Faculty Focus Groups

Over the past few months we have been holding focus groups from different sub-disciplines of biology. Across 5 meetings, nearly 60 teaching and research faculty discussed the biology content covered in the curriculum, voiced their concerns, and offered suggestions for next steps, and recommendations for improvement.

We have collected the major findings of the focus groups in a report which can be accessed on the Faculty Page (you can request the password from any member of the project team). The report highlights several specific places where we need help from faculty to move forward. If you would like to get involved, please contact the Project Lead, Trish Schulte.

The report contains details on 4 key areas

1. Integration Across the Curriculum:
   The project team should help facilitate coordination of content and resource sharing across courses in the curriculum in a sustainable way.
2. Lower-Division Courses:
   The project should work to improve coverage in lower-division courses on (1) the interplay of genotype, phenotype and the environment, and (2) diversity beyond terrestrial vertebrates.
3. Upper-Division Courses:
   The project should support efforts to reorganize, restructure and redevelop courses covering (1) plant physiology/development, and (2) animal endocrinology and reproduction.
4. Further Investigation:
   The project team should collect more information on (1) specific content topics that people were interested in, and (2) the high school biology curriculum.