Curriculum

Course Offerings

Curriculum

Biology Course Offerings

The MAT Program's biology curriculum requires students to engage in the kinds of thinking that characterize professional work in the field. Too often, the teaching of biology in secondary schools and undergraduate programs divides the subject into units of study that obscure the integration across disciplinary perspectives, though it is this very integration that characterizes the future of biology in the 21st century. In this curriculum, students are challenged to extend their studies through courses and research that demand the integration of disciplinary perspectives through a focus on essential questions and problems.

The emphasis of the graduate curriculum moves MAT students toward an understanding of biology that -fosters a different view of teaching and learning in secondary science classrooms. Through the extended work of the teaching strand, experiences in curriculum design and implementation, independent laboratory research experiences, and research in the public schools, MAT students will translate their understanding of biology into instructional designs that move beyond standards defined by state assessments toward a more complex model of understanding in the field.

Sample Calendar

The course descriptions that follow are organized into two categories: by discipline, and by discipline and pedagogy. The first category is the cluster of courses that engage students in graduate-level studies, challenging them to grapple with the questions, forms of inquiry, and knowledge making that constitute the work of the discipline. The second category is that set of studies and experiences in public school classrooms that allow developing teachers to consider their fields of study as sites for learning and how their work as teachers engages less experienced learners in the authentic work of their respective fields.