This project is developing, implementing, and conducting research-based assessment of a new foundational course, Biological Inquiry, which enrolls nearly half of the institution's first year students and is a core requirement for biology majors. The course employs interactive, interdisciplinary, and inquiry-based approaches, and is organized around three sequential, multi-week modules in which students use the scientific method as biologists do, explore interdisciplinary connections, build quantitative skills, and develop the content knowledge needed to successfully advance to upper-level biology courses. To develop their expertise in curriculum development, assessment, and new pedagogical approaches, faculty from within and outside the institution are participating in a series of workshops. Biologists are collaborating with each other, with undergraduate preceptors, and with colleagues from other departments to develop, practice, and revise the course modules. External experts are guiding development of classroom assessment instruments of students' critical thinking and analytical reasoning skills (modeled after vetted tools), the results from which are being compared with other direct measures of student learning outcomes. Surveys of students' perceptions of learning and attitudes about science and levels of engagement are also being used to determine if student perceptions correlate with direct measures of their learning. The project is being offered as a potential model for effective ways to incorporate best pedagogical practices to improve learning in STEM courses, and for how research-based assessment can enlighten such reform efforts. Its dissemination plan is aimed at ensuring that various constituencies (including professors of STEM disciplines, assessment experts, and administrators) throughout the country learn from its findings.
