Collaborative Research: Institutional and Community Transformation for Teaching and Learning Quantitative Reasoning in the Biological Sciences

定量推理(QR)涉及使用数学技能，如代数和统计分析，来理解和解释数据。生物学领域越来越依赖于使用定量推理来解释大数据集，例如在基因组分析和人口研究中收集的数据集。这个项目旨在提高社区大学准备转到四年制院校生物专业的学生的定量推理技能。这些学生往往准备不足，无法顺利完成生物专业的学业，继续接受研究生教育或进入STEM劳动力大军。为了长期提高学生在生物学背景下应用QR的能力，这项建议寻求利用大学/社区学院的合作伙伴关系，在该专业的核心生物学课程中扩大和深化QR内容。该计划旨在提供一个模式，说明社区学院和大学联盟如何促进课程意识和一致性，以提高学生在QR方面的收益。这个项目将检验这样一种假设，即这种类型的合作增强了教学方法，并将学生的成功转移到了四年制院校。此外，与核心生物学课程中的QR模块的反复互动被假设为对所有学生在高水平课程中的成功产生积极影响。这些努力旨在加强所有学生的课程表现衡量标准，包括直接入学学生和转学学生。在生物等STEM专业，提高学生的成就率和留存率支持改善所有学生进入科学和技术职业的机会的目标。该项目的重点将是通过创建专注于量化技能发展的主动学习模块来增强本科生的二维码技能，并通过有效的评估工具进行验证。将建立三个学术社区：1)课程调整小组，将审查社区学院和合作的四年制机构的四门核心课程(生物学入门：细胞和分子，生物学入门：生态学和进化论，遗传学和细胞生物学)的课程，并确定行动领域，重点是发展生物学专业的QR能力；2)Nexus定量生物学研究所，将包括每个机构的教员团队为核心生物学课程开发、试点和评估QR模块，并评估对学生表现和留存的影响；以及3)教师发展社区，其中将包括一系列关于循证教学方法的共享教师发展研讨会，包括创建的QR模块的使用，以及共同的教学证书计划。这三个社区将每年在一个区域研讨会上聚集在一起，在那里将传播联盟的产品(QR模块)和调查结果(学生评估数据)。综上所述，这项工作将形成与QR在本科生物学专业成功中的重要性有关的机构内和机构间的观点和实践。通过上述学术社区发展教师合作，该项目将为社区学院和四年制机构的生物学教师提供现代教学方法和模块开发方面的培训。该项目将绘制相关流程并广泛传播项目结果，以确保它成为其他机构的榜样，这些机构希望采用这种方法来提高转学学生的成功，并为所有生物专业的学生更好地为现代STEM工作做好准备。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Quantitative reasoning (QR) involves the use of mathematical skills, such as algebra and statistical analysis, to understand and interpret data. The field of biology has become increasingly reliant on the use of quantitative reasoning to interpret large datasets, such as those gathered in genomic analysis and population studies. This project is designed to improve quantitative reasoning skills in students at community colleges preparing to transfer into biology majors at four-year institutions. These students are often underprepared to successfully complete biology majors and to continue to graduate education or to enter the STEM workforce. To achieve long-term gains in students' abilities to apply QR in biological contexts, this proposal seeks to leverage a university/community college partnership to expand and deepen the QR content in core biology courses across the major. The program aspires to provide a model for how consortia of community colleges and universities can facilitate course awareness and alignment to improve student gains in QR. This project will test the hypothesis that this type of collaboration enhances pedagogy and transfer student success at four-year institutions. Further, repeated interaction with QR modules within the core biology curricula are hypothesized to positively impact the success of all students in upper-level coursework. These efforts are designed to strengthen the course performance measures of all students, including both direct entry and transfer students. Improving student success and retention in STEM majors such as biology supports the goal of improving access of all students to scientific and technical careers.The focus of the project will be on enhancing the QR skills of undergraduates through the creation of active learning modules focused on quantitative skill development, verified with validated assessment instruments. Three scholarly communities will be established: 1) a Curricular Alignment Team, which will review curricula in four core courses (Introductory Biology: Cells and Molecules, Introductory Biology: Ecology and Evolution, Genetics, and Cell Biology) at the community colleges and the four-year institution in the collaboration, and identify areas for action, with emphasis on the development of QR abilities in biology majors; 2) the NEXUS Institute in Quantitative Biology, which will involve teams of faculty from each institution developing, piloting, and assessing QR modules for the core biology curricula and assessing the impact on student performance and retention; and 3) a Faculty Development Community, which will involve a series of shared faculty development workshops on evidence-based teaching approaches, to include the use of the created QR modules, and a common teaching certificate program. These three communities will come together annually at a regional symposium, where the consortium products (QR modules) and findings (student assessment data) will be disseminated. Taken together, this work will shape intra- and inter-institutional perspectives and practices relating to the importance of QR in the success of undergraduate biology majors. By developing faculty collaborations through the scholarly communities described above, this project will provide training in modern pedagogical methods and module development for biology faculty at community colleges and four-year institutions. The project will map the processes involved and disseminate the project findings widely to ensure that it serves as a model for other institutions that wish to take this approach to improve transfer student success and better prepare all biology majors for the modern STEM workforce.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.