My Interest in ASCN: Erin Dolan

Over the past two years, I have been tasked with supporting college-wide teaching change at the University of Texas at Austin. I can learn from this network about theories of change with which I might not be familiar, and empirical evidence that demonstrate (or not) the usefulness of particular theories of change for explaining sustained use of evidence-based teaching.

How I Can Contribute to ASCN

My role at UT Austin has required designing, launching, and evaluating a college-wide teaching innovative initiative. A key element of this is promoting widespread and sustained use of evidence-based teaching practices. In this role, I have had to become familiar with theories of teaching change, to design programs aligned with these theories, and design and begin to conduct evaluation studies of programs aimed at teaching change. I can share the lessons I have learned from these experiences. I have collaborated with Tessa Andrews at the University of Georgia to explore the role of colleagues in teaching change - some of our work was recently published in CBE - Life Sciences Education (LSE): http://www.lifescied.org/content/15/2/ar15.full. I am PI of a network promoting teaching and research related to course-based undergraduate research experiences, called CUREnet (http://curenet.cns.utexas.edu/). I am also editor-in-chief of LSE, and thus have a good working knowledge of biology education research and related work.