ABSTRACT
The Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience (FUN) has mounted many summer workshops since its first in 1995 held at Davidson College. An important outcome of the 1995 workshop was the development of four "blueprints" to help guide institutions in developing and maintaining undergraduate programs in neuroscience. Since then, at approximately ten-year intervals, participants at the FUN workshops have revisited and amended the Blueprints to better reflect best practices in undergraduate neuroscience education, including adding a fifth blueprint in 2005. In 2017, participants at the FUN workshop held at Dominican University again conducted a review of the blueprints and amended each of the five. A significant change resulting from the 2017 discussions was revision of the neuroscience minor blueprint to reflect the evolution of this program type across institutions.
ABSTRACT
In the Fall of 2002, the Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience (FUN) began publication of its flagship journal, the Journal of Undergraduate Neuroscience Education (JUNE). For the past ten years, JUNE has been a major forum for the free exchange of information among undergraduate neuroscience educators. Numerous articles on laboratory exercises, media, pedagogy, curriculum, and issues pertinent to neuroscience educators have been published in JUNE during the past decade. Given the vast expertise in pedagogy amongst the FUN membership and within the undergraduate neuroscience education community at large, we strongly encourage all FUN members and JUNE readers to become actively involved in JUNE by contributing manuscripts and/or by offering your services as a reviewer.
ABSTRACT
In 2007 FUN established the FUN Program and Department Consultations Service, or FUN-PDCS. Since that founding, the service has provided numerous consultation recommendations to undergraduate programs seeking assistance with external program reviews, designing and improving courses and many other programmatic needs. FUN-PDCS, like FUN, is primarily a grassroots organization and draws on the expertise of the FUN membership to aid programs in their more personalized pursuit of the FUN mission: to promote and improve undergraduate neuroscience education and research.
ABSTRACT
Paralleling the explosive growth of neuroscientific knowledge over the last two decades, numerous institutions from liberal arts colleges to research universities have either implemented or begun exploring the possibility of implementing undergraduate programs in neuroscience. In 1995, Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience (FUN) partnered with Project Kaleidoscope (PKAL) to offer a workshop exploring how undergraduate neuroscience education should proceed. Four blueprints were created to provide direction to the burgeoning interest in developing programs in undergraduate neuroscience education: 1) Neuroscience nested in psychology; 2) Neuroscience nested in biology; 3) Neuroscience as a minor; and 4) Neuroscience as a major. In 2005, FUN again partnered with PKAL to revisit the blueprints in order to align the blueprints with modern pedagogical philosophy and technology. The original four blueprints were modified and updated. One particularly exciting outgrowth of the 2005 workshop was the introduction of a fifth curricular blueprint that strongly emphasizes the integration of the humanities and social sciences into neuroscience: Neuroscience Studies. Because of the interdisciplinary nature of neuroscience, an education in neuroscience will prepare the next generation of students to think critically, synthetically, and creatively as they confront the problems facing humanity in the 21(st) century.
Subject(s)
Education/standards , Faculty , Neurosciences/education , Research Support as Topic , Students , Adult , Humans , Interpersonal Relations , Neurosciences/standards , Reward , UniversitiesABSTRACT
Both short excerpts from, and full-length presentation of feature films have been used with success in undergraduate instruction. Studies of such use of films has revealed that incorporation of film viewing within courses can promote both content mastery and the development of critical thinking skills. This article discusses and provides examples of successful use of two methods that may be used to incorporate a variety of full-length feature films into neuroscience instruction. One, the "neuro-cinema" pairs the presentation of a film featuring extensive neuroscience content with primary literature reading assignments, group discussion and writing exercises. The second, a neuroscience film series, features group discussion of movies of perhaps more limited relevance to neuroscience. An additional goal of this article is provide the reader with initial resources for the selection of potential film titles for use in neuroscience education. Three extensive tables are included to provide a wide range of title suggestions appropriate for use in activities such as the neuro-cinema, the neuroscience film series, or for more limited use as short "clips" in classroom instruction.