's not, and agree with each other on a topic." He adds that CLIMB gives the undergraduates multiple opportunities for intellectual, social, and technical growth, and that when the year ends they know the research process from start to end.

Park's group eventually decided to embark on two projects: one to explore whether the use of Wolbachia in mosquito populations is a viable way to control dengue fever, and another to investigate voluntary vaccine use on measles dynamics. They completed their research and organized a workshop, held on campus last fall, to share their results; attendees included internationally recognized scholars and medical professionals. They also presented their results at an undergraduate research conference at the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (www.nimbios.org). "It was a fun experience, and very educational, because I saw how other math-bio programs worked and learned about the range of topics that you can apply models to," Park says. She thinks all undergraduates would benefit from experiencing the same process she and her colleagues went through.

"There is nothing constraining faculty from inverting the process even in an introductory course," suggests Schreiber. Instead of asking the students questions to find out how well they know the subject matter, Schreiber recommends asking them to take the knowledge they have and develop questions about what else they might want to know, and how they might achieve that knowledge. Says Park, "Learning how to ask a question is an incredibly good skill."

Susan Musante (smus...@aibs.org) is education programs manager for AIBS.

BioScience 60: 266
doi:10.1525/bio.2010.60.4.4

Their professor was Mahmood Shivji, who is also director of the Guy Harvey Research Institute at the university's Oceanographic Center, in Dania Beach, Florida. In early 2007, he led an investigation into fish labeling at restaurants and found significant substitutions. He decided to continue the investigation with his genetics class that fall. "It was much more exciting than using the typical genetics lab teaching organisms, Drosophila, or onions," Shivji said. "The students didn't know the outcome of the investigation, and the instructors didn't know it either, which is very atypical for an undergraduate lab."

He didn't have to change his syllabus very much to incorporate the real-world investigation because it already included the protocols for DNA extraction and creating primers for DNA amplification. "I was very pleased to see that the students really got into it," Shivji said. "Plus, it accomplished all of the education goals for the course and was fun for me too. And I suspect the students absorbed much more this way than if we had simply followed a standard laboratory textbook exercise."

The students' enthusiasm stemmed from the fact that there was a real-world connection to what they were learning. "We're always in our textbooks and notebooks," Cuprillnilson says. "We mostly just care about the next exam and what's going to be on it, but [Shivji] connected our outside life with our school life." The course not only changed her perceptions, it also changed her career path. Cuprillnilson originally had an interest in surgical procedures, but after taking genetics during her junior year, she realized that "surgery is rather medieval compared to what I was learning." She became fascinated by the elegance and sophistication of using DNA-based tools and technologies in preventive medicine applications.

Other biologists recognize the power of DNA barcoding not just to teach biology through connections to the real world but also to immerse students in the exciting process of science. As an investigator in the Program for the Human Environment at Rockefeller University in New York, Mark Stoeckle became involved in extracurricular science projects because of his daughter's inquisitiveness. After hearing him talk about his work, his daughter asked about applying the technology to identify the fish served in sushi. A year later, with Stoeckle as their adviser, she and a friend completed "sushigate."

The experience was so rewarding that Stoeckle decided to invite two other students from his daughter's school to collaborate on another project. Brenda Tan and Matthew Cost, then juniors at Trinity School, heard Stoeckle's presentation at a school assembly and volunteered to become DNA investigators. "He told us we'd be exploring New York City through the lens of DNA," said Cost. "I thought it would be fun and a neat way to learn something new." Tan originally thought the project would be an extension of what Stoeckle had done with his daughter, but she was pleasantly surprised to learn it would be a novel investigation. According to Tan, "Dr. Stoeckle asked us what we were interested in and valued our opinion." The result was the DNAHouse project (http://phe.rockefeller.edu/barcode/dnahouse.html).

The DNAHouse investigators collected specimens, such as a feather duster and a dead cockroach. They photographed, cataloged, and sent each item to the American Museum of Natural History for DNA extraction and sequencing. Then Tan and Cost entered the sequences into GenBank and Barcode of Life databases to find species matches. Cost was surprised to find that, regardless of the original condition of the specimen, they found DNA in so many things. Tan's favorite discovery was a genetically distinct cockroach that could be a new subspecies.

In contrast to other school endeavors, the DNAHouse project was a true discovery experience for the students. "Instead of following a strict lab protocol, we based our next step on our collected samples," said Tan, adding, "I felt like a true scientist." Stoeckle encourages other high school and undergraduate instructors to try this approach, especially because the technology is cheaper and more accessible than ever. "This is the future of science," Stoeckle says. "DNA is an exploratory tool that many people can use to learn something that no one else knows, finding out things that even experts don't know."

Susan Musante (smus...@aibs.org) is education programs manager for AIBS.

BioScience 60: 14
doi:10.1525/bio.2010.60.1.4

The NECC is held annually by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). It draws teachers, administrators, library media specialists, technology coordinators, and teacher educators from all over the globe, as well as decision­makers from industry and government. Among this year's events were the following:

• Hundreds of concurrent sessions, plus showcases, galleries, and poster sessions
• Advocacy and policy events at the Library of Congress, US Senate and House offices, and the National Press Club
• Hands-on workshops with more than 2300 ticketed participants
• An exhibit hall with 1253 booths and 439 companies, from giants such as Google to midsized Open Text to upstarts such as Infinite Campus, displaying tools and services designed to improve education and school administration
• Social media channels tracking, tweeting, blogging, and live-streaming conference activities to thousands of off-site participants from dozens of countries

In his opening keynote address, noted author and journalist Malcolm Gladwell centered on creating meaningful learning environments. "When it comes to learning," Gladwell said, "what you get is a simple function of what you put in. Sometimes the struggle to learn something is where the actual learning lies." He also contrasted two teaching strategies: capitalization, or focusing on student strengths, and compensation, or aiming efforts at weaknesses. Gladwell contends that too much time is spent on capitalizing when compensation offers more success. "We should embrace failure because that's how we learn," he said. Following his talk was an audience debate on the topic "Bricks and mortar schools are detrimental to the future of education." Attendees concluded that bricks and mortar schools should not be allowed to fail, that they have value if these schools embrace 21st-century technology and pedagogy.

So how do you go about bringing everyone up to speed on educational technology? Duquesne University has come up with an interesting model. Its Instructional Technology department has teamed up with the School of Education to reshape the course work for preservice educators. The Student Internship Program for Instructional Technology has these educators share technology skills and strategies with classroom teachers at local schools. It's a win-win situation for all the partners in the university's model. Teachers get training and support where they most need it—in the classroom. The preservice educators of Duquesne University get real-world experience by providing classroom teacher and student training. In one experience, university interns taught second graders to use netTrekker for their animal research project, helping them download pictures and gather online information. If the elementary students had reading problems with any online resources, they took advantage of netTrekker's audio-reader feature. The students then submitted their research reports as PowerPoint presentations.

Science teachers and preservice educators looking for more ideas had other technology choices. In one workshop, Harvard professors and researchers illustrated their design for EcoMUVE—a multiuser virtual environment—to support student learning about the complex causal relationships in ecosystems. EcoMUVE adds dimension to learning by illustrating the geospatial re­lationships in an ecosystem and providing interactive, immersive depictions of plant and animal behavior. In another session, University of North Texas educators presented results from SimMentoring, a content–based tutorial for mentoring preservice science teachers; SimMentoring uses activities based on SimSchool, an online classroom simulator.

The ISTE's Emerging Technologies Task Force is building an online, interactive database of best practices that have produced positive effects on learning through the use of emerging technologies. To make the database useful for everyone and to allow users to search for tools that work in circumstances similar to their own, the task force is correlating successful uses of emerging technologies with demographics such as grade level, size of district, and infrastructure.

"Here's the bottom line," wrote high school Webmaster Art Lader in the online journal Education World (www.education-world.com/a_tech/tech009.shtml): "'Without the appropriate technology, my students simply cannot _________.' If teachers cannot fill in this blank with something truly important to their students and themselves, they will not make the use of technology in the classroom a priority. If teachers can fill in this blank with something truly important to their students and themselves, they will find ways to get training, to obtain software and hardware, to mobilize colleagues, to motivate students." It would help to fill in the blank when planning a personalized NECC schedule, too.

Oksana Hlodan (ohlo...@aibs.org) is the editor in chief of ActionBioscience.org, an education resource of the American Institute of Biological Sciences.

BioScience 59: 743
doi:10.1525/bio.2009.59.9.4

Duffner is one of a growing number of graduate students embracing the PSM as an alternative, not a stepping-stone, to a PhD. These highly specialized programs require credit hours in a specific scientific discipline as well as in business courses such as intellectual property rights, ethics, or business management, and an internship or other significant hands-on experience. The biotechnology, bioinformatics, and marine biology PSMs at Northeastern grew from real-world needs and were developed in cooperation with industry, explains Graham Jones, who oversees Northeastern's PSM programs. Communication between industry representatives and academia does not end once a PSM is established. Northeastern is continuously working with its advisory council and looking for ways to improve its existing programs and develop new ones as gaps in the marketplace are identified. "For example," illustrates Jones, "I'm right now looking at developing a PSM in regulatory science which will involve the cooperation of the FDA [US Food and Drug Administration], academia, and industry."

Oregon State University (OSU) PSM programs are similarly agile and responsive, says Ursula Bechert, director of OSU's off-campus programs. She says that OSU recently hosted a workshop with representatives from different industries and government agencies, such as the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, to talk about new PSM program development opportunities. OSU currently has PSM programs in environmental sciences, applied physics, biotechnology, and applied systematics in botany, and it is considering adding programs in alternative energies, fisheries and wildlife, chemistry, and bioinformatics. A PSM program is a wonderful way to package interdisciplinary coursework in emerging fields, like alternative energies, she says; "OSU faculty, students, and industry leaders in the area are very excited about the possibility of a PSM in that field."

"Students are drawn to OSU's PSM programs for two reasons," Bechert says: "because they like the emerging fields and interdisciplinary nature of the programs, and because they understand the value of the professional curriculum." Students enter an OSU program knowing exactly what they want out of it. Working professionals know that earning a PSM and gaining critical new skills can advance their careers, Bechert says. The connections that students make during their internships are very valuable, and roughly one-third of all PSM internships at OSU translate into full-time jobs.

PSMs are gaining momentum across the nation. But Bechert, a founding member and current president-elect of the National Professional Science Master's Association (NPSMA, http://npsma.org), cautions the community to be watchful of "PSM-like" programs. Students can easily identify PSM programs that are recognized by the Council of Graduate Schools by visiting the Professional Science Master's Web site (www.sciencemasters.com), which was initially developed with support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Another founding member of NPSMA is Jung Choi, director of the bioinformatics PSM program at Georgia Tech. Choi was a member of the National Research Council's Committee on Enhancing the Master's Degree in the Natural Sciences, which produced the report Science Professionals: Master's Education for a Competitive World, published in May 2008. It states: "The master's-trained segment of the science workforce is pivotal: strengthened master's education in the natural sciences will prepare professionals who bring scientific knowledge and also the ability to anticipate, adapt, learn, and lead where and when needed in industry, government, and nonprofits." The report, available online (www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12064), recommends that more institutions develop PSMs and that existing programs continue to grow to meet growing demands from the marketplace.

Choi admits there is a lingering per­ception that a master's degree is the "drop-out" option, but he is hopeful that "the report can help people in the natural sciences really rethink the value of the master's degree and think of the PSM as an alternative terminal degree." Choi emphasizes that the goal of PSMs in general is not to replace the more traditional degrees but is instead an option for those interested in non­academic careers in the biological sciences. "There are a large number of students looking for science careers, and there is a strong need for them in industry," adds Choi. "The PSM program allows us to enlarge the pipeline."

Susan Musante (e-mail: smus...@aibs.org) is the education programs manager at AIBS.

BioScience 59: 285
doi:10.1525/bio.2009.59.4.5

Scotchmoor and a team of natural scientists, social scientists, philosophers, and educators developed a Web site called Understanding Science (www.understandingscience.org) to explain to teachers, students, and the general public "how science really works." The site, launched in January 2009 and funded by the National Science Foundation, presents an alternative to the scientific method: the science flow chart.

The flow chart illustrates how scientific investigations may be inspired by a wide range of inputs, from serendipitous occurrences to practical problems in need of a solution. Next is the gathering and interpretation of data through "testing ideas," which is at the center of the flow chart and at the core of science. From here, the next step may be interactions with the scientific community, further testing, investigation of new questions, or applying scientific knowledge. The chart emphasizes that science is an iterative, dynamic process involving a community of scientists engaged in many different activities.

The flow chart itself was developed through an iterative process. Scotchmoor initially asked the advisory board to think about what they wanted to tell people about science. This result, she says, was "masses of arrows going all over the place." Although other projects and Web sites exist that focus on the nature and process of science, the science flow chart and the broad range of additional materials on the Understanding Science Web site are unique. "I haven't found any other site of this breadth or depth that illustrates the dynamic, nonlinear, creative scientific process and that is appropriate for teachers and the general public," Scotchmoor says.

The traditional scientific method was formalized in the middle of the 20th century, explains Michael Weisberg, assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania and an advisory board member of Understanding Science. Part of the attractiveness of the method was its focus on testing and confirmation. But justification, or outcome-based science, is quite different from discovery, states Weisberg. The discovery aspect of science needs equal time. "We, the scientific community, have an opportunity to be proactive and excite people about science," says Weisberg, who is confident that this new way of looking at science will generate interest and enthusiasm.

The teacher resources on the Understanding Science Web site explain the need for this paradigm shift. They also include examples of how to introduce the science flow chart to students using case studies and stories about scientists that explicitly describe the variety of paths their research has taken. The goal, says Scotchmoor, is to show that "science really is an adventure. There are certain rules that you need to follow, but really you can't predict where questions will take you."

Jennifer Collins, a middle-school science teacher, was part of the development team and an early adopter of the science flow chart: "I had my students look at the chart before I ever told them anything about it and then tell me what they think it shows about how science is done. They were able to recognize that science can happen in many ways, that there are different parts to science investigations. Many were interested in the ways scientists begin their research, that is, what inspires them." Collins provides opportunities for her students to do different things on the flow chart.

Natalie Kuldell, advisory board member and instructor of biological engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has used the science flow chart in her undergraduate orientation lecture. "I use it to stress that science cannot be oversimplified to make a good story," says Kuldell. Data that do not help students reach neat conclusions cannot simply be wiped away. The flow chart helps her explain this, as does the site's growing collection of research pathways, which are real examples of the iterative, dynamic process of science.

Kuldell recognizes that educators face time constraints but strongly encourages everyone who teaches science to find time to include the process of science in their curricula. It can be as simple as replacing a fact or two with a process of science moment. "I think by demonstrating that science requires creativity and imagination," adds Kuldell, "more students will be attracted to a career that is truly a fun and exciting endeavor."

Susan Musante (e-mail: smus...@aibs.org) is senior education program associate at AIBS.

BioScience 59: 15
doi:10.1525/bio.2009.59.1.4

Eric Klopfer, winner of the 2008 AIBS Education Award, directs the Scheller Teacher Education Program (STEP) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (http://education.mit.edu/drupal) and explores the educational potential of games at Education Arcade (http://educationarcade.org). Klopfer's research on the development and use of computer and simulation games provides a convincing argument for engaging students in learning science and complex systems through play.

STEP's project MyWorld has added "wireless ubiquitous play" to gaming, so that students can play in the "inter­stitial" spaces in and out of school. The first MyWorld game, Palmagotchi, takes players to the Galápagos Islands to simulate the evolution of Darwin's finches. All the birds and flowers that players must sustain have genetically determined traits, and the game requires players to make decisions to ensure that the organisms stay alive and well. Augmented reality simulation games, also found on the STEP Web site, take this idea a step further. Participants explore a real-world location, such as a museum or zoo, with handheld computers that allow them to collect location-specific data and engage in hypothetical scenarios.

The reluctance of some educators to integrate digital games into educational programs may be a symptom of a generational shift. Marc Prensky, a leading figure in game philosophy and design for education, describes those who grew up without digital technology and adopted it later as "digital immigrants"; a "digital native" is someone who has grown up with it. He points out that digital natives are wired for gaming: by the time they leave college, students will have spent more than 10,000 hours playing video-games, as opposed to about 5000 hours reading books. Digital natives, he stresses, are "accustomed to the twitch-speed, multi­tasking, random-access, graphics-first, active, connected, fun, fantasy, quick-payoff world of their video games." Some say these traits promote a short attention span. Prensky, however, believes that pedagogies stressing linear thought processes are at odds with the way today's students think, and so are counterproductive to learning.

Not all games, of course, lend themselves to the curriculum, and the issue of regulating content is now a serious academic endeavor. Educators, researchers, and developers are collaborating at all levels of the education system to ensure games are an effective learning tool. Games must have clear rules and goals and a strategy that allows for competition and winning, and most important, they must be fun to play. To qualify as an "edugame," they must also adhere to pedagogical criteria.

Immune Attack (http://fas.org/immuneattack) meets all of these requirements. Cocreated by the Federation of American Scientists, the University of Southern California, Brown University, and Escape Hatch Entertainment, with funding from the National Science Foundation, the current game version (released in May) is designed to teach immunology to high-school students; a version for undergraduates is in the works. In this game, a teenager discovers she has a unique immunodeficiency in which her immune system is "present, yet nonfunctional," as if all her immune cells have forgotten what to do. With the help of her teacher, she creates a nanobot with the ability to teach cells how to fight infections. During the game, participants learn about the different cells and environments in the human body to help the teen figure out how to train her immune system.

Commercial electronic games should not be ignored. Two examples that may expand students' concepts in the biosciences are EcoQuest and Spore. EcoQuest is a pair of adventure games designed to teach the importance of environmental ethics. The young protagonist seeks help from creatures found in various ecosystems of the world to combat pollution in the first game and cure a disease afflicting rainforest residents in the second. With Spore, players create a unique creature and guide it on an epic journey through five stages of evolution. The player's creature begins in the primordial ooze and adapts to its environment as it goes from the microscopic to the macrocosmic with the aid of the player.

It is a fact that electronic games are a significant factor in students' lives. More studies may be needed to confirm their value as learning tools and dispel any qualms about their use in the classroom. It is already clear, however, that research into the learning needs of digital natives can be a fun exercise for everyone.

Oksana Hlodan (e-mail: ohlo...@aibs.org) is editor in chief of ActionBioscience.org, an AIBS education resource.

BioScience 58: 791
doi:10.1641/B580905

Many biology faculty members are committed to the use of effective and proven teaching methods, but they lack a strong background in education research. These educators have little extra time because of their professional obligations, yet they still want to create a successful learning environment for students in their classrooms. In an effort to improve teaching in the microbiology classroom, the American Society of Microbiology (ASM) created the Scholars-in-Residence program in 2005 to introduce biology faculty to the scholarship of teaching and learning. The scholarship of teaching and learning is a broad term describing the professional responsibility of faculty to conduct rigorous evaluations of their own teaching practices and to publicly share their findings to develop a community of practice. The ASM program, which employs both online and in-­person components, uses unique approaches for connecting and educating biology faculty in this field.

The Scholars-in-Residence program trains microbiologists to use educational research to improve their teaching. The year-long program seeks to develop faculty members' ability to devise a research question about their classroom practices, collect meaningful data, and share their findings through publication in scholarly journals. The goal of this residency is to help faculty members who are already committed to innovative teaching practices to better understand the outcomes of their efforts, and then to share their successes with the larger biology education community. The ASM program has served as a successful test pilot, demonstrating that this type of professional development can improve the educational research skills of biology faculty. Three cohorts have completed the program, with promising results: scholars used the skills they gained during the residency to write and publish their biology education research in peer-reviewed education journals.

Building on the success of the Scholars-in-Residence program, the ASM created the Biology Scholars Program, which is open to the larger community of biology educators. The Biology Scholars Program offers three independent "virtual" residencies that allow faculty to explore biology education in greater depth and to obtain a better understanding of the scholarship of teaching and learning.

The research residency focuses on helping faculty develop research questions, use existing educational research, and analyze data collected from classrooms. These skills enable faculty to determine whether experimental practices are actually having an impact on student learning, and to ensure that educational research has validity and can be used by the larger education community.

The writing residency is designed to assist faculty in writing manuscripts for peer-reviewed education journals and in communicating effectively in the language of educators. Because writing for scientific journals is different from writing for education journals, it is critical that faculty be trained to convey their findings in the education sphere of research.

The third component of the Biology Scholars Program is the leadership re­sidency, which is concerned with de­veloping the scholars' capacity to be advocates for biology education reform. Building leaders in biology education is crucial to effecting change at the institutional level. By strengthening their leadership skills, the faculty scholars will be able not only to mentor colleagues who want to improve their teaching practices but also to help change the way biology is taught in their departments. Such changes in the practices and the priorities of biology departments are integral to edu­cation reform that seeks to foster a more collaborative environment for the improvement of undergraduate instruction.

The Biology Scholars Program is a novel approach for addressing the issues that face undergraduate edu­cation. By providing in-depth and focused professional development for biology faculty in research, writing, and leadership, the program will train the next generation of undergraduate educators and add to knowledge about biology education. Faculty who graduate from the program will be catalysts for future change in biol­ogy teaching and in the research of biology education. For more information about the Biology Scholars Program, visit www.biologyscholars.org/.

BioScience 58: 389
doi:10.1641/B580505

The program is conducted in three stages. Before traveling to Costa Rica to begin the fieldwork, participants learn about the country—its ecosystems, history, culture, and government—and about the impacts that humans have had on Costa Rican biodiversity. Then, for two weeks, the CHANCE teachers explore selected Costa Rican habitats, taking part in conservation and hands-on research efforts conducted by biologists with the Caribbean Conservation Corporation. After the fieldwork, participants submit their research reports, journal entries, and species assignments; they also have the opportunity to create online modules.

It was the sea turtle research that appealed to Paula Wang. Wang, a biology and environmental science teacher at a Washington, DC, high school, had been teaching for 25 years when she first heard about CHANCE through the National Association of Biology Teachers. The program intrigued her: sea turtle biology, behavior, and conser­vation were topics she could teach in her advanced-placement environmental science class, and she had always wanted to visit Costa Rica. She attended the summer program, earning continuing education credits through Penn State; the high school where she taught paid for the course.

“I expected to expand my knowledge of conservation biology. What I didn’t expect was how the course made me reevaluate my teaching and rethink the way high school biology is taught,” Wang said. Every aspect of the CHANCE program can be applied directly to classroom teaching, whether through teachers’ accounts of hands-on experiences or through the Web-based modules that can be used to integrate research into classroom discussions. The course is well organized, and it is taught at an appropriate level—many professional development courses fail to be challenging.

Developed from the research of scientists from around the world, the online interactive modules translate fieldwork in a way that allows students to explore, observe, question, hypothesize, and manipulate and analyze data. The modules feature a “progressive notebook” in which students record their experimental research findings as they progress through the module, much as a researcher would progress to the next step of an experiment. The modules can be used even without the course, Wang said. “I use the modules in place of the textbook for the topic areas I can,” she stated. The modules prompt students to use the scientific method to figure out how something works—they challenge the students to think. Six modules have been developed so far, covering species extinction, global warming, amphibian decline, loss of deciduous forest biodiversity, raptor migration, and invasive species.

Professional development courses that blend teaching, basic research, and technology, as CHANCE does, are better than traditional classes at promoting knowledge retention and transfer. “CHANCE is an exemplar program that combines computer-based, problem-based learning exercises with actual field research,” said Emory University’s Robert DeHaan, founding director of the Elementary Science Education Partners program, a science education outreach effort supported by the National Science Foundation. “There are not too many professional development courses for high school teachers that do this,” he added. CHANCE, DeHaan said, is an imaginative program that exemplifies what he has been working toward for many years: it helps teachers move away from textbooks, using problem-based learning strategies and teaching by incorporating real scientific data into the classroom, all the while keeping the central focus on the student. “Textbooks teach the history of science [and] science is an intellectual activity that students need to engage in; they don’t get this the current way we teach science as a series of facts,” DeHaan said.

Many scientists have come to recognize how important it is to improve the teaching of science at all levels. “More scientists are realizing that you need to apply the same experimental thinking in both the classroom and laboratory,” DeHaan said. Preservice and in-service programs like CHANCE that espouse “scientific teaching” are not only timely—they are necessary. Since 2004, more than 50 Pennsylvania high school teachers have undertaken field training in Costa Rica, and hundreds of other teachers have been trained in the development and use of the modules. To learn more about CHANCE, visit its Web site at https://teamworks.campuses.psu.edu/psu/lv/CHANCE.

Samantha J. Katz was AIBS director of education and outreach when this article was written.

BioScience 58: 189
doi:10.1641/B580305

WEBS is an annual three-day symposium aimed at helping women in the biological sciences through the critical period of transition from early career stages to tenure-track and faculty positions in academic and research settings. It is the work of three women: Claire Horner-Devine, assistant professor at the University of Washington (UW); Samantha Forde, assistant research biologist at University of California–Santa Cruz (UCSC); and Joyce Yen, program and research manager at UW's ADVANCE Center for Institutional Change (a National Science Foundation program that strives to improve the academic climate and advance women faculty in science and engineering). This joint project of UW and UCSC grew out of the personal and professional connections, needs, and experiences of Horner-Devine, Forde, and Yen.

The first WEBS symposium was held 14–17 October 2007 at the Pack Forest Conference Center near Mount Rainier, Washington. Thirty women from 27 institutions participated. A series of panel discussions and workshops with three trained facilitators and 16 women advisers from a variety of institutions helped participants learn concrete skills. The women also got tips for dealing with issues ranging from getting on the tenure track, designing a research program, and managing time to establishing a mentoring program and balancing career progression and family responsibilities. They had opportunities to build a peer network and establish mentoring relationships with senior scientists, which could prove useful for advancement in their academic careers.

According to Forde, the symposium's goal was to provide participants with the right combination of personal experience, pragmatic skills, and reflective time. The organizers hoped this would lead participants to think about themselves holistically as scientists and women, and to connect to the type of mentor (professionally and personally) that will enable them to be the type of scientist they want to be. WEBS provided an opportunity to build a national network and provided tips and tools to help individuals build networks and relationships back at their own institutions.

Martha Groom, one of six WEBS Advisory Board members, with dual appointments at UW Bothell and UW Seattle, participated in the meeting as a speaker and mentor. As a mother of twins in a dual-career household, Groom remembers her needs for mentorship and networking at the beginning of her career, as well as later when she changed jobs to an institution that was more teaching focused than research focused. "There are a variety of potential career options for faculty in biology, whether it be at smaller teaching institutions, in journalism, at nonprofits, [or] at research institutions," she said. "Good scientists are needed in all places and positions, and these are not lesser choices. I wanted to provide a different lens."

Jeanine Pfeiffer is one of those women looking for a different lens. Pfeiffer, an ethnoecologist who studies how people are interconnected with their environment, sought a community as she tried to make the decision to stay in academia or go outside the box. "As someone who doesn't fit into the narrow [disciplinary] box slots of academia, the symposium was helpful," Pfeiffer said. "I took home clear, relevant examples of how to create one's own unique role in academia. Doing so may be hard to achieve, but rewarding. I think boxes are boring, anyway."

A different lens to view your career is exactly what Horner-Devine hopes to give participants. "There is a range of ways to be a woman and a scientist and be happy," she said. "By broadening your network, you can connect to the right people at your own institution as well as in the larger scientific community."

WEBS is a mechanism that can help women create their own path, whether it is a tenure-track position at a research university, a faculty position at a small teaching institution, or something nontraditional. For more information about WEBS, including upcoming events, go to www.engr.washington.edu/advance/webs.

Samantha J. Katz (e-mail: skatz@aibs.org) is AIBS director of education and outreach.

BioScience 58: 15
doi:10.1641/B580105

Wendy Kopp founded Teach For America (TFA) in 1990. Originally proposed in her undergraduate thesis at Princeton as an educational version of the Peace Corps, the program places some of the nation’s top recent college graduates (those with a grade point average of at least 3.5) in 26 of the nation’s poorest urban and rural public school systems for two years. In its first year, TFA started with 500 young men and women teaching in six low-income communities across the country. Today, 4400 teachers reach approximately 375,000 students.

The TFA corps members are a diverse and talented group. They come from all disciplines of study, and no teaching experience, training, or formal education degree is necessary—but demonstrated leadership qualities are. TFA teachers have the ability to influence and motivate others, to be authoritative yet approachable, and to persevere through unanticipated classroom challenges. Before stepping into the classroom, corps members attend a rigorous five-week training program at one of five TFA summer preparation institutes across the country. TFA also has a regional support network that helps with professional development throughout the two-year commitment.

Although teachers are needed in all disciplines, TFA recently launched an initiative to boost the number of math and science teachers in the nation’s lowest-income communities. At present, 880 corps members are teaching math and science to more than 130,000 secondary school students. The initiative aims to increase these numbers to 2000 corps members serving 300,000 students by the year 2010. A key component of this initiative is the Amgen Fellowship, which provides 50 math, science, and engineering majors with a $2000 signing bonus and an all-expense-paid trip to the annual TFA symposium, held each spring in Washington, DC.

Woodard, an Amgen fellow, believes this experience will have a positive effect on her future career. “I think this will help me become a better doctor and...relate better to my patients.” She said that her tenure with TFA has helped her to break down scientific topics in a way that her students can understand, and relate science to her students’ everyday life.

To date, 17,000 graduates have participated in TFA. Approximately two-thirds of those are still full-time teachers or are involved in education. For some, TFA is the entry point into a teaching career; for others, it helps them decide what other career paths to follow.

Joseph Spagna is one TFA alumnus whose experience helped him find his career focus. Spagna completed his two-year teaching commitment in 1997 and then attended graduate school. He received a PhD from the University of California–Berkeley in environmental science, policy, and management, and is now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Illinois's Beckman Institute. Spagna feels that TFA made him a better candidate for doctoral study. One advantage of the program, he says, is that "it gets you focused on why you are going to graduate school."

Spagna remembers that after his senior year of college, his choices were to either attend graduate school or participate in TFA. “There were other opportunities,” he said, “but these two seemed the most viable.” Spagna ended up teaching ninth-grade biology in northeast Baltimore. “The training I received in college was very analytical. As a teacher, I had to become very creative. I spent a lot of time planning and thinking about how to present these ideas and concepts [and about] what materials I needed to present [them].”

Spagna, who plans to teach at the university level, says he will advise his future students to consider the rewards of taking part in TFA. Each year more graduate schools and businesses partner with TFA to offer TFA alumni special benefits such as two-year deferrals, fellowships, course credits, and waived application fees.

Moreover, TFA benefits students. According to TFA’s Web site (www.teachforamerica.org), nine-year-olds growing up in low-income communities are, on average, three grade levels behind their higher-income peers. Half do not graduate from high school, and those who do have reading and math skills at only the eighth-grade level. The TFA program gives these students an edge. A 2004 study by Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., found that “Teach For America corps members make more progress in [teaching] both reading and math than would typically be expected in a year and attain significantly greater gains in math than the other teachers in the study.”

As Woodward and Spagna demonstrate, TFA is enriching the lives not only of the students but also of the teachers who participate, empowering them to make a difference in the communities where they teach.

Samantha Katz (e-mail: skatz@aibs.org) is AIBS director of education and outreach.

BioScience 57: 735
doi:10.1641/B570905

Yet mathematics, science, and high technology—the building blocks of informatics—are not typically considered to be women-dominated fields. Why, then, are a growing number of women found in these decisionmaking positions, which require not only superior scientific skills but also highly analytic modeling and computer science skills? The answer is twofold: mentoring and education.

On the education side of the equation, the number of women pursuing baccalaureates in mathematics, engineering, and science is rising steadily, but education alone is not translating into a greater number of women researchers in informatics. To achieve that result, says Marcie McClure, associate professor in the Department of Microbiology at Montana State University–Bozeman, mentoring women who are studying biological informatics is critical.

According to McClure, “the reason why there are women leading the centers is that these positions are not strictly research. By and large, basic research positions attract more men.” “The problem,” she adds, “is women don’t know it [bioinformatics research] is an option.” If more women knew that their research interests were part of the field called bioinformatics, more women would pursue bioinformatics research as a career.

McClure, a bioinformatics researcher herself, believes that both bioinformatics and computational biology suffer from the dearth of women scientists and engineers. To address this problem, McClure has started the “Women in Bioinformatics” seminar series at Montana State University. The series highlights exceptional works of established and up-and-coming bioinformatics researchers and their experiences as women in a predominantly male field. The goal is to inspire the younger generations of women scientists by providing role models and mentors for women in science and engineering. The idea, McClure says, is to “set up women for success.” She wants to create a place where women in bioinformatics can discuss their research and provide mentoring and support.

McClure hopes to spur the interest of women and other groups that are underrepresented in the sciences. The women who give presentations at the seminars are chosen for their excellence in research and for the variety of educational backgrounds and career paths they represent. To reach the widest audience possible, the seminars are Webcast. A documentary film on women in bioinformatics has also been produced.

Deana Pennington, a research assistant professor at the University of New Mexico Long Term Ecological Research Network Office, is leading another weekly seminar, one that provides the rigorous training necessary for informaticians. The seminars are part of a National Science Foundation project called “Advancing Cyberinfrastructure-based Science through Education, Training, and Mentoring of Science Communities.” Pennington, the primary investigator for this project, is an ecoinformatics researcher who studies the application of information technology for integrated and synthetic analysis of environmental and ecologic data. Through these seminars, which are taught online at five institutions, students learn the skills for scaling up ecological studies from the local level to regional and global levels. As studies move from the local to the global scale, the research itself becomes increasingly interdisciplinary.

“Interdisciplinarity occurs in two aspects,” Pennington says, “the cross-sciences aspect and the cross between science and technology required to conduct the science. In this arena, which absolutely requires abilities in ‘conceptual multitasking’ to understand different perspectives, communicate effectively, and cooperate rather than compete, women seem to have some skills and attitudes that are very relevant. Opportunities to conduct basic research on interdisciplinary systems are growing, and women should take advantage of these.”

The idea is to mentor these scientists as they transition from disciplinary basic research into cross-disciplinary, technology-enhanced research so that they can develop the requisite skills for working on interdisciplinary teams and learn to integrate scientific inquiry with state-of-the-art computer software and hardware. “It is too soon to say how the women in the group are responding relative to the men,” Pennington says. “But I will be analyzing the responses to surveys based on gender, and it will be interesting to see if there are patterns that emerge.” The role for women in bioinformatics may soon become clearer.

Samantha Katz (e-mail: skatz@aibs.org) is AIBS director of education and outreach.

BioScience 57: 559
doi:10.1641/B570705