Biology and ecology misconceptions diagnostics: Moving forward?

For at least 25 years, education research has clearly shown that undergraduate students retain identifiable biological and ecological misconceptions in introductory courses. However, in contrast to physicists, biologists have not worked together to develop and disseminate a common misconception diagnostic that significantly improves biology teaching. Is this because biologists, unlike physicists, do not belong to common professional societies or share a common understanding of a small number of core concepts? Recent interest and targeted support from NSF may allow us to address these and other important questions concerning biological/ecological misconceptions and college teaching. I will report on this change in the context of an overview of current biology/ecology misconceptions research.