Initial Publication Date: February 5, 2020

BioQUEST

About

Who is this program for?

STEM educators

  • from high schools
  • from 2 and 4 year institutions
  • future faculty
  • non-tenure and tenure-track track faculty

BioQUEST is a transformative, collaborative community empowering educators to drive innovation in STEM education for all students. We provide unique professional development opportunities for faculty and future faculty, extensive support for a wide range of joint projects, and a community that has the broad aim of student success in STEM. We work together to foster the continued development of each member of the community and to promote their success. BioQUEST has a 35-year history of educational innovation emphasizing effective uses of inquiry, technology, and participatory models of curriculum development.

The BioQUEST Curriculum Consortium actively supports undergraduate STEM education through the collaborative development of open curricula in which students engage in a full spectrum of scientific inquiry from problem posing, to problem solving and peer persuasion (the 3P's). Learn more about the 3P's philosophy on the BioQUEST site.

What is our approach?

The BioQUEST philosophy engages students in authentic scientific experiences, using evidence-based pedagogies and a variety of technological resources. We embrace open education resources and promote inclusive practices. We provide a mentoring community to develop future leaders in STEM education.

Example situations:

  • Educators from a variety of disciplines who want to work together as a community of practice to introduce new topics, skills, or pedagogical strategies in their courses.
  • Community mentoring of emerging leaders in STEM reform, including grant development, scholarship and pedagogical expertise.
  • Two-year faculty interested in increasing inclusive pedagogy to improve student outcomes.
  • Continued faculty development through Faculty Mentoring Networks on QUBES.

BioQUEST current activities:

Current projects and descriptions can be found on the BioQUEST project page.

QUBES

The QUBES platform is a social cyberinfrastructure that provides an open and inclusive virtual space for sharing STEM classroom activities and resources, discussing teaching and the adaptation of educational materials to specific institutional contexts, and working together to develop new ideas and insights that contribute to STEM education reform.

Annual summer workshops

BioQUEST offers a summer workshop where faculty from across the country come together, online and in-person, to learn about cutting edge pedagogical methods, share ideas, and collaborate on projects.

Quantitative Biology at Community Colleges (QB@CC)

QB@CC is a community of biology and math faculty from two year colleges generating open education resources for life science and math courses and providing professional development in implementing these resources.

Resources: