RCN-UBE: Creation of the Biology Educator/Researcher Cross-Segment Collective

2012年总统科学和技术顾问委员会的报告表示，需要将STEM大学毕业生人数增加100万人，以满足目前和未来对STEM专业人员的需求。在随后的讨论中，社区大学和转学学生一直是被忽视的群体。这些人尤其重要，因为全国大约四分之一的大学生在两年制院校开始他们的高等教育生涯，其中包括不成比例的未被充分代表的学生。生物学教育者/研究人员跨部门集体(BERCC)旨在通过促进由来自两年制和四年制院校的教师组成的教师学习社区(FLC)的形成，来改善社区大学并转移学生的成果。FLC成员将合作和迭代地开发循证教学实践或计划，评估其有效性，并通过生物教育出版物、会议演示和BERCC网站分享经验和传播由此产生的产品。这些合作伙伴关系将使邻近高校之间的联系更加紧密，改善学生的教育体验，并为全国各地的教师提供更丰富的教育资源。BERCC的目标是改善社区大学的教育成果，并转移生物科学方面的学生。具体地说，该集体的目标是：1)在生物课程或计划中增加循证实践的实施，以改善多所高等教育机构的学生成绩；2)形成由代表各种机构类型的个人组成的教师学习社区，以发展目标1)中提到的实践；以及3)以学术方式评估目标1和2的实施情况，以获取不同机构背景下的学生结果，同时促进不断壮大的生物学教育研究(BER)。BERCC将利用BER社区的现有资源，包括生物教育研究促进会(SABER)、科学教学暑期研究所(SI)、微生物学和生物学教育杂志(JMBE)和期刊CourseSource。通过在美国加利福尼亚州和北卡罗来纳州两个地区试行这一计划，BERCC将建立一个可持续的模式，将致力于改善社区大学和转学学生群体成果的两年和四年期同事聚集在一起。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。

The 2012 President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology Report expressed the need to increase the number of STEM college graduates by one million to fill current and future demand for STEM professionals. In the ensuing discussions, community-college and transfer students have been a neglected population. These individuals are particularly relevant as roughly one-quarter of college students nationwide begin their higher-education career at a two-year institution, including a disproportionate number of underrepresented students. The Biology Educator/Researcher Cross-Segment Collective (BERCC) aims to improve community college and transfer student outcomes by facilitating the formation of faculty learning communities (FLC) comprised of faculty from two- and four-year institutions. FLC members will work to collaboratively and iteratively develop evidence-based teaching practices or programs, assess their effectiveness, and share their experiences and disseminate the resulting products through biology education publications, conference presentations, and the BERCC website. These partnerships will lead to closer ties between neighboring colleges and universities, improved educational experiences for students, and a greater wealth of educational resources for instructors across the country. BERCC aims to improve educational outcomes for community-college and transfer students in the biological sciences. Specifically, the Collective's objectives are to: 1) Increase implementation of evidence-based practices in biology courses or programs to improve student outcomes at multiple higher education institutions; 2) Form faculty learning communities comprised of individuals representing a variety of institution types to develop the practices mentioned in objective 1); and 3) Assess implementation of objectives 1 and 2 in a scholarly manner to capture student outcomes across institutional contexts, while contributing to the growing body of Biology Education Research (BER). BERCC will leverage existing resources in the BER community, including the Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research (SABER), the Summer Institutes on Scientific Teaching (SI), the Journal of Microbiology and Biology Education (JMBE) and the journal CourseSource. By piloting this program at two regions across the country, California and North Carolina, BERCC will establish a sustainable model to bring together two- and four-year colleagues who are committed to improving outcomes for their community college and transfer 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.