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Challenge your teaching

Twenty-first century research in the life sciences is becoming an increasingly interdisciplinary endeavor where teams of scientists use tools and insights from a variety of fields to solve complex biological problems. By and large, our educational system has not kept up with these changes. How can science education and the life sciences curriculum better reflect the way students will do science when they leave the hallowed halls of academia?

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Figure 1: The traditional classroom experience.

© Tyagan Miller

References

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank several colleagues, especially M. Ares, E. Hegg and J. de Paula, for critically reading an advance copy of the manuscript. In addition, I would like to note that there are several high-quality interdisciplinary programs being planned or implemented across the country; space constraints precluded discussing more than just a few examples. This work was supported in part by a grant from the US National Institutes of Health (GM-65430). A.L.F. is a Cottrell Scholar of Research Corporation.

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Feig, A. Challenge your teaching. Nat Struct Mol Biol 11, 16–19 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nsmb0104-16

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