PULSE Working Group Workshop; Atlanta, GA

Dartmouth College, Hanover NH

Investigators

Abstract

Dartmouth College is awarded a grant to fund a workshop in support of the Partnership for Undergraduate Life Science Education (PULSE) initiative. The PULSE partners hope to transform undergraduate life science education through a variety of national efforts to help implement recommendations made in the 2011 Vision and Change report. One outcome from this effort was the announcement of 40 Vision and Change Leadership Fellows in September, 2012. The Vision and Change Leadership Fellows are exploring ways to encourage departments to reward faculty member's efforts to improve undergraduate life sciences education. These efforts to improve teaching should increase student learning, should increase retention rates for students in the life sciences, and should prepare all students to be more curious and scientifically literate citizens. The current award is to fund a workshop for eleven of the Fellows who are part of the ?Taking the Pulse? working group. The working group plans to help departments use existing assessment evidence and design new tools to evaluate progress in departmental efforts to implement Vision and Change recommendations. This working group is developing a recognition or certification system for undergraduate biology departments that have adopted recommendations in the Vision and Change Report. The workshop organizers plan to develop specific criteria of what a future "transformed" department might look like; design an accreditation model for certification; assemble a rubric for certification; and begin to share the products of this workshop with the life sciences community, primarily via the www.pulsecommunity.org website.