The Scientific Teaching Course
Jennifer Knight (University of Colorado, Boulder) Sarah Miller (University of Wisconsin–Madison), Jo Handelsman (University of Wisconsin–Madison)
In collaboration with Tiny Earth, Codon Learning is developing a Scientific Teaching Course that integrates AJEDI (antiracist, just, equitable, diverse, inclusive) principles. Educators from diverse backgrounds will co-create the free, digital course modules for college instructors.
Undergraduate STEM majors have low retention rates, particularly for students of color, first-generation students, those with disabilities, and other students from historically excluded communities. The new Scientific Teaching Course, built on Codon Learning’s digital platform, will help instructors apply evidence-based teaching practices that boost student learning, increase retention, and bridge pervasive representation gaps.
The book Scientific Teaching, written by Jo Handelsman, Sarah Miller, and Christine Pfund in 2007, provides a pedagogical framework for active learning, assessment, and diversity that is designed to help STEM instructors teach with the spirit and rigor they bring to scientific research.
Instructors from two-year colleges, minority-serving institutions, and research universities, as well as experts in faculty professional development, scientific teaching, and AJEDI pedagogy make up the collaboration’s working group. Faculty include Sheela Vemu, a Tiny Earth Partner Instructor at Waubonsee Community College, Zakiya Wilson-Kennedy from Louisiana State University, Cara Gormally from Gallaudet University, and Taziah Kenney from Jefferson University. Student advisors and instructors from the Tiny Earth network will also provide feedback throughout the course development.
Tiny Earth Partner Instructors looking at plates during an instructor training. Tiny Earth’s global network has expanded to reach tens of thousands of students enrolled annually in some version of the course.
The team is led by Jennifer Knight, Associate Professor of Biology in the Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at the University of Colorado Boulder and Sarah Miller, Executive Director of Tiny Earth at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Jo Handelsman, Director of the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery and Professor of Plant Pathology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison will serve in an advisory capacity.
The collaboration is generously funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
*Content from this piece was drawn from the press release from Front Features at the Wisconsin Institute for Scientific Discovery: Tiny Earth to develop AJEDI-focused open-access Scientific Teaching Course for college instructors.
about tiny earth
Tiny Earth inspires and retains students in the sciences while addressing one of the most pressing global health challenges of our century—the diminishing supply of effective antibiotics. Tiny Earthlings are college students who enroll in a Tiny Earth research course to discover antibiotics from soil bacteria in their own backyards. This innovative, international network was created by Dr. Jo Handelsman, Vilas Research Professor
and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor of Plant Pathology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and former Associate Director for Science at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.