Abstract Detail

Vision & Change in Undergraduate Botany Education

Schussler, Elisabeth E. [1].

Vision and Change in the department and across the curriculum.

As departments across the country consider pedagogical changes to their introductory biology courses, one way to unify innovations and approaches across courses (and even universities) is to utilize the principles put forward by AAAS’s Vision and Change report.  At the University of Tennessee (UT), we used this report as a guide for a complete re-structuring of the multiple sections and three courses that comprise the majors’ introductory coursework, and as the curricular learning objectives for the entire degree program.  The session will start with perspectives on how the Vision and Change report can be used to develop a departmental vision of change for ALL courses, including the importance of influential supporters and an unwavering focus on student learning as the goal.  The session will then shift from planning for change to actually implementing change, and discuss the choices that have to be made regarding speed of reform, uniformity of curricula, and level of collaboration that can be incorporated in this process.  Once again, we will focus on the experiences at UT as we outline two years of implementing change, including professional development approaches, inclusion of graduate students and undergraduates in the creation of the new curriculum, and academic freedom.  Also included will be a brief overview of how we have captured programmatic active learning practices, and the challenges of assessing curricular change at the level of the department.  The goal of the session will be to start a conversation about the challenges and opportunities inherent in these broad-scale reform efforts, and inspire other institutions to join the Vision and Change movement.

1 - University Of Tennessee, Department Of Ecology And Evolutionary Biology, 569 Dabney Hall, Knoxville, TN, 37996, USA

Keywords:
curriculum reform
Vision & Change.

Presentation Type: Symposium or Colloquium Presentation
Session: SY06
Location: Snake/Boise Centre
Date: Tuesday, July 29th, 2014
Time: 2:15 PM
Number: SY06002
Abstract ID:516
Candidate for Awards:None