Community College Instructors' Perceptions of Constraints and Affordances Related to Teaching Quantitative Biology Skills and Concepts
Community College Instructors' Perceptions of Constraints and Affordances Related to Teaching Quantitative Biology Skills and Concepts
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DOI：
10.1187/cbe.19-01-0003
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发表时间：
2019-12-01
影响因子：
3.7
通讯作者：
Aikens, Melissa L.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Corwin, Lisa A.;Kiser, Stacey;Aikens, Melissa L.
定量技能是本科生物学学生的一个重要能力，应该尽早和经常纳入本科生的职业生涯。社区学院（CC）负责向大部分生物学和健康前学生教授生物学入门课程，定量技能对他们的职业生涯至关重要。然而，我们所知甚少的挑战和启示，CC教师遇到时，将定量技能纳入他们的课程。为了探索这一点，我们采访了CC生物教师（n = 20）将定量生物学（QB）教学到他们的班级。我们使用有目的的抽样方法来招募可能尝试过循证医学的教师，并可能意识到QB教学的重要性。我们使用开放式编码来识别与教学QB的启示和限制相关的主题。总的来说，我们的研究参与者遇到了将新材料或技术融入任何大学水平课程的典型挑战，包括对学生缺陷的看法，教授定量技能和涵盖生物学内容的时间之间的紧张关系，以及教师专业知识的差距（例如，内容和教学内容知识）。我们分析这些挑战，并提供潜在的解决方案和专业发展的建议，以支持在CC QB指令。
Quantitative skills are an important competency for undergraduate biology students and should be incorporated early and frequently in an undergraduate's career. Community colleges (CCs) are responsible for teaching introductory biology to a large proportion of biology and prehealth students, and quantitative skills are critical for their careers. However, we know little about the challenges and affordances that CC instructors encounter when incorporating quantitative skills into their courses. To explore this, we interviewed CC biology instructors (n = 20) about incorporating quantitative biology (QB) instruction into their classes. We used a purposeful sampling approach to recruit instructors who were likely to have tried evidence-based pedagogies and were likely aware of the importance of QB instruction. We used open coding to identify themes related to the affordances to and constraints on teaching QB. Overall, our study participants met with challenges typical of incorporating new material or techniques into any college-level class, including perceptions of student deficits, tension between time to teach quantitative skills and cover biology content, and gaps in teacher professional knowledge (e.g., content and pedagogical content knowledge). We analyze these challenges and offer potential solutions and recommendations for professional development to support QB instruction at CCs.