Collaborative Research: BIO IUSE Ideas Lab: Supporting Faculty in Quantitative Undergraduate Biology Education and Synthesis (QUBES)

在美国国家科学基金会改善本科STEM教育（IUSE）计划的资助下，该项目解决了国家日益增长的需求，即更好地为本科生物学家提供在工作场所或研究生院取得成功所需的定量和计算技能。将数学推理技能完全整合到本科生物学课堂中一直是一项挑战，部分原因是许多生物学学科的变化速度很快，而学术奖励制度往往忽视了教学发展和研究。定量本科生物学教育与综合支持学院（QUBES）项目包括五项相互依存的举措，旨在促进整个生物科学课程中定量和计算技能的整合。该项目通过协调已经参与定量生物学教育改革的不同团体的努力和资源，以现有社区的投资为基础。这种方法使QUBES能够扩大专业协会和专业课程项目等组织的力量，同时简化沟通和协调，以扩大数量生物学（QB）中具有改革思想的教师教育工作者的广泛社区。指导网络将用于支持教师对具体定量生物学概念和教学策略的理解和课堂实施。这些指导网络将由包含数量和教学专业知识的小组领导，并将为空间分布的教师群体提供服务，这些教师群体对改革其目前的教学实践有共同的兴趣。参与的教师将在他们自己的机构内传播资源，组织新的指导网络，并在他们的专业协会中发挥领导作用。来自这些合作的产品将作为QUBES Hub的一部分，QUBES Hub是一个虚拟环境，为所有QB教育者提供专业支持活动和访问课程资源。为了应对记录教学奖学金的挑战，QUBES项目还在试点一个系统，用于描述和跟踪教师对QB教育社区的贡献。这一高风险但具有潜在变革性的举措，旨在制定有意义的教学奖学金衡量标准，可能对不同院校类型的学术奖励制度产生长期影响。通过加强QB研究和开发工具，该项目丰富了STEM学科，促进了STEM教育的长期学术文化变革。最后，协作组正在研究和传播他们对这一教育改革努力的有效性的了解。本研究将采用系统方法，在影响教育改革成功的复杂因素中描述有效的干预措施和改变的障碍。这种复杂程度的项目的有效执行和管理需要彻底和持续的评估。项目团队在整个项目活动中嵌入数据收集系统，作为一种近乎实时地跟踪进度、有效地管理资源并在相关项目组件之间保持清晰沟通的手段。QUBES的实施、研究和发展方法有望对全国的QB教育产生重大影响，更广泛地说，为系统的STEM教育改革工作提供信息。该项目由生物科学理事会和本科教育司教育和人力资源理事会共同资助，以支持应对《本科教育的愿景与变革：行动呼吁》http://visionandchange.org/finalreport/所提出的挑战

With funding from the National Science Foundation's Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) program, this project addresses the Nation's growing need to better prepare undergraduate biologists with the quantitative and computational skills needed to be successful in the workplace or in graduate school. The full integration of mathematical reasoning skills into undergraduate biology classrooms has been challenging, in part, because of the rapid pace of change in many biological disciplines and an academic reward system that often overlooks pedagogical development and research.The Supporting Faculty in Quantitative Undergraduate Biology Education and Synthesis (QUBES) project involves five interdependent initiatives that promote the integration of quantitative and computational skills across the biological sciences curriculum. The project is building on the investments of existing communities by coordinating the efforts and resources of diverse groups that are already involved in quantitative biology education reform. This approach allows QUBES to amplify the strengths of organizations like professional societies and specialized curriculum projects while streamlining the communications and coordination required to grow broader community of reform-minded faculty educators in quantitative biology (QB). Mentoring networks will be used to support faculty understanding and classroom implementation of specific quantitative biology concepts and teaching strategies. These mentoring networks will be led by teams containing both quantitative and pedagogical expertise and will serve spatially distributed groups of instructors who share a common interest in reforming their current teaching practices. Participating instructors will disseminate resources within their own institutions, organize new mentoring networks, and take leadership roles in their professional societies. The products from these collaborations will be captured as part of the QUBES Hub, a virtual environment providing professional support activities and access to curriculum resources for all QB educators. In order to address the challenges of documenting teaching scholarship, the QUBES project is also piloting a system for describing and tracking faculty contributions to the QB education community. This high-risk, but potentially transformative, initiative to develop meaningful metrics of teaching scholarship could have a long term impact on academic reward systems across diverse institution types. By strengthening QB research and development tools, the project is enriching the discipline and catalyzing long-term academic cultural change across STEM education. Finally, the collaborative is studying and disseminating what they learn about the effectiveness of this educational reform effort. This research will take a systems approach to characterize effective interventions and barriers to change within the complex landscape of factors influencing the success of educational reform. The efficient execution and management of a project with this level of complexity requires thorough and ongoing evaluation. The project team is embedding data collection systems throughout project activities as a means to track progress in near real time, manage resources effectively, and maintain clear communication across connected project components. The QUBES approach to implementation, research, and development promises to have a significant impact on QB education across the nation and, more generally, to inform systemic STEM education reform efforts.This project is funded jointly by the Directorate for Biological Sciences and the Directorate of Education and Human Resources, Division of Undergraduate Education in support of efforts to address the challenges posed in Vision and Change in Undergraduate Education: A Call to Action http://visionandchange.org/finalreport/