Transforming Molecular Life Sciences Education: Past, Current, and Future Insights and Practices

Abstract

The practices of teaching and learning biochemistry and molecular biology, the scholarship of research education, and the vision for student-centered learning have continuously transformed to meet the needs of the biochemistry and molecular biology community. As a means for sharing the motivations for change, research, and practices to achieve transformation in biochemistry and molecular biology education and the ongoing and exciting movements taking place globally, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education (BAMBEd) will host a virtual issue “Transforming Molecular Life Sciences Education: Past, Current, and Future Insights and Practices.” This special/virtual issue of BAMBEd will address the current state of strategies, practices, and guidelines in biochemistry and molecular biology education around the world, as well as the movements that have emerged to reform how students best prepare to become leaders in biochemistry and molecular biology.

In this article, we report the history and processes that have been driving transformation in the United States. Our understanding of the best ways to teach undergraduate students biochemistry and molecular biology has greatly improved over decades, and again in recent years. Buoyed by the rise of the scholarship of teaching and learning as a distinct academic discipline [1-3], the biochemistry and molecular biology community has both discovered and implemented new proven ways and best practices to engage undergraduates. These practices, whether to train students to become the next generation of scientific innovators or to educate and inform all students, have transformed the field of biochemistry and molecular biology education.

The AAAS report entitled Vision & Change has been a guiding force for reform of undergraduate life science education for over a decade in the USA (American Association for the Advancement of Science [4, 5]; https://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/content_files/VC_report.pdf). Vision & Change was the product of several years of conversations between leaders in the life science education community who took a scientific approach to teaching and learning. Their findings supported a “student-centered” approach to undergraduate teaching and came with recommended paradigm-shifting ideas for how STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) classes should be taught, including the use of course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs), active-learning pedagogies in the classroom, and designing curricula around key concepts and competencies [4]. Broadly supported by scientific societies, government agencies, independent foundations, and industry, the report had specific action items for the life science education community as summarized in Table 1.

The goal of Vision & Change has been and remains that undergraduates learn by thinking and acting as “real scientists”: to engage in collaborative research experiences and experiential problem-based learning as a way to make these disciplines accessible to all potential future biochemists and molecular biologists. Stakeholders include students, faculty, administrators, professional societies, funding agencies, the general public, and the government. By following these reforms, the authors hoped that education could foster an increased level of student retention and success in undergraduate biochemistry and molecular biology, and that the excitement of these disciplines would interest, attract, and be accessible to all students, as opposed to those possessing educational, cultural, and/or socioeconomic advantages.

While the original Vision & Change document provided broad goals on how to improve the overall state of biochemistry and molecular biology education, the details for implementation came in subsequent years as a series of guides, workshops, documents, and movements. These include the 2013 BioCore Guide for translating Vision & Change's core concepts into digestible and detailed course learning goals ([6]; https://qubeshub.org/app/site/collections/16607/BioCore_Brochure.pdf), a companion BioSkills guide for doing the same for Vision & Change's core competencies ([7]; https://qubeshub.org/publications/1305/5), the BIO-Measuring Achievement and Progression in Science (BIO-MAPS) for assessing student mastery of concepts across the entire life science curriculum [8], and a host of national initiatives centered around CURE development and implementation, including CUREnet [9], SEA-PHAGES [10], and the Genomics Education Partnership [11]. To facilitate the implementation of Vision & Change reforms at a sustainable departmental level, the Partnership for Undergraduate Life Science Education (PULSE) Network was formed through the combined efforts of the United States National Science Foundation (U.S. NSF) and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) to provide trained ambassadors to directly work with individual departments in developing action plans [12]. Finally, two Vision & Change follow-up reports were generated to examine the overall progress of reform: the 2015 Vision & Change: Chronicling Change, Inspiring the Future ([13]; https://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/2025-07/Vision%20%26%20Change%20Chronicling%20Change%202015.pdf) and the 2018 Vision & Change: Unpacking a Movement and Sharing Lessons Learned ([14]; https://aaas-iuse.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/VandC-2018-unpacking-a-movement.pdf). The combined lessons from all these efforts taken together suggest a movement that has been broadly successful in changing the paradigm of what successful biochemistry and molecular biology education should involve. However, they also reveal a movement that still encounters limitations in implementing this paradigm throughout the whole of the biochemistry and molecular biology research community.

A significant effort to elaborate on and facilitate the goals of the Vision & Change movement came with the Levers for Change report, a 2019 document and resource guide released by AAAS with support from the U.S. NSF ([15]; https://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/2019-07/levers-for-change-WEB100_2019.pdf). Levers for Change represented the collective output of the entire STEM education community and an assessment of both the progress each individual STEM discipline had made in reforming its educational practices and the common challenges and opportunities that existed for collaborative future progress. Collectively, the report identified several points of leverage for both individuals and departments to facilitate positive steps toward pedagogical reforms. Amongst these “levers” were the alignment of tenure and promotion criteria with innovations in teaching practices, the development of administrative and departmental cultures that prioritize excellence in teaching, and collaboration across departments and institutions to maximize both material and intellectual support. A 2023 follow-up meeting revisited these “Levers for Change” and produced a framework for the next steps in more fully enacting the reforms originally envisioned in the Vision & Change report ([16]; https://aaas-iuse.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/AAAS-IUSE-Report_Levers_for_Change.pdf). As the Vision & Change movement continues and approaches its third decade, numerous reports continue to emerge for what the current moment demands with respect to best practices in undergraduate biochemistry and life science teaching [17-19].

While this essay has primarily focused on advances and reforms in biochemistry and molecular biology in the United States, it is vital to recognize that this movement is a global movement. Globally, science education communities are seeking to develop and implement more student-centered pedagogies in parallel with the Vision & Change movement in the United States. In many cases, this involves the reform of government guidelines for successful innovative STEM education, including the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) Benchmark Standards in the United Kingdom [36, 37], the Australian Learning and Teaching Council's (ALTC) discipline-specific Threshold Learning Outcomes (TLOs) [38, 39], and the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020/2023 reforms in India [40, 41]. The reforms in these nations and others echo the Vision & Change call for experiential-based, student-centered classrooms and the adoption of active learning practices. While a global consideration of undergraduate biochemistry and molecular biology education must consider the systems, circumstances, and practices that exist in educational systems, it is apparent that there are common goals for pedagogical reform that can form the basis for international cooperation and collaboration in research and implementation. This BAMBEd special issue seeks to foster global dialog and act as a central resource for the continued improvement of biochemical and molecular biology education worldwide.

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.