Project Grant 2336776

The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $450,407 project grant under its STEM Education (CFDA 47.076) program to the University of Wisconsin - Madison to develop, test, and publish a collection of Core Concept Teaching Tools (CCTTs) that will help undergraduate biology students transfer their knowledge of biology core concepts across scales and sub-disciplines. The project aims to address the need for instructional materials that enable students to make connections across different areas of biology to understand complex biological phenomena. Approximately 45 CCTTs will be developed and pilot tested at diverse institutions before being published in the CourseSource database, where instructors can freely access and utilize them in their teaching. The project brings together biology educators with expertise across scales and sub-disciplines to participate in faculty learning communities and create the CCTTs, which will guide students through recognizing core concept elements, recalling prior knowledge, and applying it to novel biological contexts.