vision and change: biology education for all students | BioBlog
It should cause tertiary biology educators to pause & think – because not all of the students sitting in our first-year classes are biology majors or, indeed, science majors. entry-level biology courses serve as the first and perhaps only chance to introduce [these non-science] students to scientific enquiry, the use of evidence, and the core biological concepts that will help them make informed decisions about the... So, while there is an obvious need to prepare the biology/science majors for further study in the subject, just what do we want those ‘others’ to take away from their semester of biology classes. After all, students who took part in the AAAS study commented that biology classes taken by non-majors can act as "a gateway to get more students interested in science. And if we’re not careful that ‘other’ group – the students who aren’t enrolled in a science degree – are the most likely to miss out on that knowledge, while at the same time they’re the group who are perhaps most in need of gaining it during that... Otherwise the risk is that we all assume that it’s happening, or that students are getting ‘it’ in some other paper, and that may result in turning out students who know a lot of science concepts and processes, but have somehow missed out on the... This is something I’ve advocated for the secondary senior biology curriculum, where new ideas and appications tend to be front-loaded without anything ever falling off the back to make room, and it’s just as relevant at the university level. But do we have agreement on just what constitutes ‘core’ concepts and competencies in biology. One part of the answer lies in deciding what ‘content’ is essential – finding a balance between the demands from other paper convenors to make sure students have the knowledge they view as prerequisite for their own papers, and the sort of depth... In my own Faculty around 1/6 of those students will be taking my papers out of interest or because they’re required for a degree program from another part of the University. So what should we be doing with our students to ensure that they all (in the words of the AAAS report) "graduate with a well-defined level of functional biological literacy and critical-thinking skills". (And, maybe, turning them on to science. (Or chemistry, or earth sciences, or physics…)....
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