RCN-UBE: CC Bio INSITES: Community College Biology Instructor Network to Support Inquiry into Teaching and Education Scholarship

University Of Colorado At Boulder, Boulder CO

Investigators

Abstract

Biology education research (BER), where biology faculty investigate teaching and learning within their own discipline, is considered a vital tool for transforming undergraduate biology education and enhancing student success. However, even though approximately half of biology majors complete coursework at community colleges (CCs), including disproportionate numbers of under-served students, only 3% of recent BER papers included a CC author or CC study context. This raises concerns that existing BER may have failed to characterize the educational experiences of half of the relevant undergraduate population and that innovations stemming from BER might not be reaching CCs. This project is a grassroots effort driven by a strong nationwide group of CC faculty to promote, conduct, and publish CC BER. The network will mobilize diverse stakeholders from CC settings including students, faculty and administrators to journal editors and national society leaders to enhance the representation of CCs in BER. Grounded in the unique values and cultures of CCs, it will provide opportunities for intellectual support, infrastructure support, and social support to mitigate previously hypothesized constraints on CC BER and empower CC faculty to engage in and publish BER. The project will thus address the paucity of BER from CC contexts and contribute insights that can improve life science instruction for students from underserved groups across all institutional contexts. The intellectual merit of the project is to address research questions about the types of social, infrastructure and intellectual support CC BER. These networks will build on established models of change, provide answers to research questions regarding hypothesized constraints to CC BER, and integrate with existing networks. At the core of this national effort will be 20 geographically dispersed, regional CC BER networks. These regional networks, consisting of approximately five individuals representing CC faculty, administrators, students, future CC faculty, and CC BER advocates, will meet regularly and make substantial progress on one or more collaborative CC BER projects. The national network effort will provide intellectual resources in the form of faculty development experiences in BER at an opening national meeting, ongoing mentorship for regional networks, and travel to national BER conferences. Additionally, the network will provide critical resources often absent at CCs, such as access to an Institutional Review Board and journal articles. The project will culminate with presentations by regional teams at a national BER meeting and preparation of manuscripts related to regional efforts. As a result, the new CC BER network will make substantial, novel contributions to the present body of knowledge regarding CC biology teaching and learning and will provide insights into how networks can support innovation at CCs and in education research broadly. This project is being jointly funded by the Directorate for Biological Sciences, Division of Biological Infrastructure 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.org/finalreport/).