First-Year Seminars (FYS) offer a unique mode of introducing college students to new topics, research practices, and approaches to learning that they may not have been exposed to in high school. In this article, we outline the successes and challenges of team teaching a combined cultural anthropology and biochemistry course on the topic of blood,…

Learning progressions (LPs) are descriptions of students' growing sophistication in the understanding of a particular construct through a curricular sequence. They are particularly useful for organizing complex constructs for which students do not necessarily connect concepts as taught in different courses. However, they are challenging to…

Just as students undergo "learning progressions" in moving from naivety to mastery of biochemical topics, faculty experience "teaching progressions" as they experiment with pedagogy, listen to students' feedback, and become members of a community of educators. An important element of both teaching and learning is assessment.…

Personal interviews were conducted with biochemistry faculty during which they were presented with student performances on a content survey. From these interviews, four themes that reflect faculty responses to the surveys emerged: awareness of student understanding, self-reflection on teaching practice, planned collaboration with colleagues, and…

With support from the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB), a community of biochemistry and molecular biology (BMB) scientist-educators has developed and administered an assessment instrument designed to evaluate student competence across four core concept and skill areas fundamental to BMB. The four areas encompass…

The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) began an accreditation program in 2013. The criteria for accreditation of undergraduate programs include sufficient infrastructure--number and expertise of faculty, physical space and equipment, support for faculty and students--and incorporation of core concepts in the…

Mindful design of learning spaces can provide an avenue for supporting student engagement in STEM subjects. Thoughtful planning and wide participation in the design process were key in shaping new and renovated spaces for the STEM community at the University of Puget Sound. The finished project incorporated Puget Sound's mission and goals as well…

Students commencing studies in biochemistry must transfer and build on concepts they learned in chemistry and biology classes. It is well established, however, that students have difficulties in transferring critical concepts from general chemistry courses; one key concept is "energy." Most previous work on students' conception of energy…