SBIR Phase II: Online Chapter Marketplace for Biology Learning Materials

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project focuses on the development of an electronic replacement for reading materials currently used by the majority of biology undergraduate students. This replacement will combine smaller reading sections with more active learning components such as simulated experiments. The system to be developed will be open to contribution from a wide variety of authors and subject matter experts. Textbooks are currently used in most college biology environments to present material to students. However, learning through textbooks occurs primarily through memorization. This project is developing new innovative ways to facilitate productive learning techniques, and for configuring take-home assignments of biology students to be more active, without losing the content needed for understanding biological systems. This project has the potential to transform one of the pillars of science education, the textbook, from a passive reading instrument to an active learning tool. This could contribute to the improvement of learning gains for the at least one million students per year that participate in college level biology classes each year in the U.S. On a broad scale, this project eventually could help improve learning across all the sciences.