Biology conference at SWCC has statewide impact

CNA photo by JASMYNNE SLOAN In their nature: Biology teachers can't resist examining the table decorations at Iowa Community College Biology InstructorsÕ conference Friday at Southwestern Community College. Marsha Jones, SWCC biology instructor, and Lee ???, ???, study a decorative ball during registration and breakfast at the conference.

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Sometimes, it can be lonely teaching biology. This weekend, 27 educators from around the state met at Southwestern Community College to face that fact, talk about teaching strategies and discuss priorities for the next year. “When I first started teaching here, I was the only biology instructor, and, let’s face it, sometimes that was tough,” said SWCC biology instructor Marsha Jones. “So I think gettting together like this each year benefits all of us in a lot of ways. It’s good to talk to each other.” Jones has been attending the annual Iowa Community College Biology Instructors’ conference since its inception in 1995, and she said many of the attendees this year are instructors she has known since then. “We do share our ideas about biology education, not only at the fall conference but via e-mail throughout the year,” Jones said. “We have become a very solid support organization.” During registration and breakfast Friday morning, Paul Pistek, a biology instructor at North Iowa Community College, said there are plenty of good reasons to get together. “Meeting up each year and having a strong organization gives us more resources, not to mention political power,” Pistek said. “I thnk we’re the only long-standing organization like this for community college instructors, and that’s certainly something to be proud of.” Rural biology Jones said she was thankful and proud of the work fellow SWCC instructors and staff had put into organizing the conference this year. The agenda was designed to show off the applications of biology in rural Iowa. For example, the instructors learned about genetically modified crops, artificial insemination and environmental science in lake management. They spent time on farms in the area and visited the Henry A. Wallace Country Life Center, as well as listening to speakers and viewing experiments. Jones said she was looking forward to a demonstration by Jane Bradley, associate vice president of instruction at SWCC. “Jane has a biotechnology background, and she’s going to be doing a PCR reaction for us,” Jones said. “That’s a polymerase chain reaction, and, really, what it does is take a small sample of DNA and copy it over and over so we have a larger sample.” Jones said representatives from Iowa State University had demonstrated PCR at SWCC about 10 years ago, and “now we have a thermocycler, and we can do it ourselves, so we’re excited.” Accomplishment Johanna Kruckeberg, biology professor at Kirkwood Community College, said she’s always glad to attend the conference — she, too, has been criss-crossing the state to be at every meeting since 1995. “It’s encouraging, I think, to see what other teachers are up to,” she said. “We each have a different way to do this or that, or a different way to motivate students.” Kruckeberg said, for example, in the past some teachers had struggled with how to handle students who weren’t prepared for upper-level biology courses designed for biology majors. “So, we came up with an entry-level course that helps them get started,” Kruckeberg said. “And that’s something we’ve worked on and tweaked as a group.” Jones said a class for freshmen who intend to be biology majors was something the instructors planned to discuss again this weekend. “The ultimate goal is to make the course more or less the same for all of our schools so the four-year institutions can accept them — so in the end, we’re helping our students be able to transfer,” Jones said. “The conference is about the students, too, not just the teachers.” —————— Jasmynne Sloan can be reached at (641) 782-2141 ext. 236 or jsloan@crestonnews.com