by Lisa Elfring, PhD

One of the best ways to ensure the quality of undergraduates in the biological sciences is to have them arrive at the university with solid knowledge and skills. For this to happen, students must be taught by teachers who are well informed and up-to-date in their knowledge and teaching methods. Research has demonstrated that teachers' background knowledge and the methods they use to teach science have a very strong impact on how much their students learn and on their attitudes about science.

Martha Narro came to the Biochemistry Department in 1990 with an interest in helping biology teachers to strengthen their teaching skills. She worked with local teachers and with faculty and staff in Biochemistry, Molecular and Cell Biology, and Ecology and Evolutionary Biology to develop a series of biology courses for teachers. Over time, this project evolved into the General Biology Program for Teachers, which now consists of school-year courses and a summer master's degree program for middle and high school biology teachers.

Over 200 teachers have taken our short, one-unit courses, taught evenings and weekends during the school year. Recent courses include Immunology (taught by Bill Grimes), Plant Molecular Biology (Elizabeth Vierling), and Technology for Teachers (Madeleine Lapointe and Jennifer Katcher). We are always looking for enthusiastic instructors with good ideas for courses, so if you are interested, please let us know!

The summer General Biology program recognizes the obstacles many teachers face in trying to keep current in the fast-moving field of biology. Teachers are often unable to take courses during the school year, so all the courses for the graduate program are taught over the summers. Additionally, research has shown that students learn best about science when they can ask their own questions and devise ways to address those questions. In educational jargon, this is called "inquiry," and in many ways it is similar to the process of science research. Most teachers don't have the opportunity to participate in science research while they are in school, and it is very difficult for them to teach scientific inquiry if they've never experienced it. This graduate program provides teachers the opportunity to do science research under the supervision of life sciences faculty. The program is unique in its focus on biology research and its summer-only nature.

General Biology summer courses are open to teachers whether or not they wish to pursue the master's degree. The General Biology master's program is designed to be completed in four summers, with the first summer spent taking biology and science education courses, the second and third summers spent doing biology research, and the fourth summer writing a research thesis. In addition, General Biology Master’s candidates adapt or create curricula that allow them to transfer their experience doing research to their classroom teaching, and then share what they've learned with their colleagues. To date, 30 teachers have graduated from the program. Most of our graduates continue to teach middle and high school biology, but a few have gone on to positions where they work to help other teachers improve their teaching. One alumnus teaches a Desert Plants summer course for Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and several Current Topics courses for our program during the school year.

When Martha Narro, who secured funding from NSF and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to build the graduate program, left her position for the wide world of computational biology in 1998, I came to Tucson from Boston to take over. The summer program has continued to grow from a small local program to one that is attended each year by approximately forty teachers from around the United States. Recent funding from Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the NIH Science Education Partnerships Awards program has allowed the program to continue to help teachers and their students focus on modern biomedical research and how it impacts all our lives.

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Biological Sciences West
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Tel: (520) 621-9185 FAX (520) 621-9288
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics
The University of Arizona
Updated June 1, 2004

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