Educational Resources In Neuroscience (ERIN)

Society For Neuroscience, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

The Society for Neuroscience is establishing ERIN, Educational Resources in Neuroscience, a Web-based portal that will enable faculty who teach neuroscience to list, review, and rate materials they use in their teaching. It will help faculty share information about resources that are effective in specific undergraduate courses, as well as create a community of practice in which faculty can exchange syllabi, lab exercises, and ideas about innovative approaches to teaching and learning. Materials will be peer reviewed for scientific validity and educational merit before posting, and the listings and reviews will be freely available on the web. INTELLECTUAL MERIT The explosive growth of knowledge in neuroscience in the last half-century makes ERIN's information about rapidly evolving resources essential for both faculty and students. The pace of new discoveries creates a constant need to update the content of courses and to teach beyond the material in textbooks. In addition, "millenial" students routinely expect to encounter online exercises, images, videos, and other resources, which can be difficult for faculty to find and evaluate. ERIN will provide informed access to such resources. It will be searchable in multiple, familiar ways and will serve as a "Web 2.0" community for faculty to discuss issues related to their teaching. ERIN answers recent calls from the biology community that "professional societies should provide professional development opportunities for faculty to enhance their expertise" so that faculty can look beyond existing textbooks for course resources and engage in peer-to-peer mentoring about teaching and learning (see the "Vision and Change" website maintained by the American Association for the Advancement of Science). BROAD IMPACT News about Erin will be widely disseminated by the Society for Neuroscience and will be linked to the current BEN portal so that it can serve the widest possible audience of biologists. This project is being co-funded by the TUBE Program of the Emerging Frontiers Division of the Directorate for the Biological Sciences as part of th Vision and Change efforts