Essays on what the bench teaches, what assessment can certify, and what a science course owes its students.

I'm Leslie Nichols. For the last several years I've coordinated a multi-section anatomy & physiology lab program serving more than 1,000 students per term. Before that I taught secondary science. I'm an Idaho-certified science teacher, and I still teach across age groups — in lecture halls, at the bench, and in smaller settings outside the university.

This site is a place to think out loud about the questions that come up in any large undergraduate science program: what hands-on lab work uniquely teaches, how to assess competency honestly, what we owe a gateway course that funnels into nursing and medical careers, and where pedagogical innovation ends and content reduction begins.

The pieces here cite the literature where the literature exists. They try to be useful to a department chair, a curriculum committee, an accreditor, or a new faculty member trying to make up their mind. They argue with positions, never with people.