Transformation of the Introductory Biology Experience for Biology Majors: Progress of the Northwest Bioscience Consortium RCN‐UBE

The Northwest Biosciences Consortium is a group of two‐year and four‐year college faculty at both public and private institutions in the State of Oregon. Funded by an NSF RCN‐UBE grant, this group is working towards creating modern, student‐centered, integrated, and investigative introductory biology experiences for all students aligned with the Vision and Change: A Call to Action mandate. In our third year of the grant we now report on the activities of this group including two recent faculty workshops to encourage broad faculty involvement in our project goals. At the 2015 Winter Institute, faculty were introduced to active learning techniques that would help foster an inclusive environment for our students. At the 2016 Winter Institute, faculty participated in the development of instructional modules and assessment techniques in core areas identified by faculty as essential areas in the study of introductory biology. In addition to the results of the Winter Institutes, we will report on obstacles we have encountered especially in the area of smoothing the transition for transfer students taking an introductory sequence at a two year college followed by advanced coursework in biology at a four year college and plans for professional development activities for faculty across our institutions to encourage the adoption of student‐centered pedagogies aligned with Vision and Change and collaboration with other networks such as NW PULSE, PKAL, and NABT who are engaged in similar work. As a long‐term goal, we are particularly interested in helping faculty develop scaleable classroom modules and assessment practices that will encourage consistency in introductory biology outcomes across our diverse two‐year and four‐year institutions. Support or Funding Information Supported by the National Science Foundation RCN‐UBE grant (DBI‐1248121).