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Welcome to Principles of Biology, Kansas State University’s innovative introductory biology course. Because this course is almost certainly unlike any course you have taken before, we need to spend a little time to introduce it, and tell you why this course is a great way to learn about biology. Unlike the traditional lecture & lab introductory biology courses at most universities, Biology 198 at K-State is a studio-format course, combining lecture and lab into the same class period. There are some unique things about studio courses, and especially this one. Our studio model involves 2 separate 2-hour sessions per week, with a maximum of 78 students in the studio; thus you will spend about 4 hours per week in the studio classroom. So it is important to understand that you are in a studio course, which is not a lecture, and not a lab, but is actually a hybrid of lecture and lab. Although it is an introductory course, it was developed with input from all the faculty members in the Division of Biology. There are usually two faculty members, two GTAs and one or more undergraduate practicum student instructors per 80 students in each section. Why do we teach this course this way? Because we believe in education, and also in giving KSU students a lot of education for their tuition dollars. The studio format has been shown to be a very effective way for us to help you learn about biology. In fact, it is about twice as effective as the traditional lecture/lab course in terms of your learning and retention of the material. So that’s why we teach it this way. It is also unique in that the faculty members teaching this course can include anyone in the department, including full professors. Introductory science courses, in particular, tend to be taught by graduate teaching assistants here, and at other institutions. If they are taught by a full professor in Biology 198, many freshman students will not have another course taught by a full professor until their junior or senior year. At many of our peer institutions, introductory biology courses are taught with a single instructor lecturing to 500-800 students, accompanied by a lab taught solely with graduate students. That’s a relatively inexpensive way to teach introductory science courses, but also a relatively ineffective way. If you take advantage of the significant resources (both personnel and material) that the Division of Biology devotes to this course, you will learn a lot of biology. Equally importantly, you will learn how to study and be successful in a university environment. That’s another advantage of the studio format! This work is licensed by Robert Bear, David Rintoul, Bruce Snyder under a Creative Commons Attribution License (by 3.0).