Teaching and learning of many undergraduate science courses often remains confined within the boundaries of classrooms rendering learning of these subjects irrelevant and detached from students' lived experiences. Community-based experiential learning (CBEL) is one way to address this issue. This paper reports the development and implementation of…

Using an action research model, biology faculty examined, implemented, and evaluated learner-centered instructional strategies to reach the goal of increasing the level of student achievement in the introductory biology course BIO 181: Unity of Life I, which was characterized by both high enrollments and a high DFW rate. Outcomes included the…

Since 2002 the authors have offered an undergraduate major in Mathematical Biology at Harvey Mudd College. The major was developed and is administered jointly by the mathematics and biology faculty. In this paper the authors describe the major, courses, and faculty and student research and discuss some of the challenges and opportunities they have…

We transformed our first-year curriculum in biology with a new course, Biological Inquiry, in which greater than 50% of all incoming, first-year students enroll. The course replaced a traditional, content-driven course that relied on outdated approaches to teaching and learning. We diversified pedagogical practices by adopting guided inquiry in…

Traditional courses for graduate students in the biological sciences typically span a semester, are organized around the fundamental concepts of a single discipline, and are aimed at the needs of incoming students. Such courses demand significant time commitment from both faculty and course participants; thus, they are avoided by a subset of the…

The war on cancer has been waged for nearly 40 years, yet the cancer burden remains high, especially among minority and underserved populations. One strategy to make strides in the war on cancer and its disparate impacts is to increase the diversity of the cancer research workforce. We describe an approach to recruit a diverse population of future…

This report focuses on the open laboratory procedures used in the freshman biology course at Hamline University. The study aimed to review a number of specific methods used in conducting the unstructured and unscheduled laboratory procedures and discover the most effective arrangement using those procedures. The report includes detailed…

Article provides brief description of two microbiology courses at the college level which have multiple characteristics. Course I provides instruction based on papers in biology and in a special subject. Course II is devoted entirely to the special subject. (PS)

Describes a forensic science course designed to give criminal justice students the knowledge and technology of science to solve a crime. The article includes a listing of topic areas, suggestions for the presentation of the content material, and an outline of the content and design. (MA)

General biology courses should be planned and taught in colleges according to widely accepted theories and laws of biology. A list of 24 such principles is provided around which general biology courses could be structured. (PS)

Courses not appearing in Elmhurst's college catalog are offered during an interim period (January). These courses provide students with innovative educational experiences apart from the traditional curriculum. Development and description of an interim biology course in the Caribbean are discussed. Includes texts used, on-campus orientation, and…

Describes the rationale and incentive for the development of investigative laboratories at the University of Nebraska. Details the training and continuing support system that allows the utilization of a largely undergraduate student teaching staff. Outlines problems created by the nature of the students enrolled in the course. (GS)

The development of a curriculum that integrates laboratory, field, and nonlaboratory experiences in an undergraduate biology department is described. Some of the laboratory experiences provided students in a Principles of Biology course and how other parts of the upper division curriculum are structured around these key experiments are discussed.…