ASCB, in cooperation with several other professional societies, has obtained funding from the National Science Foundation for a five-year Research Coordination 
Network in Undergraduate Biology Education to both enhance biology education and build the professional educators workforce. The grant will fund the Promoting Active Learning and Mentoring (PALM) network, which is a continuation of a project that operated this past year under an incubator grant, funding six Fellows and their mentors as they worked to increase the evidence-based active learning in the Fellows’ classrooms. The target audience is instructors or postdocs who have heard about active learning, and perhaps experienced a workshop or summer institute on it, and who are seeking a more sustained mentoring relationship to help them go beyond theory to put active learning into practice.
Our newest Fellows and their mentors from the incubator year are as follows:
- Veronica Segarra, High Point University, mentored by Karen Bernd, Davidson College
- Anjali Misra, Florida SouthWestern State College, mentored by Diane Ebert-May, Michigan State University
- Jason Chan, Juniata College, mentored by Leocadia Paliulis, Bucknell University
An important component of the project is dissemination by the Fellows, who share the results of their reformed teaching at their home institutions, within their professional societies, and via publication, thus spreading the impact and helping the network to grow. The 2016 ASCB Annual Meeting will include posters from the first round of PALM Fellows and a series of table talks (Sunday through Tuesday) that address both PALM and its progenitor, the ASCB’s Mentoring in Active Learning and Teaching program. These table talks will include general information as well as reports from mentees on how they incorporated more active learning, and tips for a successful application. Please check out the PALM flyer and visit PALM events this December in San Francisco!
About the Author:
Education Committee Chair
