The PALM Network: Enhancing undergraduate biology education and building the professional biology educators workforce through long-term mentorships

American Society For Cell Biology, Rockville MD

Investigators

Abstract

The Promoting Active Learning & Mentoring (PALM) Research Coordination Network focuses on providing sustained mentoring in active learning, a practice shown to be highly effective in increasing success and retention of diverse STEM students. The project is open to current faculty and postdoctoral fellows and is coordinated through several life sciences professional societies and faculty at a range of educational institutions. Network coordinators will recruit participants and provide venues for sharing of their achievements in enhanced active learning. Special efforts will be made to include instructors at minority-serving institutions and community colleges, where many under-served students begin their college careers. The outcome will be an expanding national network of undergraduate instructors who practice effective active learning methods, thus enhancing the quality of undergraduate STEM education. Short-term exposure to principles of active learning is often not sufficient to promote significant change in teaching practices from lecture-dominated to a more effective learning format. The goal of the PALM Network is to provide long-term, hands-on mentoring experiences that will allow PALM Fellows to experience the scope of pedagogical and cultural changes needed to achieve effective change, and thus lead to change that will positively influence the teaching culture at each PALM Fellow's institution. PALM brings together stakeholders to support teaching mentorships to promote sustained biology education reform at diverse institutions. PALM will allow faculty and postdoctoral fellows to gain hands-on experience and at least one semester of mentorship in bringing evidence-based, effective active learning strategies into their classrooms. PALM Fellows will pair with mentors who have reformed their teaching, visit their mentors to observe and participate in redesigned classes, develop an active learning module for one of their classes with guidance from their mentors, demonstrate how they have adjusted their practice to use active learning, and disseminate their work at their home institutions and at professional society meetings and in the peer-reviewed science education literature. Evaluation of the program will involve analysis of PALM Fellows' teaching practices before and after mentorship and annual follow-up surveys for 3-5 years afterwards to determine long-range impact. A Steering Committee consisting of educational representatives from seven life sciences professional societies and faculty from a variety of institutional types will oversee the program, screen applicants for mentorships, provide mentor orientation and regular follow-up, and coordinate information sharing meetings of Fellows and mentors each year. By capitalizing on Steering Committee links to minority- and tribal-serving institutions, societies of underrepresented scientists, and community colleges, which educate over half the minority students in the U.S., PALM will bring Vision and Change reforms to faculty and undergraduate students who have not factored prominently into past pedagogical reform plans. This project is being jointly funded by the Directorate for Biological Sciences 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/).