RCN-UBE Incubator: Networking Systems Biologists with Community College Educator

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This RCN-UBE project seeks to network community college educators and systems biologists to promote biological data literacy amongst community college students. The volume, velocity, and variety of biological data has increased dramatically. As a result, current and future careers in biology are now highly dependent on quantitative skills such as sophisticated mathematical modeling, “big data” analysis, and computer simulation. The implication for education is that all biology students need educational experiences that build biological data literacy. However, due to the rapidly evolving nature of skills needed to interact with increased volume, velocity and variety of data, many STEM educators lack contemporary data literacy skills. Even fewer have training on how to use data in the classroom in a way that is accessible to students and helps them build data literacy skills. This lack of training is more pronounced for community college faculty who do not regularly interact with researchers who develop and use these skills. This project pilots an approach that has the potential to significantly improve undergraduate STEM teaching and learning not only by increasing faculty comfort with systems biology approaches, but also by network participants directly engaging diverse undergraduates in cutting-edge methods in their introductory courses. This approach could serve as a model for future collaborations between research institutes and primarily undergraduate institutions that seek to increase minority recruitment, engagement, retention, and success along STEM pathways.This project will bring together systems biologists and community college faculty to engage in professional learning experiences that draw on the expertise of both populations. Community college faculty will engage in a week of deep learning of quantitative biology skills supported by the members of the network who are quantitative biology researchers. The full network will then create curricular resources that engage students in data literacy modules to complement classroom based undergraduate research and assist students in building the skills to interpret large multidimensional datasets founded in authentic research contexts. The network will partner to implement these resources in community college courses that serve a broad range of students including populations traditionally underrepresented in STEM fields. The project will improve the preparation of community college students by increasing achievement and learning of quantitative biology research methods and improve undergraduate biology learning environments by enhancing undergraduate faculty teaching of quantitative biology research methods. Further the project outcomes will generate instructional strategies and curricular resources founded in contemporary quantitative biology research and an expanded network of undergraduate biology faculty and scientists at research institutes engaging students in classroom-based quantitative biology research.This project is being jointly funded by the Directorate for Biological Sciences, Division of Biological Infrastructure, and the Directorate for Education and Human Resources, Division of Undergraduate Education as part of their efforts to address the challenges posed in Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education: A Call to Action (http://visionandchange/finalreport/).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.