Cell Biology Education

We have not been very systematic about our quest to improve teaching, even though we value it highly and frequently do well at it. I am struck, for example, by the lack of conversation about what pedagogy means, and what makes it successful. It is our profession, yet it is mysteriously absent from our professional discourse. Here we are, engaged in an activity that is vital to ourselves, our students, and our public—yet we speak of how to do it, if at all, as though it had no data base, lacked a history, and offered no innovative challenges. (Donald Kennedy, 1990, Stanford President’s Address: Stanford in Its Second Century)