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)的普通教育生物学课程招收的初学者比例很高，其中许多人在入学时对大学教育的严酷程度准备不足。因此，这门课程的通过率一直很低。为了提高学生的成绩，本项目将重新设计课程，包括互动练习，如即时回应、一分钟的讨论和写作作业，以及为同学的报告评分的红字。在生物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要素特别成功，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。UAA服务于在STEM领域往往代表性不足的多样化学生群体，包括81%接受基于需要的经济援助的学生。该项目旨在调查新课程的哪些方面将最能引起UAA多样化的学生群体的共鸣。UAA的教师将参加研讨会以改进他们的教学，教师激励将促进最佳教学实践的实施。计划中的课程修订旨在增加课程完成率，提高科学素养，并提高定量推理技能。此外，预计修订将鼓励更多的学生攻读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，参加通识教育课程的学生中约有7%正在接受培训，准备成为K-12教师。改善他们的大学生物体验可能会对他们未来的课堂产生积极的影响。这个项目将使用混合方法来确定和量化课程元素，以提高课程完成率、保留率、科学素养和在不同学生群体中的定量推理。定量分析将包括差异差异(DID)方法，以模拟实验设计并隔离干预的影响。影响将通过治疗组(参加重新设计的课程的学生)和对照组(在重新设计之前参加课程的学生)干预前和干预后的分数变化来衡量。STEM中有关主动学习策略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。这个项目结合了一个准实验性的DID设计，使用了一个大数据集和具有一系列学术和人口统计特征的不同学生群体，并有可能对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；焦点小组访谈的轴向编码将使用每个小组的案例分析来分析。将使用与模式匹配的比较分析进行跨案例分析，以确定群体之间的共同点和不同点。除了这些经验性的贡献，分析还将为普通教育生物学课程的课程设计、教师发展和课程评估提供支持。专业发展和教师激励有可能在生物科学系提供的所有课程中加强教与学，并确保落实最佳实践教学方法。这一项目的结果预计将对通勤学院和其他开放招生机构具有不同的学生群体，包括土著学生群体特别有用。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。