Farshad Tamari on Teaching Introductory Biology

I discovered Farshad Tamari through his pedagogical research. Reading one paper, I was surprised to learn that even when institutions offered both majors and nonmajors biology classes, it wasn’t always clear to students which they should enroll in. As the coauthor of Soomo’s biology webtext for nonmajors, I’ve found Farshad’s firsthand knowledge indispensable.

Because my background is in science writing, (I have an M.S. in science journalism and worked at a science and art museum for years), I sometimes overlook practical difficulties for students that only a working professor can notice. Whether material is presented in a webtext or a classroom, the ways students relate to it are critical for securing their engagement and academic success. When I first encountered Farshad’s work, I knew he would make for an excellent coauthor. He would be able to share insights on what information introductory level students are walking in with, what they find exciting or boring, and how they foresee using what they’ve learned.

Farshad has also provided insight about the shortcomings of traditional biology texts and the challenges instructors face in teaching nonmajor courses. We’re excited to share his essential perspective on teaching this unique body of students.

Farshad’s Background

After immigrating with his parents to Toronto with an almost non-existent vocabulary in English, Farshad struggled in school. He found it difficult to grasp material taught in a language he was still learning and through cultural touchstones that were often foreign to him. Biology (and math) was the exception.

“The concepts are universal,” he says. “The ideas and practices are a universal language.” Biology transcended social boundaries. After his first biology class in high school, Farshad knew that he would spend his life studying and teaching it.

Farshad received his bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in biology at York University in Toronto. He completed his postdoctoral fellowship at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York City before becoming an assistant professor at Kean University. Since his days as a graduate teaching assistant, Farshad taught both major and nonmajor biology students, and he continues to do so today at Kingsborough Community College.

Getting Nonmajors Interested in Biology

Over the years, Farshad has realized just how different the goals, needs, and trajectories of these two student populations are. Generally, nonmajor students enroll in an introductory biology course to fulfill a degree requirement. Farshad believes the typical “nonmajor student just wants to get it done.” However, he adds, “That doesn’t mean they’re not curious about science.”

The challenge of effectively teaching biology to nonmajors is to keep that curiosity alive throughout the course. Introductory biology explores a wide array of scientific subjects. Some of Farshad’s earliest professors showed him the power of carefully structuring these subjects in a way that helps organize information in the student’s mind while preparing them for the next item. Farshad says, “If there is no structure, especially in introductory biology courses, it is extremely easy to lose students.”

But teaching biology successfully doesn’t just come down to how you arrange the course material. Farshad also learned that “relating the concepts to everyday examples is extremely important.” He recalls how his professor of immunology once related course content to the unfolding HIV/AIDS crisis in North America. “It was a critical lesson in teaching for me.”

Linking real-world events and common experiences to biology naturally interests students. What’s more, it shows them the relevance of the content and makes them more likely to remember it.

Prioritizing Content for Nonmajors

So what should nonmajor students be expected to remember from an introductory biology course? Farshad believes students should retain the material they’re most likely to encounter and use again.

“In a biology major’s course,” Farshad says, “students eventually go on to study other biology courses. So understanding [technical] details is useful because they need to have enough of a foundation to understand what’s coming up in the next level course and the next level course after that.”

For nonmajor students, however, an introductory biology course might be their only formal contact with the sciences, let alone biology. This reality might reorder priorities for educators, especially when the technical details of biological theories or processes become a place where students begin “missing the forest for the trees.”

Focusing on Foundations

Farshad offers the Krebs cycle as an example of where too much attention on finer details can disengage nonmajor students. The Krebs cycle is standard fare for introductory biology. But, Farshad says, “Do the students really need to know the names of every enzyme and compound that is being made through every step of the cycle? Probably not.” For nonmajors, having “an understanding of the overall concept is more useful. They should walk away with the major concepts and central themes.”

For instance, students who grasped the fundamental mechanisms of evolution would be better prepared to evaluate how it’s discussed online or in the media. Likewise, students who understood the principles underlying vaccines would be more likely to make informed decisions about them in their personal lives.

The Takeaway Value of Biology

A familiarity with the foundations of biology and science generally has “value beyond biology,” as Farshad puts it. Nonmajors aren’t usually planning to enter biological or medical fields, but they’ll enter the workforce all the same. They’ll contribute to the development of our democratic society as “businesspeople, policymakers, regulators, engineers, lawyers, artists, law enforcement agents.” Whatever profession these students pursue, an understanding of biology is increasingly likely to help them make better decisions for themselves and society.

Evidence shows that courses designed for nonmajors produce better outcomes for those students. Farshad is always curious about how useful his teaching techniques are in the classroom. So he designed a study with colleagues that examined the outcomes of nonmajor students who enrolled (accidentally or otherwise) in biology courses designed for majors. The results, published in 2020, shocked him.

“The data clearly shows that if you’re a nonmajor and you take a course that was designed for biology majors, you are going to struggle. There are a very few individuals who will succeed.”  

Developing a New Webtext

Farshad’s experiences in the classroom and his desire to extend the benefits of learning about biology to nonmajors has inspired him to develop a new introductory biology webtext for nonmajors.

Farshad has been collaborating with Soomo Learning as the project’s primary advisor and coauthor. He’s served an integral role in crafting the big themes, arranging the content, reviewing summative assessments, and editing chapter drafts for accuracy and effectiveness. We’ve been delighted to work with Farshad on this webtext, especially because he has been teaching nonmajors since the beginning of his academic career.

This new webtext is based on principles that will benefit this unique student body. For teaching these students, technical details will always be used in service of understanding a larger concept. And we recognize that the sheer variety and complexity of subjects within introductory biology can make it difficult for nonmajor students to appreciate the broader organization of life that biology reveals to us. To overcome this difficulty, we’ve arranged the course’s core content into a structure that better emphasizes the connections between the different fields of biology.

Taking a New Approach to the Content

Farshad notes that these principles have required Soomo’s biology webtext to take a different shape than traditional textbooks. “We have taken a completely different approach,” he says. “We have geared away from the traditional way of writing. It’s one of the things that’s great about this webtext. It’s organized and structured, but the organization is not the same as every other textbook.”

The single-semester version of Soomo’s biology webtext is planned for publication in spring of 2025. As Soomo continues to work with Farshad on the webtext, we’ll use our blog to expand on the resources we’re developing to assist instructors in teaching nonmajor students.