Education is constantly changing, keeping up with the latest educational theories as well as keeping pace with changing demands and expectations. In the USA there was a concerted effort some ten or so years ago to make radical changes to undergraduate biology education and these are outlined in the Bio2010 report TRANSFORMING UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION FOR FUTURE RESEARCH BIOLOGISTS published in 2003. In 2010 a special issue of the journal CBE Life Sciences Education (vol 9(3)) published a range of articles on some of the results of these changes.
Likewise in the UK there has been a great degree of change in the way mathematical and statistical ideas have been taught within bioscience degrees and so it is timely to look at both US and UK bioscience education with a view to highlighting good practice and innovation and considering how change can best be made.
Jenny Koenig and Nathan Pike are conducting a project which compares the pedagogical approaches and curricula used in the UK vs those used in the US when teaching mathematics and quantitative methods (including statistics) to undergraduates and postgraduates in the Biological Sciences. When the report is published at the end of this year, we’re hoping that the it will be a useful tool to educational practitioners on both sides of the pond.
To make sure that our observations and conclusions are as relevant and generalizable as possible, we’d be hugely grateful if you could help us by completing this very short online survey:
This survey contains just ten short questions and takes under five minutes to complete. We’d be very grateful if you would also forward this request to colleagues who teach BioMaths in HE.
Please rest assured that your responses will be treated with strict anonymity. That said, if you would like to receive a copy of the report once it is published, you need simply enter your email address into the web form or, alternatively, get in touch by email (to either Jenny Koenig – jk111 at cam.ac.uk – or Nathan Pike – nathan.pike at heacademy.ac.uk).
Biomaths Education Network 