Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research (SABER)

Biology education research (BER) can be a major contributor to the herculean task of modernizing and transforming biology education. However, as researchers in a relatively young and still small field, BER practitioners now find themselves fragmented across 64 biology-related societies and lacking agreement on a core research agenda, a convenient professional network, and venues of dissemination. To begin addressing these needs, the newly formed Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research (SABER) held an inaugural meeting in September 2010 at the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities. The 29 participants (Figure 1) included faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students engaged in empirical research and professional development, as well as journal editors, textbook writers, and a textbook editor. The diversity of this group contributed to a thoughtful, reflective, and productive meeting, whose major goals were to 1) define BER, 2) identify challenges to its practice, 3) formulate overarching research questions, and 4) outline the role of SABER in supporting the BER community. The consensus views of the participants on each of these goals are described in the paragraphs below. Figure 1: SABER Founding Members: Teri Balser, Clarissa Dirks, Mary Pat Wenderoth, Janet Branchaw, Rob Brooker, Peggy Brickman, Malcolm Campbell, Mark Connelly, Erin Dolan, Scott Freeman, Mark Hens, Jenny Knight, Kathryn Miller, Jennifer Momsen, Lisa Montplaisir, ... The outcomes of this meeting are timely in the context of the recently released summary report Vision and Change in Undergraduate Education, A Call to Action, which charged the biology community with “creating, using, assessing, and disseminating effective practices in teaching and learning” (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2010 ). By providing the infrastructure needed to create a vibrant network of practitioners, SABER is well positioned to support biology education researchers in generating empirical evidence that can effect meaningful changes in undergraduate biology education.