Building a successful and inclusive classroom can be complicated! Using two examples of courses I teach I will outline practices I use to improve engagement, growth, and achievement in our biology students.  I will also share novel student-centered teaching practices I use to engage students in a large-lecture non-majors physiology course and how those practices have spread through my work with UW in the High School. Additionally, UW Biology has recently undertaken a new upper-division human anatomy lab course which I have designed and implemented this year.

Last year, we celebrated the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology awarded for the discoveries of the molecular basis of daily rhythms in cells. These circadian (~24 h) rhythms are common across phyla and cell types. In vertebrates, the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) synchronizes circadian rhythms in behavior and physiology to the external light cycle, but the mechanisms by which this occurs are unclear.