An award has been made to Everett Community College to organize a program of self assessment for life science departments as part of the mission of the Partnership for Undergraduate Life Science Education (PULSE). In September 2012 the PULSE partners (HHMI, NIH, and NSF) appointed 40 Vision and Change Leadership Fellows to stimulate transformative changes in undergraduate life science education as recommended in the Vision and Change report. Fellows were selected from two-year colleges, liberal arts colleges, comprehensive universities and research universities. The Fellows have organized into working groups with the overarching goal of helping departments transform their programs in a national effort to increase student learning of core concepts, increase student retention in the sciences, and prepare all students to be more curious and scientifically literate citizens.
The current award is to begin testing a comprehensive set of rubrics developed by the Taking the Pulse Working Group. The Vision and Change report contained a number of recommendations for improving undergraduate life sciences education but did not furnish an implementation strategy. The rubrics that have been developed will serve as a blueprint for departments to evaluate their own progress in adopting recommendations in the areas of curriculum development, faculty support, student engagement and inclusivity, assessment, infrastructure, and the campus climate for change. The working group also plans to pilot a certification program to both motivate departments to adopt Vision and Change recommendations and to reward departments that have enacted Vision and Change principles. The initial draft set of rubrics has been posted on the www.pulsecommunity.org website under the provisional title: Taking the PULSE Vision and Change Rubrics 1.0 and rubrics will be updated as more departments field-test them at all institution types. Results from the Taking the PULSE project will be posted on the PULSE website and shared with the life sciences community at professional meetings.
This project is being funded jointly by the Directorate for Biological Sciences and the Directorate of Education and Human Resources, Division of Undergraduate Education as part of their efforts to support Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education
