Sustainable Interdisciplinary Research to Inspire Undergraduate Success

University Enterprises, Incorporated, Sacramento CA

Investigators

Abstract

There have been recent urgent calls to train more students for the 21st Century scientific workforce and to increase the diversity of students entering Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) careers. Many studies illustrate the positive influence of research experiences on the performance, retention, attitudes and career decisions of undergraduate science majors In this project Sacramento State, a large comprehensive urban 4-year university with a diverse student body, aims to increase undergraduate student success by building a STEM Education Community that engages Biological Sciences faculty and students, campus science educators and community partners in interdisciplinary research on a problem of particular interest to them and of general importance to the entire nation; human impact on the ecology of rivers, in this case the American River flowing at the college's doorstep. The project's teaching approach is built around the tenants of Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education: A Call to Action. Its emphasis is on community building within the university to ensure that all biology students experience the intellectual stimulation of a research project and that faculty learning communities be established to ensure ongoing institutional commitment to a quality undergraduate education for all students. The primary mechanism employed is development and implementation of research-based classroom experiences in which students at all levels of training explore a single large-scale problem. The project involves the biology department, in cooperation with educational researchers, in science education research, extensive curriculum development, faculty development and interdisciplinary program development. Twelve biology courses will be transformed by this project. Fourteen tenured faculty will participate in a Faculty Learning Community in order to implement evidence-based teaching practices, effective use of technology in the classroom and to collaborate across their sub-disciplines in multiple courses to solve big scientific problems. Integrating a range of inputs, the team will iteratively improve the modules using a design-based research and development strategy. Among the broader impacts of this course is that it is sustainable and scalable and easily adapted by other institutions because it utilizes existing course budgets and places no undue pressure on individual faculty laboratory finances. This project is funded jointly by the Directorate for Biological Sciences and the Directorate of Education and Human Resources, Division of Undergraduate Education in support of efforts to address the challenges posed in Vision and Change in Undergraduate Education: A Call to Action http://visionandchange.org/finalreport/