With the goal of producing useful resources for educators to encourage students along the pathway to graduate school and careers in toxicology, the SOT Education Committee's Undergraduate Subcommittee established a work group to develop learning objectives for undergraduate toxicology courses. Publication of the resulting framework will facilitate the development and sharing of evidenced-based teaching materials for toxicology educators throughout the world and expand toxicology’s impact to a broader audience. This framework supports the NSF AAAS Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology recommendations for student-centered learning that reflect the process of science, topics connected to the lives of students, and what we know about effective learning practices.
The toxicology learning objectives echo the core Vision and Change concepts, which are evolution; pathways and transformations of energy and matter; information flow, exchange, and storage; structure and function; and systems. Toxicology learning objectives will provide guidance for faculty teaching toxicology in a basic undergraduate toxicology course as well as in other courses, and exclude examples and case study references. After reviewing course syllabi and textbooks, the group proposed these five core toxicology concepts: evolution; pathways and transformations of energy and matter; systems toxicology; biological information; and risk assessment. In addition, learning objectives were determined and additional detail outlined for each, such that there are four levels of detail. Publication of this framework alongside those of the other major life science disciplines (CourseSource, LifeSciTRC) will facilitate the development and sharing of evidenced-based teaching materials for toxicology educators throughout the world and expand toxicology’s impact to a broader audience.
Society of Toxicology Develops Learning Framework for Undergraduate Toxicology Courses Following the Vision and Change Core Concepts Model, Toxicological Sciences, Volume 170, Issue 1, July 2019, Pages 20–24, https://doi.org/10.1093/toxsci/kfz090
Foundational Concepts in Undergraduate Toxicology: Applying Vision & Change to the Development of Core Competencies and Learning Objectives for an Undergraduate Toxicology Course—2018 Annual Meeting poster
Toxicology Learning Framework
The North Carolina Higher Education Faculty and Mentor Network hosted a free webinar series in 2021–2022 that provided resources and examples to help faculty integrate core principles of toxicology into various undergraduate courses. The series was co-facilitated by Joshua Gray and Mindy Reynolds, with a guest facilitator for each session as below.
Webinar 1. An Introduction to the Core Concepts of Toxicology | Presentation Slides—Chris Perdan Curran
Toxicology Core Concepts
Webinar 2. A Focus on Evolution | Presentation Slides—Jed Goldstone
Webinar 3. Biological Information—Toxicology and the Genome | Presentation Slides—Alicia Timme-Laragy
Webinar 4. Pathways and Transformations of Toxicants, from Dose-Response to ADME | Presentation Slides—Kristine Willett
Webinar 5. Systems Toxicology | Presentation Slides—Eva Oberdorster
Webinar 6. Risk Assessment | Presentation Slides—Annie Jarabek and George Woodall
Webinar 7. A Culmination of Core Concepts to Teach Toxicology | Presentation Slides—Nimrat Obhi
ToXchange