Conference: Building Departmental Capacity for Best Practices in Undergraduate Life Sciences Education in the Southeastern US; June, 2019; North Carolina A&T State University

University Of North Carolina At Wilmington, Wilmington NC

Investigators

Abstract

The Southeastern US consistently lags other regions in educational attainment and economic performance, highlighting the need for dissemination and implementation of best practices in teaching and learning at all levels. The 2011 AAAS publication, "Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education: A Call to Action," provides comprehensive guidelines for content, skills, and teaching practices that are still considered the "gold standard" for undergraduate life sciences education. The Southeast Region of the Partnership for Undergraduate Life Science Education (SERP) will host a professional development institute on the campus of North Carolina Agricultural and Technical University in summer 2019, with a follow-up event hosted in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Association of Southeastern Biologists in spring 2020. The Institute will engage sixteen teams in a virtuous cycle of assessment and reforms based on the recommendations in "Vision and Change." Teams will include representatives from all institution types, from community colleges to research-intensive universities, as well as significant representation of Minority Serving Institutions. Institutional teams will be comprised of both faculty and administrators to ensure representation of both grassroots and institutional stakeholders. The project has two primary objectives: (1) to develop a network of life sciences departments engaged in a cycle of continual improvement; and (2) to conduct an evidence-based assessment of a systems model for undergraduate life sciences reform. The Institute will employ a strategy of shared-visioning, which requires substantial communication, learning, and collaboration among all stakeholders. The agenda is designed to help teams build a common language to enable discussion of important issues (e.g., course-embedded research, metacognition, etc.), identify shared priorities for improvement at the level of faculty, department, and institution, and draft an action plan for short-term and long-term reform efforts. By focusing on department-level transformation, the project builds capacity for long-term systemic changes to educational practice and improved student learning. Because public dissemination and formative assessment of these efforts are critical to validating team efforts and as providing accountability for institutional teams, a follow-up event will be held in conjunction with the 2020 meeting of the Association of Southeastern Biologists. All teams will make a public poster presentation of their action plan, efforts to date, and initial assessment results. A separate workshop during the ASB meeting will be used to collect more detailed assessment data from each team, as well as provide time for inter-team sharing of successes and challenges. Finally, a public workshop will be conducted to introduce the general ASB membership to the recommendations of "Vision and Change." 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.