Recognizing and Reducing Barriers to Science and Math Education and STEM Careers for Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders

– CBE Life Sciences

Climate change is impacting the Pacific Islands first and most drastically, yet few native islanders are trained to recognize, analyze, or mitigate the impacts in these islands. To understand the reasons why low numbers of Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders enter colleges, enroll in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses, or undertake life sciences/STEM careers, 25 representatives from colleges and schools in seven U.S.-affiliated states and countries across the Pacific participated in a 2-day workshop.

Ex-Academics Still Aren’t Being Consulted on Graduate-Education Reform

– ChronicleVitae

Pursuing a doctoral degree has tremendous costs, even when the degree is “fully funded.” Doctoral students fall behind their peers with B.A.s and M.A.s in many significant ways, and not just financially. Because doctoral training is, by and large, not suited for most nonacademic careers, Ph.D.s who leave the academy must often learn radically new skills for jobs that do not — and never will — require a doctorate. Some of those new skills are antithetical to doctoral training.

“Is This Class Hard?” Defining and Analyzing Academic Rigor from a Learner’s Perspective

– CBE Life Sciences

Despite its value in higher education, academic rigor is a challenging construct to define for instructor and students alike. How do students perceive academic rigor in their biology course work? Using qualitative surveys, students were asked to identify “easy” or “hard” courses and define which aspects of these learning experiences contributed to their perceptions of academic rigor.

Culture and Equity in Science Classrooms

– CBE Life Sciences

The Current Insights feature is intended to highlight diverse perspectives on teaching, learning and cognition from outside life sciences education. In this installment, the author features recent examples of scholarship examining the intersections between culture and equity in science education. The articles in this set build on intuitions we may hold as biology educators and researchers: The first is that cultural differences can perpetuate inequities in science education. The second is that cultural diversity is beneficial to science learning for all students.

Student Learning Outcomes and Attitudes Using Three Methods of Group Formation in a Nonmajors Biology Class

– CBE Life Sciences

Group work is often a key component of student-centered pedagogies, but there is conflicting evidence about what types of groups provide the most benefit for undergraduate students. The authors investigated student learning outcomes and attitudes toward working in groups when students were assigned to groups using different methods in a large-enrollment, student-centered class, with particular interest in how students entering the class with different levels of competence in biology performed in homogeneous or heterogeneous groups, and what types of group compositions were formed using different methods of group formation. They found that low-competence students had higher learning outcomes when they were in heterogeneous groups, while mid- and high-competence students performed equally well in both group types. Students of all competence types had better attitudes toward group work in heterogeneous groups. The use of student demographic variables to preemptively form groups and allowing students to self-select their group mates both yielded heterogeneous competence groups. Students in the instructor-formed, demographic groups had higher learning outcomes compared with students allowed to self-select. Thus, heterogeneous groupings provided the most benefit for students in our nonmajors, large-enrollment class.

A Low-Intensity, Hybrid Design between a “Traditional” and a “Course-Based” Research Experience Yields Positive Outcomes for Science Undergraduate Freshmen and Shows Potential for Large-Scale Application

CBE Life Sciences

Based on positive student outcomes, providing research experiences from early undergraduate years is recommended for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors. To this end, the authors designed a novel research experience called the “STEMCats Research Experience” (SRE) for a cohort of 119 second-semester freshmen with diverse college preparatory levels, demographics, and academic majors. The SRE targeted student outcomes of enhancing retention in STEM majors, STEM competency development, and STEM academic performance.

Availability of Cookies During an Academic Course Session Affects Evaluation of Teaching

NCBI

Results from end-of-course student evaluations of teaching (SETs) are taken seriously by faculties and form part of a decision base for the recruitment of academic staff, the distribution of funds and changes to curricula. However, there is some doubt as to whether these evaluation instruments accurately measure the quality of course content, teaching and knowledge transfer. We investigated whether the provision of chocolate cookies as a content-unrelated intervention influences SET results.