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ASHG »
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Graduate and Postdoc »
BEGIn |
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Building Excellence in Genetics Instruction Workshop
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Is the BEGIn workshop right for your university department?
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Are you and your colleagues interested in better instruction but don’t know where to begin?
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Do you teach large classes and want to decrease the amount of lecturing?
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Would you like to improve student learning by the equivalent of one to two letter grades?
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Are you interested in implementing evidence-based practices to improve teaching and learning?
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Do you desire a practical, hands-on workshop rather than a didactic, theory-focused experience?
If you answered “Yes” to one or more of these questions, the BEGIn workshop is for you.
Contact
Mike Dougherty,
ASHG Director of Education, for
questions or to schedule a BEGIn
Workshop for your
department/institution today.
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Background
We received great feedback from geneticists who attended the Geneticist-Educator Network of Alliances (GENA) workshops, which ASHG conducted for three years as part of an NSF Math-Science Partnership grant (EHR 0634296). Most GENA geneticists reported being able to apply what they learned from teaching high school students to their own undergraduate/graduate teaching.
They also became more confident about making presentations to non-scientific audiences. As the NSF funding for the GENA project has ended, ASHG is now offering a similar workshop targeted at training geneticists to be better teachers.
Unlike the GENA workshops, which hosted geneticist-high school teacher pairs, the BEGIn workshop focuses on geneticists only, allowing greater attention to issues of undergraduate biology/genetics. The goal of the workshop is to provide scientists with the knowledge and skills to improve their own teaching in genetics.
Highlights of the workshop:
- Small classes
Each workshop is limited to 16-20 participants.
- How do students learn?
Identifying and addressing misconceptions are important parts of teaching. Learn to recognize and challenge misconceptions in genetics and to design exemplary instructional experiences using learning cycles and inquiry.
Learn techniques for student-centered teaching.
- Formative and summative assessments
How do you know if your students truly understand what you teach? Learn about several research-based assessment strategies that you can incorporate into your teaching.
Practice teaching innovations with your peers.
- Working on your own teaching plan
Working with your peers, apply what you have learned to improve a lecture that you currently teach. Participants with no teaching background can work on a syllabus/lecture from their graduate school experience.
Workshop Evaluation Results (cumulative)
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Q: How would you rate the workshop overall? |
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Excellent: 74% Very Good: 21%
Good: 5% |
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Q: What was the most valuable part of the workshop? |
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- interactive discussions and presentations
- the chance to critique one another’s teaching; peer discussion
- collegial atmosphere, interactive format, and hands-on practice
- great course director; facilitated by a scientist
- learning to prepare assessment questions based on learning objectives
- practicing interactive teaching techniques to make lectures more student-centered
- learning to probe for misconceptions
- seeing how good teaching is done
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Q: What could we have done better? |
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- make the workshop a little longer
- more concrete examples of what effective teaching looks like
- more examples of inquiry-based activities and methods of assessment
- more time to spend on our own teaching plan.
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We are continually refining the workshop to address your concerns!
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