Society of Toxicology Develops Learning Framework for Undergraduate Toxicology Courses Following the Vision and Change Core Concepts Model.

Society of Toxicology Develops Learning Framework for Undergraduate Toxicology Courses Following the Vision and Change Core Concepts Model.

Gray Joshua P; Curran Christine P; Fitsanakis Vanessa A; Ray Sidhartha; Stine Karen E; Eidemiller Betty J

Toxicological sciences : an official journal of the Society of Toxicology

2019

2019-04

The Society of Toxicology announces the development of a Learning Framework (https://www.toxicology.org/education/docs/SOT-Toxicology-Learning-Objectives.pdf ) for undergraduate toxicology that will facilitate the development and sharing of evidence-based teaching materials for undergraduate toxicology educators throughout the world. This Learning Framework was modeled on the "Vision and Change Report" (www.visionandchange.org), an effort of the National Science Foundation and American Association for the Advancement of Science defining Core Concepts and Core Competencies to inform undergraduate biology course design. Vision and Change (V&C) has gained national acceptance, becoming a foundation for 14 upper-level courses designed by professional life science scientific societies. The undergraduate toxicology Learning Framework includes five Core Concepts aligned with V&C that encompass the discipline of toxicology: Evolution; Biological Information, Risk and Risk; Management; Systems Toxicology; and Pathways and Transformations for Energy and Matter. Underpinning the Core Concepts are Level Two Toxicology Concepts, which are broad disciplinary categories, Level Three Learning Objectives, which address specific learning goals, and Level Four Example Learning Objectives and Case Studies, which provide examples of how content might be taught. Syllabi from more than 20 undergraduate toxicology courses and several undergraduate toxicology textbooks were surveyed to determine toxicology-related Learning Objectives. From these, undergraduate educators can design courses tailored to their institutional needs by selecting a subset of Learning Objectives. Publication of a Learning Framework for toxicology will enable integration into other disciplines and facilitate the development and sharing of evidenced-based teaching materials for toxicology to educators in allied disciplines. Ultimately this will expand toxicology's impact to a broader audience.

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