community colleges
sporte | June 22, 2010Last summer, I had the good fortune to attend a conference in Washington D.C. on Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology education. There were lots of inspiring speeches, cool videos, and talks about building more student-centered classrooms and strategies for change.
Surprisingly, many of the attendees seemed unaware that there is a group of instructors, and educational programs who embody this vision, albeit with a bit of twist.
These are the biotech instructors and biotech education programs at the community colleges.
Many of the ideas described at the Vision and Change conference…
sporte | October 8, 2008Over the years, I've seen many biotechnology education programs at community colleges embrace outreach to high schools as part of their mission. This kind of enthusiasm for outreach seems unique to biotech. No other kind of science or engineering program seems to do this sort of thing, at least not on the nationwide basis that I've seen demonstrated in biotechnology.
And yet, even though I've always admired and often participated in these efforts, some aspects are a little puzzling.
How do the colleges reconcile the energy spent in outreach efforts with the energy spent towards educating…