Science Education for New Civic Engagement & Responsibility (SENCER)

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This project is developing a platform from which to engage in national dissemination in which faculty will learn about the effective teaching of science through special courses that examine public issues and teach rigorous science within the framework of those issues. The initial model is to teach rigorous biology within the framework of a course focused on HIV & AIDS. Other models are being prepared during the grant period to offer a broad menu of public issues with important underlying themes of science related phenomena. The dissemination model will use the Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U) network of institutions and meetings to offer faculty workshops to teams of faculty and a graduate student that will use the workshop as a springboard to offer spin-off courses on their own campuses. Each model employs the most sophisticated, hands-on pedagogy and technology, and offers the possibility of featuring a series of "wrap-around' courses in a variety of other science, social science, humanities, and pre-professional disciplines. Each workshop team will consist of at least one member of the faculty in a science department, in a pre-professional or professional school, a social science department, and a graduate student. Participants will be selected to participate in an intensive, residential faculty development institutes. The most promising and effective local spin-off initiatives and reforms that are developed as a result of attendance at these institutes will be highlighted and presented to AAC&U members and other interested parties through AAC&U's extensive communications and meeting infrastructure.