Description: A great opportunity to gain experience facilitating discussion sections in a large, case-based course on introductory biology. Options for internship roles include: (1) Structure, backwards-design and guest teach an existing case study (join the class for four days over two weeks, and attend two prep meetings with TA’s), or (2) work with faculty to align student-centered learning outcomes, and guest teach.
Semester(s): Spring
Institution: UW Madison
Department(s): Integrative Biology
Intern background needed: Ecology and/or evolution and/or plant physiology
Course: Introductory Biology 152, 2nd semester of 2 semester sequence
Course info: 220 students taking case and lab sections concurrently. Intern work would focus only on case sections.
Course time/day: 9 75-minute sections meeting twice per week, some M/W, some T/R.
Challenges a project might address include: The primary challenge we have faced is articulating and aligning specific learning outcomes for each case study. Primary instructors vary and case development is always ongoing, so standardizing this has been difficult. Helping to formalize this process would be an ideal challenge for an intern project to address.
Potential Guest Teaching Topics/Units: Anything involving ecology, evolution, and/or plant physiology.
Teaching strategies of interest: Entirely case-based curriculum, including collaborative learning and writing-centric approach. Lead instructors use Socratic questioning and brief, just-in-time lecturing to facilitate student research and paper composition.
Teaching strategies currently used:
Please Contact: Julie Collins <jecollins4@wisc.edu>