A Change of View

Abstract

> There is nothing permanent except change. > Heraclitus, 535–475 BCE, Greek philosopher > When you are through changing, you are through. > Bruce Barton, 1886–1967, American author and politician Change is as inevitable, and important, in education as it is in life. The recent Vision and Change report on the state of postsecondary biology education clearly calls on us to change how biology is taught (AAAS, 2011). Alas, not everyone is as enthusiastic about change as the rest of us. And therein lies the problem. We need to reach beyond enthusiastic individuals to transform whole departments. My teaching career started with a project immersed in change. I was a TA and then a research assistant for the Workshop Biology Project at the University of Oregon. This project was driven by a self-selected group of award-winning faculty at the University of Oregon who were dissatisfied with the state of general-education biology classes (Udovic et al., 2002). As part of that project, I participated in their discussions of biology education research, aided curricular experiments in classes, observed the postclass discussions, assisted in data analysis, and attended presentations at various conferences. Three years later, I began my own …