Volume 17, Number 5     Summer 2008

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Dean for Undergraduate Studies Donna Hamilton presented the 2008 Departmental Excellence and Innovation in Undergraduate Teaching Award to Joelle Presson, who received it on behalf of the Biological Science Program.

The CTE-Lilly Teaching Fellows established The Departmental Excellence and Innovation in Undergraduate Teaching Award in 1994 to recognize notable improvements in undergraduate education on the department, program, or university level. Each year the CTE-Lilly Fellows select the winners from departmental submissions describing current educational activities or innovations that have made important contributions to undergraduate education during the past two to three years. The award recognizes the combined efforts of a unit rather than the work of any one individual. The Office of Undergraduate Studies provides the support for this annual award.

This year the Departmental Excellence and Innovation in Undergraduate Teaching Award was given to the Biological Science Program in the College of Chemical and Life Science for their work in developing and implementing a new second year course in the major, BSCI207. This new course presents biology from an interdisciplinary perspective and provides students with modern, cutting edge interdisciplinary understanding of how different types of organisms solve fundamental life problems. BSCI207 requires students to think critically, and deeply, about problems in biology at a level not achieved previously the curriculum.

BSCI207 was developed by a diverse faculty team who designed a common syllabus that is used by the various faculty who teach this course. Each lecture section is taught by a team of two faculty with complimentary expertise. Each year the six BSCI207 instructors come together to critique and evaluate the course, their role in it, and to ensure that sure it stays true to the original interdisciplinary vision.

Because BSCI207 is so integrative and conceptual in nature, and because it is required of all BSCI majors, it provides a focal point in the curriculum to address critical thinking and reasoning skills. The cooperative nature of the BSCI207 faculty team has provided a venue in which to explicitly articulate what those critical thinking skills are and to help students achieve them.

The interdisciplinary and integrative thrust of BSCI207 has stimulated the faculty in Biological Sciences to seek such reforms across the sciences. Discussions with colleagues in mathematics have lead to the development of a new calculus for life sciences course and similar conversations with colleagues in physics are directed towards a similar collaborative course in that arena. The development and implementation of BSCI207 represent that type of interdisciplinary conceptual thinking that is reforming STEM education and helping the University of Maryland to be a national leader in ensuring today's science education prepares students for a world that is increasingly interconnected across many knowledge domains.