Transforming Introductory Biology at University of Alaska, Anchorage

University Of Alaska Anchorage Campus, Anchorage AK

Investigators

Abstract

The general education biology course at the University of Alaska, Anchorage (UAA) enrolls a high proportion of first-time students, many of whom arrive underprepared for the rigors of college education. Thus, the pass rates for this course are consistently low. To improve student success, this project will redesign the course to include interactive practices such as instant responses, one-minute discussions and writing assignments, and rubrics to grade presentations by fellow students. Introduction of similar activities into an introductory course for biology majors improved the pass rates from 46% to 87%. Project personnel will identify what elements of the majors' course are particularly successful and will use that information, along with a survey of best practices in biology education, to revamp the curriculum for the general education course. UAA serves a diverse student population often underrepresented in STEM fields, including 81% who receive need-based financial aid. The project is designed to investigate what aspects of the new course will resonate most strongly with the diverse student population at UAA. Faculty at UAA will participate in workshops to improve their teaching and faculty incentives will promote implementation of best teaching practices. The planned course revisions are designed to increase course completion, increase science literacy, and improve quantitative reasoning skills. Additionally, it is envisioned that the revisions will encourage more students to pursue STEM majors and careers, helping to fill a national need for increasing the STEM workforce. Finally, approximately 7% of the students enrolled in the general education course are training to be K-12 teachers. Improving their college biology experience may have positive impacts on their future classrooms. This project will use a mixed methods approach to identify and quantify course elements that increase course completion, retention, science literacy, and quantitative reasoning in a diverse student body. Quantitative analysis will include a difference in differences (DiD) approach to mimic an experimental design and to isolate the impact of the intervention. The impact will be measured as changes in pre- and post-intervention scores for the treatment group (students who participate in the redesigned curriculum) and control group (students who took the course prior to the redesign). Literature relating to active learning strategies in STEM considers learning gains in a single setting that is already using active learning. This project incorporates a quasi-experimental DiD design using a large dataset and diverse student body with a range of academic and demographic characteristics and has the potential to make a significant contribution to the field. A qualitative analysis will supplement and add depth to the quantitative findings; axial coding of focus group interviews with majors, non-majors in the traditional course, and non-majors in the revised course will be analyzed using within-case analysis of each group. Comparative analysis with pattern matching will be used for a cross-case analysis to identify commonalities and differences between the groups. In addition to these empirical contributions, the analysis will support curriculum design, faculty development, and course assessment for the general education biology course. Professional development and faculty incentives have the potential to enhance teaching and learning throughout the courses offered by the Department of Biological Sciences and ensure implementation fidelity to the best practice pedagogical approaches. The findings of this project are expected to be especially informative for commuter colleges and other open-enrollment institutions with diverse student bodies, including indigenous student populations. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.