Approaches to cell biology teaching: a primer on standards.

Abstract

The first challenge in designing and teaching any course is to decide what to teach. Although some undergraduate and graduate instructors are infamous for teaching only their area of research or only their pet topic, most instructors are engaged in an ongoing struggle with the demons of course content: What should students learn? In how much depth should they learn it? At what age is it cognitively appropriate for them to learn it? What will students have encountered before? What will prepare them for future studies? Often, class time is the largest consideration, forcing instructors to confront the difficult task of prioritizing and choosing only the most essential concepts for a course. In addition, the goals for what students should learn drive not only what is taught, but also how it is taught. The considerations are complex in all teaching situations, regardless of topic area, student age, or educational setting. At most colleges and universities, the process of selecting course content is an extremely local enterprise. Sometimes the decisions are made by a small group of faculty members, but most often they are made by a single professor with the responsibility of teaching the course. The idea that courses are articulated into a meaningful progression for undergraduates may be discussed among faculty members responsible for different courses; however, discussions across divisional boundaries—biology and chemistry, for example—are rarer. Almost unheard of is agreement across institutions of higher education about what should be taught in all introductory biology courses or all cell biology courses. This level of articulation and alignment across institutions would likely be considered not only an affront to the independent spirit of colleges and universities, but also an impediment to both faculty creativity and integration of new knowledge into course content. This said, all the previously mentioned articulations—across grade levels, across educational institutions, across teachers, and across content areas—are now major driving forces in what is taught to students in K–12 schools. These articulations take the form of what are referred to as standards. Although most scientists have many definitions of the word standard—standard molecular weight markers on a gel, standard curves for interpreting unknown amounts of a substance in a sample, and the standard transmission in a car—many are not familiar with standards in K–12 education or aware of the pervasive influence of such standards on everything from curriculum development to testing.