Vision and Change (V&C) in Undergraduate Biology Education Follow-Up

2009年，美国科学促进会（AAAS）举办了一次研讨会/会议，其中包括美国生物大学和学院教师的代表部分（总共500名与会者），讨论了考虑到该学科本身的巨大变化，我们对待生物学本科教育的方式是否需要改变。那次会议的成果是2011年出版的《生物学本科教育的愿景与变革：行动呼吁》（Vision and Change in Biology Undergraduate Education: a Call for Action）。到目前为止，这本书已经分发给了6000多人，一个网页的点击量约为5000次。该出版物的基本大纲和一般内容反映了2009年会议上的讨论，实际上是由一个与会者联盟编写的。那次会议及其结果的传播得益于来自国家卫生研究所、霍华德·休斯医学研究所、国家科学院以及国家科学基金会内生物和教育及人力资源理事会的代表的支持。当前的项目是最初努力的后续，并满足与会者的要求，确定社区对会议及其出版物（印刷和网络）的反应。美国农业部的代表加入了计划这次会议的小组。智力优势：该项目涉及生物界的很大一部分。它关注的是发现变化是如何在生物学本科教育中发生的，涵盖的主题包括：教师、高等教育机构和专业协会在响应广泛的变革呼吁方面做了什么；这些变革行动的结果是什么？这些结果是如何记录的？变革的单位是否不仅仅包括一两个教员，而是包括一个或多个部门，共同努力改变课程内部和整个部门的教学方法。这类信息可以为有兴趣描述学术界变革努力的教育研究人员提供有用的基础，也可以为有兴趣的教师和机构提供有关如何成功地在其学科中建立新方法的信息。更广泛的影响：机构的广度，生物学领域的广度，以及所包括的教师，都说明了这个项目的更广泛的影响。此外，美国科学促进会服务于所有STEM学科，因此这种努力的宣传可能会导致其他学科尝试类似的努力来改善他们的本科教育方法。最初的努力已经引起了工程界的兴趣。事实上，最近发表的美国医学院学院（关于医学预科和医学生的准备）和教育考试服务中心（关于AP生物学）的努力反映了最初的愿景和变化出版物中的关注和建议，这提高了社区对这次开创性会议结果的兴趣。

In 2009 the American Academy for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) held a workshop/meeting that included a representative segment of the nation's biology university and college faculty (500 attendees in all) in a discussion of the need for change in the way we approach biology undergraduate education in light of the vast changes in the discipline itself. That meeting resulted in a 2011 publication, Vision and Change in Biology Undergraduate Education: A Call for Action, that has, so far, been distributed to more than 6000 people and a web page that has had about 5,000 hits. The essential outline and general contents of the publication reflect the discussions at the 2009 meeting and were, in fact, written by a consortium of attendees. That meeting and the subsequent dissemination of its findings benefitted from the support of representatives from the National Institute of Health, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the National Academy, and the Directorates of Biology and of Education and Human Resources within NSF. The current project is a follow up to the initial effort and fulfills a request by meeting attendees to determine the community's response to the meeting and its publications (both in print and on the web). Representatives of the United States Department of Agriculture have joined the group planning this meeting.Intellectual Merit: This project involves a large segment of the biology community. It is concerned with discovering how change occurs within biology undergraduate education and covers such topics as: what have faculty, institutions of higher education, and professional societies done in response to the widespread call for change; what were the outcomes of these actions for change; how were these outcomes documented; and has the unit of change included more than just one or two faculty members to involve a department or set of departments in a coordinated effort to change teaching approaches within courses and across the department. This sort of information can provide a useful base for educational researchers interested in describing change efforts in academia, as well as provide information to interested faculty and institutions on how to uccessfully institute new approaches in teaching their discipline. Broader Impact: The breadth of institutions, fields within biology, and faculty that are included speaks for the broader impact of this project. In addition AAAS serves all STEM disciplines so the publicity given this effort can result in other disciplines trying similar efforts to improve their approaches to undergraduate education. The original effort has already catalyzed an interest from the engineering community. The fact that recent published efforts by both the American Academy of Medical Colleges (as concerns the preparation of pre-medical and medical students) and the Educational Testing Service (as concerns AP Biology) mirror the concerns and suggestions within the original Vision and Change publication heightens community interest in the results of this seminal meeting.