Transforming Introductory Biology at University of Alaska, Anchorage

阿拉斯加大学安克雷奇分校生物学入门课程的变革

• 批准号: 1823935
• 负责人: Sarah Gerken
• 金额: $ 30万
• 依托单位: University of Alaska Anchorage Campus
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-10-01 至 2022-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1823935&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Transforming; Introductory; Biology; University; Alaska

The general education biology course at the University of Alaska, Anchorage (UAA) enrolls a high proportion of first-time students, many of whom arrive underprepared for the rigors of college education. Thus, the pass rates for this course are consistently low. To improve student success, this project will redesign the course to include interactive practices such as instant responses, one-minute discussions and writing assignments, and rubrics to grade presentations by fellow students. Introduction of similar activities into an introductory course for biology majors improved the pass rates from 46% to 87%. Project personnel will identify what elements of the majors' course are particularly successful and will use that information, along with a survey of best practices in biology education, to revamp the curriculum for the general education course. UAA serves a diverse student population often underrepresented in STEM fields, including 81% who receive need-based financial aid. The project is designed to investigate what aspects of the new course will resonate most strongly with the diverse student population at UAA. Faculty at UAA will participate in workshops to improve their teaching and faculty incentives will promote implementation of best teaching practices. The planned course revisions are designed to increase course completion, increase science literacy, and improve quantitative reasoning skills. Additionally, it is envisioned that the revisions will encourage more students to pursue STEM majors and careers, helping to fill a national need for increasing the STEM workforce. Finally, approximately 7% of the students enrolled in the general education course are training to be K-12 teachers. Improving their college biology experience may have positive impacts on their future classrooms.This project will use a mixed methods approach to identify and quantify course elements that increase course completion, retention, science literacy, and quantitative reasoning in a diverse student body. Quantitative analysis will include a difference in differences (DiD) approach to mimic an experimental design and to isolate the impact of the intervention. The impact will be measured as changes in pre- and post-intervention scores for the treatment group (students who participate in the redesigned curriculum) and control group (students who took the course prior to the redesign). Literature relating to active learning strategies in STEM considers learning gains in a single setting that is already using active learning. This project incorporates a quasi-experimental DiD design using a large dataset and diverse student body with a range of academic and demographic characteristics and has the potential to make a significant contribution to the field. A qualitative analysis will supplement and add depth to the quantitative findings; axial coding of focus group interviews with majors, non-majors in the traditional course, and non-majors in the revised course will be analyzed using within-case analysis of each group. Comparative analysis with pattern matching will be used for a cross-case analysis to identify commonalities and differences between the groups. In addition to these empirical contributions, the analysis will support curriculum design, faculty development, and course assessment for the general education biology course. Professional development and faculty incentives have the potential to enhance teaching and learning throughout the courses offered by the Department of Biological Sciences and ensure implementation fidelity to the best practice pedagogical approaches. The findings of this project are expected to be especially informative for commuter colleges and other open-enrollment institutions with diverse student bodies, including indigenous student populations.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.

阿拉斯加大学安克雷奇分校（UAA）的通识教育生物学课程招收了很大比例的第一次入学的学生，其中许多人对大学教育的严格要求准备不足。因此，这门课的通过率一直很低。为了提高学生的成绩，本项目将重新设计课程，包括即时反应、一分钟讨论和写作作业等互动练习，以及为同学的报告评分的规则。在生物学专业的入门课程中引入类似的活动将通过率从46%提高到87%。项目人员将确定专业课程中哪些元素特别成功，并将利用这些信息，以及对生物教育最佳实践的调查，来修改通识教育课程的课程设置。UAA为STEM领域的多元化学生群体提供服务，其中81%的学生获得了基于需求的经济援助。该项目旨在调查新课程的哪些方面最能与UAA不同的学生群体产生共鸣。UAA的教师将参加研讨会，以改善他们的教学，教师奖励将促进最佳教学实践的实施。计划中的课程修订旨在提高课程的完成率，提高科学素养，并提高定量推理能力。此外，预计修订将鼓励更多的学生追求STEM专业和职业，有助于满足国家对增加STEM劳动力的需求。最后，大约7%参加通识教育课程的学生正在接受K-12教师培训。提高他们的大学生物体验可能会对他们未来的课堂产生积极影响。该项目将使用混合方法来确定和量化课程要素，以提高不同学生群体的课程完成率、保留率、科学素养和定量推理能力。定量分析将包括差异中的差异（DiD）方法来模拟实验设计并隔离干预的影响。这种影响将通过治疗组（参加重新设计课程的学生）和对照组（在重新设计课程之前参加课程的学生）干预前和干预后得分的变化来衡量。与STEM中主动学习策略相关的文献考虑了在已经使用主动学习的单一环境中的学习收益。该项目采用准实验性DiD设计，使用大型数据集和具有一系列学术和人口统计学特征的多样化学生群体，并有可能为该领域做出重大贡献。定性分析将补充和增加定量结果的深度；对专业、传统课程非专业、修订课程非专业的焦点小组访谈进行轴向编码，对每组进行个案分析。具有模式匹配的比较分析将用于跨案例分析，以确定组之间的共性和差异。除了这些经验的贡献，分析将支持课程设计，师资发展和课程评估的通识教育生物学课程。专业发展和教师激励有可能在生物科学系提供的课程中加强教学和学习，并确保实施忠于最佳实践教学方法。该项目的研究结果预计将为通勤学院和其他拥有不同学生群体（包括土著学生群体）的开放招生机构提供特别的信息。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。