Ten years in pursuit of excellent biology education

Abstract

bioCEED was built on the vision that biology, and biologists, emerge in the interplay between biological theory, the practical applications of biological knowledge, and the relevance of biological theory and practical knowledge for society. The ‘domain of biology’ is defined by the interactions between the development of scientific content knowledge and practices within biology itself, and society’s applications of this knowledge and these skills. Biology education must therefore prepare our students for demanding roles in science and society, and for complex challenges in their future careers.

Our overarching approach to develop biology education can be summarized in three points: 1. Make use of the whole biological triangle in biology education (research-based education, skills training, work and societal relevance) 2. Focus on the students, and what benefits their learning (evidence-based teaching) 3. Exploit the research culture to grow a collegial and scholarly culture of teaching and learning (Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL))

The introductory chapter describes our development as a centre and summarizes the underlying principles for all our activities, namely: (i) education and educational development should be research based, (ii) our initiatives and innovations should be based on a collegial and scholarly approach, and (iii) students should be partners in education, educational development, and research. Further, we reflect on the reach and impact of bioCEED.

In the chapter Learning Culture, we direct the reader to our emphasis on the multiple ways in which people could engage with bioCEED — from low- to high-effort, and from short-term participation to more sustained collaborations. We use our outreach activity over ten years to show how we have engaged educators in conversations about teaching and learning. We conclude the chapter with our ten recommendations for supporting a cultural shift towards a collegial culture that emphasizes SoTL.

The Students as Partners chapter tells the story of our evolution from a Centre in which students were initially involved as representatives and informants to one in which they became partners, contributing in various ways to development, implementation, analysis, and decision-making within teaching and learning. We provide examples of activities, student projects and co-creation to illustrate this point.

In the chapter Innovative Teaching, we give examples of bioCEED facilitating our colleagues’ implementation of novel and evidence-based teaching. A consistent theme throughout is the use of SoTL in the service of better education and creating a knowledge base for further development. In this chapter, we also describe the tools and resources that have been created, assessed, shared, and maintained by bioCEED.

The Practical Training chapter describes our accomplishments with embedding authentic learning experiences into the curricula. We include examples of courses and networks that support students engaged in work practice, as well as examples of course-based research experiences. Four key bioCEED people contributed individual reflections to this chapter.