Encouragement for Faculty to Implement Vision and Change.
The seminal report Vision and Change outlined improvements necessary for undergraduate biology courses to accomplish widely recognized learning objectives. Over the past 8 years, we have developed a two-semester introductory biology course that incorporates the core concepts and competencies recommended in Vision and Change Using published research on how students learn, we focused our efforts on three main areas of change: pedagogy, course content, and technology. We introduced active-learning strategies to improve our classroom environments, wrote an e-textbook that provides students with the tools they need to construct their own knowledge, and employed an online learning hub to assist students who needed extra support. The redesigned courses have been well received by students, and we have seen good student learning outcomes. The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate to faculty that Vision and Change's recommendations are feasible and students welcome the improvements.
Biology Department, Davidson College, Davidson, NC 28035.
Caylyn
C
Harvey
Information Technology Services, Davidson College, Davidson, NC 28035.
Kristen
K
Eshleman
Information Technology Services, Davidson College, Davidson, NC 28035.
Kyosung
K
Koo
Biology Department, Davidson College, Davidson, NC 28035.
Kevin G
KG
Smith
Biology Department, Davidson College, Davidson, NC 28035.
Christopher J
CJ
Paradise
Biology Department, Davidson College, Davidson, NC 28035 macampbell@davidson.edu.
A Malcolm
AM
Campbell
D001695:Biology / Q000193:education*; D004521:Educational Measurement; D005178:Faculty; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D013334:Students; D013663:Teaching; D013782:Textbooks as Topic