The Division of Biology would like to formally introduce Dr. Caroline Wienhold, the new Assistant Director of Biology Teaching and Learning.
Caroline received her PhD in Genetics & Genomics from the University of Connecticut, where she studied the differentiation of the mesodermal and neuroectodermal cell lineages in human and mouse embryonic stem cells. However, her passion was always in educating the next generation of biologists. In fact, she probably spent more time going to education seminars than biology seminars. While at UCONN, Caroline earned her Certificate in Undergraduate College Teaching, and sought out connections in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) and Discipline Based Education Research (DBER). She was recruited to the University of Wisconsin – Madison for an HHMI postdoctoral fellowship to train in DBER and diversity issues related to STEM and higher education. There she studied the impact of a disciplinary first-year seminar on the achievement of underrepresented student populations in introductory biology. She also worked to develop an instrument to measure conceptual thinking around the core concepts of Vision and Change, and train graduate students in evidence-based pedagogy. Caroline has a strong belief in creating community in the classroom, giving others agency over their learning, and providing the support for learning to happen at its own pace.
As the Assistant Director of Biology Teaching and Learning, Caroline will work closely with Director Beth Schussler to provide teaching professional development opportunities for faculty and grad students and assessment of General Biology courses. She will also be working on student success initiatives, primarily focused on first year students.