Welcome to the new academic year! I hope you had an enjoyable summer and are looking forward to attending the NABT Professional Development Conference in St. Louis this November. In anticipation of this upcoming event, I began to reflect on the importance of community and the role it plays both personally and professionally.
For years, a friend of mine tried to talk me into attending an NABT conference. I resisted because I felt a discipline-specific conference would be more interesting than one focused on biology education. When he asked again in 2001, I was still not very interested, but since I had never been to Montreal that sealed the deal.
I had an amazing experience at that conference and have attended every one since. I was excited by the research presentations, the pedagogical strategies—many of which were given by secondary school teachers—and generally excited by the exposure to areas beyond...