scholarly journals Summit of the Research Coordination Networks for Undergraduate Biology Education

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. mr1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carrie Diaz Eaton ◽  
Deborah Allen ◽  
Laurel J. Anderson ◽  
Gillian Bowser ◽  
Mark A. Pauley ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Education Reform ◽  
Online Communication ◽  
Biology Education ◽  
Washington Dc ◽  
Coordination Networks ◽  
Undergraduate Biology ◽  
National Science ◽  
Effective Network ◽  
Key Aspects ◽  
Science Educators

The first summit of projects funded by the National Science Foundation’s Research Coordination Networks for Undergraduate Biology Education (RCN-UBE) program was held January 14–16, 2016, in Washington, DC. Sixty-five scientists and science educators from 38 of the 41 Incubator and Full RCN-UBE awards discussed the value and contributions of RCNs to the national biology education reform effort. The summit illustrated the progress of this innovative UBE track, first awarded in 2009. Participants shared experiences regarding network development and growth, identified best practices and challenges faced in network management, and discussed work accomplished. We report here on key aspects of network evaluation, characteristics of successful networks, and how to sustain and broaden participation in networks. Evidence from successful networks indicates that 5 years (the length of a Full RCN-UBE) may be insufficient time to produce a cohesive and effective network. While online communication promotes the activities of a network and disseminates effective practices, face-to-face meetings are critical for establishing ties between network participants. Creation of these National Science Foundation–funded networks may be particularly useful for consortia of faculty working to address problems or exchange novel solutions discovered while introducing active-learning methods and/or course-based research into their curricula.

scholarly journals A Community-Building Framework for Collaborative Research Coordination across the Education and Biology Research Disciplines

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. es2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy Pelaez ◽  
Trevor R. Anderson ◽  
Stephanie M. Gardner ◽  
Yue Yin ◽  
Joel K. Abraham ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Biological Sciences ◽  
Community Building ◽  
Relevant Literature ◽  
Biology Education ◽  
Faculty Members ◽  
Coordination Networks ◽  
Undergraduate Biology ◽  
Disciplinary Boundaries ◽  
Professional Network ◽  
Collaborative Efforts

Since 2009, the U.S. National Science Foundation Directorate for Biological Sciences has funded Research Coordination Networks (RCN) aimed at collaborative efforts to improve participation, learning, and assessment in undergraduate biology education (UBE). RCN-UBE projects focus on coordination and communication among scientists and educators who are fostering improved and innovative approaches to biology education. When faculty members collaborate with the overarching goal of advancing undergraduate biology education, there is a need to optimize collaboration between participants in order to deeply integrate the knowledge across disciplinary boundaries. In this essay we propose a novel guiding framework for bringing colleagues together to advance knowledge and its integration across disciplines, the “Five ‘C’s’ of Collaboration: Commitment, Collegiality, Communication, Consensus, and Continuity.” This guiding framework for professional network practice is informed by both relevant literature and empirical evidence from community-building experience within the RCN-UBE Advancing Competencies in Experimentation–Biology (ACE-Bio) Network. The framework is presented with practical examples to illustrate how it might be used to enhance collaboration between new and existing participants in the ACE-Bio Network as well as within other interdisciplinary networks.

scholarly journals Reflecting on Graphs: Attributes of Graph Choice and Construction Practices in Biology

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. ar53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aakanksha Angra ◽  
Stephanie M. Gardner
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Students ◽  
Experimental Design ◽  
Education Reform ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Biology Education ◽  
Scientific Practices ◽  
Undergraduate Biology ◽  
Student Difficulties ◽  
Competence Framework

Undergraduate biology education reform aims to engage students in scientific practices such as experimental design, experimentation, and data analysis and communication. Graphs are ubiquitous in the biological sciences, and creating effective graphical representations involves quantitative and disciplinary concepts and skills. Past studies document student difficulties with graphing within the contexts of classroom or national assessments without evaluating student reasoning. Operating under the metarepresentational competence framework, we conducted think-aloud interviews to reveal differences in reasoning and graph quality between undergraduate biology students, graduate students, and professors in a pen-and-paper graphing task. All professors planned and thought about data before graph construction. When reflecting on their graphs, professors and graduate students focused on the function of graphs and experimental design, while most undergraduate students relied on intuition and data provided in the task. Most undergraduate students meticulously plotted all data with scaled axes, while professors and some graduate students transformed the data, aligned the graph with the research question, and reflected on statistics and sample size. Differences in reasoning and approaches taken in graph choice and construction corroborate and extend previous findings and provide rich targets for undergraduate and graduate instruction.

Crossing Boundaries in Undergraduate Biology Education

2016 ◽  
Vol 045 (03) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk Vanderklein ◽  
Mika Munakata ◽  
Jason McManus
Keyword(s):  
Biology Education ◽  
Undergraduate Biology

Badiuzzaman Said Nursi and KH Ahmad Dahlan’s Thoughts on Education Reform: A Comparative Study

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-60
Author(s):  
Muhammad Sophy Abdul Aziz ◽  
Hudzaifah Achmad Qotadah ◽  
Adang Darmawan Achmad
Keyword(s):  
Education Reform ◽  
Physical Interaction ◽  
Education Management ◽  
High Quality Education ◽  
Mass Organization ◽  
Key Aspects ◽  
Global Government ◽  
Modern Era ◽  
Said Nursi ◽  
Islamic Values

In order to control the movement of globalization throughout this modern era, one of it's key aspects is through deconstruction throughout the education sector. Undoubtedly, high quality education management was produced by integrating disciplines in practice with fundamental Islamic values within the learning process. Besides that, this approach had also been continuously used among reformist leaders to weaken the dangerous Western ideology that influenced significantly the global government system through colonialism mostly by poisoning the generation of youth through sole reference to materialism philosophy and rationalism. Based on that issue, numerous powerful leaders in Indonesia have intervened to rectify the problem among Muslims by reconstruction of the education systems rather than through political as well as other aggressive physical interaction. KH Ahmad Dahlan was the trustworthy figure in endorsing the concept of educational reform through the "Muhammadiyah" mass organization, which was formed in Yogyakarta in 1912. The conducted a study to examine the similarities amongst KH Ahmad Dahlan and Badiuzzaman Said Nursi in applying the Islamic Education Reform System in the region. In this research, the researcher uses full qualitative method and documentation related to the topic of this research, which then will be analyze descriptively.

scholarly journals Investigating Novice and Expert Conceptions of Genetically Modified Organisms

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. ar52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa M. Potter ◽  
Sarah A. Bissonnette ◽  
Jonathan D. Knight ◽  
Kimberly D. Tanner
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Modification ◽  
Real World ◽  
Genetically Modified Organisms ◽  
Assessment Tool ◽  
Genetically Modified ◽  
Biology Education ◽  
Undergraduate Biology ◽  
Biology Students ◽  
Molecular Behavior ◽  
Biology Majors

The aspiration of biology education is to give students tools to apply knowledge learned in the classroom to everyday life. Genetic modification is a real-world biological concept that relies on an in-depth understanding of the molecular behavior of DNA and proteins. This study investigated undergraduate biology students’ conceptions of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) when probed with real-world, molecular and cellular, and essentialist cues, and how those conceptions compared across biology expertise. We developed a novel written assessment tool and administered it to 120 non–biology majors, 154 entering biology majors, 120 advanced biology majors (ABM), and nine biology faculty. Results indicated that undergraduate biology majors rarely included molecular and cellular rationales in their initial explanations of GMOs. Despite ABM demonstrating that they have much of the biology knowledge necessary to understand genetic modification, they did not appear to apply this knowledge to explaining GMOs. Further, this study showed that all undergraduate student populations exhibited evidence of essentialist thinking while explaining GMOs, regardless of their level of biology training. Finally, our results suggest an association between scientifically accurate ideas and the application of molecular and cellular rationales, as well as an association between misconceptions and essentialist rationales.

scholarly journals Curriculum Alignment with Vision and Change Improves Student Scientific Literacy

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. ar29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Jo Auerbach ◽  
Elisabeth E. Schussler
Keyword(s):  
Active Learning ◽  
Scientific Literacy ◽  
Biology Education ◽  
Curriculum Alignment ◽  
Final Report ◽  
Process Skills ◽  
Student Collaboration ◽  
Undergraduate Biology ◽  
Learning Techniques ◽  
Academic Year

The Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education final report challenged institutions to reform their biology courses to focus on process skills and student active learning, among other recommendations. A large southeastern university implemented curricular changes to its majors’ introductory biology sequence in alignment with these recommendations. Discussion sections focused on developing student process skills were added to both lectures and a lab, and one semester of lab was removed. This curriculum was implemented using active-learning techniques paired with student collaboration. This study determined whether these changes resulted in a higher gain of student scientific literacy by conducting pre/posttesting of scientific literacy for two cohorts: students experiencing the unreformed curriculum and students experiencing the reformed curriculum. Retention of student scientific literacy for each cohort was also assessed 4 months later. At the end of the academic year, scientific literacy gains were significantly higher for students in the reformed curriculum (p = 0.005), with those students having double the scientific literacy gains of the cohort in the unreformed curriculum. Retention of scientific literacy did not differ between the cohorts.

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