Quantifying Biology in the Classroom (The FIU Q'BIC Implementation Plan)

描述（由申请人提供）：佛罗里达国际大学（FIU）是一所城市博士学位授予机构，位于佛罗里达州最大的人口中心迈阿密。FIU目前有超过70%的未被充分代表的少数民族学生（URMS），其使命包括“健康”作为主要战略主题，并在确保其本科生获得最好的生物科学基础教育方面具有既得利益。FIU是MARC U*STAR机构，提交了一份提案，旨在实施一项创新的战略发展计划，以量化课堂生物学（Q'BIC计划）。Q'BIC是一个综合的锁定步骤队列项目（一个块项目），短期内作为定量生物学课程提供，长期目标是成为我们生物学课程的格式。该领域的课程已经确定并协调了重叠协同作用的领域。每组25名学生一起学习这些课程，并在一个综合的概念框架内学习。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Florida International University (FIU) is an urban, doctoral-granting institution located in Miami, Florida's largest population center. FIU, with its current enrollment of over 70% underrepresented minority students (URMS), has a mission which includes "Health" as a primary strategic theme, and has a vested interest in ensuring that its undergraduate students are provided with the best possible foundational education in the biological sciences. FIU, a MARC U*STAR institution, submits its proposal to implement an innovative and strategically developed plan to quantify biology in the classroom (the Q'BIC Plan). Q'BIC is an integrated lock-step cohort program (a Block Program) which for the short term is being offered as a Quantitative Biology Track, with long-term intentions of being the format for our biology curriculum. Courses in the block have identified and coordinated areas of overlapping synergy. Groups of 25 students take these courses together and work within an integrated, conceptual framework. Teaching units within courses use active and cooperative learning techniques and problem based-learning concepts. The program integrates mathematics, statistics and computing such that data generated in the biology labs are used to teach statistical concepts and biological processes are used to illustrate mathematical techniques. Thus, Q'BIC scholars are able to see how mathematics can model biological processes. This connection is emphasized in the teachable units and shows how sound biological theories are generated. Q'BIC allows the teaching of mathematics and statistics from the perspective of interpreting experimental and observational measurements, motivates students to learn statistics and teaches them how to be scientists. Q'BIC is organized in two parts: Part 1 begins in the freshman year and continues through the sophomore year; Part 2 covers the junior and senior years. This block program has synchrony and is sequential. Q'BIC includes a capstone summer workshop following Part 1, which concentrates on modeling and simulation. Part 2 offers tailored upper level courses and encourages scholars to participate in funded research programs. Q'BIC has a well-developed formative and summative evaluation and assessment component that effectively and efficiently measures whether the objectives of the program are being met and, most importantly, measures whether Q'BIC scholars are actually learning. The overall goal of the Q'BIC Plan is that students finishing the program will have the skills needed to move fluidly among conceptual, analytical and quantitative approaches to solving biological problems, ultimately increasing the number of URMS who enter and complete biomedical graduate programs.