BioTeach for Middle and High School Teachers
by Dr. Stephen Hajduk, founding director of CORD, BioTeach has been offered since 1992 to
middle and high school biology teachers within the state of Alabama.
Over 450 teachers throughout the state have participated in BioTeach over the course of 24 years. Approximately one-third of these teachers represent Birmingham City Schools.
The goal of BioTeach is to provide teachers with the basic knowledge and laboratory skills needed to bring molecular biology into the classroom.
Designed especially for biology educators, teachers will earn graduate credit for this three week, laboratory-intensive summer course in cellular and molecular biology. Tuition costs are the responsibility of the applicant.
As an interdisciplinary course, BioTeach offers lectures taught by established faculty members from the primary basic science departments at UAB.
Topics covered include:
- Neurobiology
- AIDS
- Sickle Cell Anemia
- Ethics in Science
- Forensic Medicine
- Tropical Diseases
- Bacterial Genetics
The laboratory and clasrrom implementation portions of the course are facilitated by UAB graduate students, master teachers and post-doctoral fellows. Teachers work in small groups (4 teachers/group) with the facilitator, to enhance laboratory skills, conduct experiments and explore classroom implementation strategies.
CORD supports teachers by providing them with two implementation strategies for BioTeach: GENEius Program and BioTeach Classroom Modules.
Support for BioTeach has come from a grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and a SEPA grant from the NIH. Currently, the Alabama Commission of Higher Education (ACHE) and UAB support BioTeach.
Please contact Patrice Capers for more information about BioTeach.