Scientific Teaching Course

A Self-Paced Online Training to Help STEM Instructors Incorporate Evidence-Based Practices

Based on Scientific Teaching (2007), the Scientific Teaching Course (STC) is a free digital course on evidence-based teaching practices and ways to bridge science practices with inclusive teaching. It summarizes the calls for improved STEM education, and it provides tools and templates for course design, so you can put resources into practice for your own class.

Why scientific teaching?

For an equitable STEM workforce, we must address biases that:

  • discourage students from pursuing science,
  • limit instructors and institutions from challenging systematic inequalities, and
  • obscure opportunities for engagement in the scientific enterprise.

Scientific teaching provides instructors with evidence-based frameworks and tools to address these challenges.

What is scientific teaching?

Scientific teaching is both the teaching of science and science of teaching. Instructors who practice scientific teaching:

  • engage students in authentic science practices,
  • approach teaching with the spirit of scientific research, and
  • support all science students via inclusive learning experiences, intentional pedagogy, and iterative improvements.

How do I access the STC?

There are two versions of the STC, one hosted on GitHub and one hosted on Codon. They both contain the same content, but are interacted with differently.

GitHub Version

  • No login required.
  • Adaptive light/dark theme and font size automatically match operating system preferences.
  • Best for quick, easy reading.
Open STC on GitHub

Codon Version

  • Login required. Please email tinyearth@wid.wisc.edu for access.
  • Interactive review activities leverage evidence-based learning strategies.
  • Best for tracking your progress in smaller increments.
Open STC on Codon