This collaborative project between a comprehensive state institution (San Francisco State University) and a community college (Foothill-De Anza Community College) is establishing a multi-pronged faculty enhancement program for community college biology faculty. It is anticipated that 150 college faculty and 11 graduate students will benefit directly from this project in terms of enhancing their teaching approaches, with many more undergraduate students benefitting from the resultant improved courses. The structure and content of the program is patterned after the Scientific Teaching Institutes organized by Jo Handelsman at the University of Wisconsin and has as its objective to enhance faculty pedagogical expertise, provide faculty with support to iteratively change their teaching and develop professional learning communities of community college faculty in the San Francisco Bay area.
The three aspects of this project are: 1. The Scientific Teaching Workshops Series an introductory series of five three hour workshops for those faculty with limited time who want to learn what is available in the hopes of participating in a more intense experience later on (offered during the spring term on a rotating basis at each of ten community colleges within the San Francisco Bay area); 2. The Scientific Teaching Summer Institute, a week long full day activity taking place on the campus of San Francisco State and 3. Follow up activities to help faculty implement what they have learned and to develop a teaching community among participants and their colleagues. The project further benefits from an additional resource, SEPAL (Science Education Partnership and Assessment Laboratory) developed by Kimberly Tanner, a graduate student training program at SFSU that includes working with faculty to develop faculty teaching strengths.
Materials being used at the workshops include: the Scientific Teaching workbook developed by Jo Handelsman for the long standing Scientific Teaching Institutes workshops at the University of Wisconsin Madison, designed for faculty at research intensive universities and those teaching large introductory courses; the Approaches to Biology Teaching and Learning a publication collection written by Kimberly Tanner to translate key findings from the educational literature into practical teaching strategies for the college classroom; and curricular materials developed for SEPAL.
Intellectual Merit: The merit of this project resides in its use of successful activities and materials developed for one audience to transform opportunities available for a different audience.
Broader Impact: Given the large number of students taught by the faculty involved and the fact that in the bay area many biology majors at four year schools start their academic careers at community colleges, this project's potential to effect many students is obvious.
