At Guelph presents the first in a series of stories that highlight University of Guelph leadership in teaching excellence and the scholarship of learning.

How do you tell whether prospective students can make sense of Guelph’s new first-year science curriculum? Ask Prof. Brian Husband, who nearly talked himself hoarse about U of G’s “new biology” at last month’s busy Ontario Universities’ Fair in Toronto.

For Husband, a professor in the Department of Integrative Biology and associate dean (academic) in the College of Biological Science (CBS), one benchmark is simple: “Students can now see where they belong in that first year.”

Take this year’s fair, which attracted more than 118,000 people. With several prospective students and their parents visiting U of G’s booth, the conversation turned to the revamped biology curriculum introduced in 2010. Often those prospects were interested in health sciences, perhaps biomedical sciences or human kinetics programs, but they had a question: Why Guelph?

From Husband: “I said, ‘Your exposure to health sciences starts in year one,’ and their eyes light up. That may make the difference. They’ve now identified something that’s distinguished the Guelph experience.”

He and other CBS members hope that the new first-year curriculum enables more prospective students to see themselves in Guelph’s new linked trio of offerings.  The three new courses are “Discovering Biodiversity,” “Biological Concepts of Health,” and “Introduction to Molecular and Cellular Biology.” Those titles reflect the college’s teaching and research strengths in life sciences under biodiversity, health and molecular biosciences.

The biology curriculum was revamped in 2008-2009 and approved by Senate a year later, says Husband, then serving as interim associate dean (academic). Within each of CBS’s three departments, groups of faculty, staff and students helped lead and contribute to the redevelopment. A college-wide curriculum committee led by Husband included faculty and staff members from all three areas.

Helping prospective biology students see how they might fit at Guelph was only one goal of the exercise. Other goals included helping students move from high school to university and increasing students’ engagement with what they’re learning.

In surveys and focus groups – as well as anecdotally – students said they had struggled with aspects of the previous first-year curriculum. Up to 2,000 students from dozens of degree programs register in first-year biology.

“There’s a perception among students that first-year courses are a hurdle to overcome before you get to the good stuff.” A related challenge: “Students don’t see the connection between their first-year experience and the major they’ve selected.”

The college also wanted to balance its content-heavy curriculum with more independent learning skills and underline the integrated nature of biology.

The team came up with a linked-course model involving those three new courses. Each theme-based course or module is worth 0.5 credits. All three courses are offered each semester. Students may take one, two or all three modules. Those modules cover major biological concepts – evolution, homeostasis, cell theory – using case studies in weekly lectures and tutorials. Husband says even the lectures are less didactic and involve more interaction and group discussion.

Linking the new courses is a common practicum of skill workshops in such topics as independent learning, scientific inquiry, information management, written and oral communication, and numeracy. “Students can tap into these through any of the courses at their own pace. It’s a ‘just-in-time’ kind of learning.”

“It’s not just what biologists know but what biologists do,” says Husband. “We want them to understand and experience the practice of biology.”

In the last three weeks of the semester, tutorial groups are reorganized into groups comprising students from all three courses. They work together on a final case study and present a poster in their final week – the “most exciting part” of the courses, says Husband.

Bringing together different viewpoints on such topics as malaria, sustainable agriculture and influenza allows students to “see how what they do can contribute to solving important societal problems.”

The new curriculum replaced two first-year biology courses organized around a “challenges of life” theme and taught by various faculty members. “It was sometimes hard for students to see connections between different modules,” says Husband.

His group will now monitor students’ feedback and conduct surveys to gauge attitudes and performance in the new curriculum.