CBE Life Research Articles

Considering the Role of Affect in Learning: Monitoring Students' Self-Efficacy, Sense of Belonging, and Science Identity

While emphasis is often placed on assessing students' conceptual knowledge, less has been placed on investigating affective aspects of student biology learning. In this paper, we explore self-efficacy, sense of belonging, and science identity, as well as emerging assessment tools to monitor these dimensions of students' learning.

Supporting physiology learning: the development of interactive concept-based video clips

the accommodation of diverse student learning approaches and maintenance of good academic outcomes are often difficult to achieve in university courses, particularly where large classes are concerned. These issues become even more significant when dealing with first-year students in science courses

A Year of Firsts

This editorial recounts highlights from 2013 for CBE—Life Sciences Education and notes activities on the horizon for 2014.

Transdisciplinary Training between Physics and Biology Led to the Development of the Hydrodynamics Laws

Dear Editor: I found the article from Breckler et al. (2013) , titled “Using a Physics Experiment in a Lecture Setting to Engage Biology Students with the Concepts of Poiseuille's Law,” thought provoking. The authors’ aim was to test the effect of a new physics experiment on student learning of Poiseuille's law, and they found that watching a physics experiment as a lecture demonstration may be more useful to biology students with lower math ability (Breckler et al., 2013 ). This connection between physics and biology excited me, because I believe Poiseuille's law is one of the important symbols of the interplay between physics and biology, especially basic medical sciences. “Transdisciplinary” means beyond the disciplines, not starting within any particular discipline but with a problem or issue, and then bringing various disciplines to bear on solving the problem or addressing the issue (Meeth, 1978 ). During the 18th century and the first half of the 19th century, the transdisciplinary research of several physicians led to the proposals of the basic laws of hydrodynamics, such as Bernoulli's and Poiseuille's laws. I posit that three physicians (Bernoulli, Young, and Poiseuille) changed our understanding of the natural world, because of their distinctive educational experiences, which I describe below. Daniel Bernoulli (1700–1782), who revolutionized our understanding of hydrodynamics, was a scientist whose family included three generations of accomplished physicists and mathematicians (Dietz and Heesterbeek, 2002 ). If we examine the life of the Bernoullis, we can see that scientific competition in the family and their unique training might have led to the development of important laws of hydrodynamics. Bernoulli's graduate thesis focused on respiratory mechanics and was the first application of calculus for solving a biological problem (Fye, 2001 ). He, along with the English physician William Harvey, conducted anatomical studies of blood movement with cadavers, providing the empirical evidence that demonstrates the physical law we call Bernoulli's principle (Guillen, 1995 ; Kardel, 1997 ). Thomas Young (1773–1829) was the first scientist to examine the importance of elasticity of blood vessels (Hopkins, 1991 ), proposing the ratio between “stress” and “strain” as a coefficient called Young's module. Young was also trained as a physicist and a medical doctor (Oldham, 1974 ). The last physician to contribute to our fundamental understanding of hydrodynamics was Jean Louis Marie Poiseuille (1799–1869). He was first trained in physics and mathematics, and, because of his great interest in blood flow, he was the first to use to the manometer to measure arterial pressure, which he did as part of his doctoral thesis (Hopkins, 1991 ). He was responsible for the use of “mm Hg” as the unit of measurement for blood pressure. Poiseuille found that minor changes in diameter can cause major changes in flow rates (Pfitzner, 1976 ). He observed a correlation between the viscosity of the fluid flowing in the pipes and the cylinder radius. The coefficient of viscosity for the CGS (centimeter-gram-second) unit system (dyne · s/cm2) was named “Poise” in his honor. These historical examples illustrate that study of the biological and basic medical sciences led to the identification of physical laws. Today, the laws of physics may help to explain and visualize biological phenomena (Brewe et al., 2013 ). From an education perspective, I would propose that Poiseuille's law was the result of Poiseuille's transdisciplinary training, and now it has become the material of applied training, as demonstrated by Breckler and colleagues. The boundaries between disciplines were not very sharply delineated in the periods when these three physician-physicists lived, thus facilitating transdisciplinary training. Today, the interaction between disciplines is limited. These three scientists began doing their transdisciplinary work in their late teens or early twenties (Oldham, 1974 ; Pfitzner, 1976 ; Hopkins, 1991 ; Guillen, 1995 ). As CBE—Life Sciences Education readers know, there are very few undergraduate courses in the discipline of biophysics (Kang and Purnell, 2011 ). Offering more undergraduate courses in the biophysical sciences, such as medical physics, biomechanics, cell biophysics, and biomedical engineering, may increase students’ interest in applied sciences. I hope that knowing more about the educational experiences of these three scientists prompts biology instructors to cross boundaries between disciplines and to offer more transdisciplinary undergraduate courses.

PULSE Vision & Change Rubrics

PULSE Vision & Change Rubrics

Science Choreography: A Movement-Based Approach to Biology Teaching

Dear Editor: We would like to bring to the attention of readers a novel participatory movement–based technique we have been using to teach science and to encourage students to think creatively about science: science choreography. The project evolved as part of a Howard Hughes Medical Institute–funded multiyear collaboration between a team of scientist-educators at Wesleyan University and other institutions and dancer-choreographers from the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange. When the sequencing of the human genome was announced to the public, choreographer and MacArthur Fellow Liz Lerman was one of many who asked what this might mean for our future and the future of our children. To help answer these questions, she decided to make a multimedia piece, Ferocious Beauty: Genome, in collaboration with scientists at Wesleyan University and across the country (Science Choreography, 2011 ). After the work premiered, it became evident to us that we could use video performance clips from Ferocious Beauty: Genome as a “second textbook”—a launching point and source of enrichment for learning and thinking about concepts in biology. We also came to realize that a number of the tools used in dance making by the Dance Exchange could be easily adapted for use in the classroom, either alone or in combination with video clips from Ferocious Beauty: Genome. We were motivated by a variety of challenges faced by science teachers at all levels, including the perception by some that our subjects are difficult to teach and hard to learn, as well as threatening or uninteresting to many. Our immediate goal was to make science more accessible to a broad base of students. One target student is the kinesthetic learner (Gardner, 1983 ; Snyder 2000 ). The value of a movement-based approach in reaching a diverse student body is underscored by the observation that embodied learning is particularly effective at engaging at-risk teens and ethnic minorities (Park, 1997 ; Tanner and Allen, 2004 ). Our work together has generated a website for science educators from middle school through college (Science Choreography, 2011 ). It provides a rationale for the approach; descriptions of a toolbox of teaching and learning exercises, including video demonstrations; and examples of content-based modules we have developed on a number of topics. Imagine students who have recently begun to explore concepts of genetics—phenotypes, genes, genetic crosses—meeting with Gregor Mendel, the father of genetics, to discuss his experiences as a founding scientist in biology. What was he thinking? What led him to design his classic experiments? How is modern biology dependent on Mendel's pioneering work? What is a gene? These are some core questions that students and teachers can raise in the Genes and Mendel module, which includes a clip from Ferocious Beauty: Genome that features a dancer in the character of Mendel. In another module, we focus on bringing ethical considerations into biology teaching, a challenge for which science teachers may feel they do not have the necessary expertise. In the Ethics and Genetic Testing module, we use two tools: Ask a Question in small groups or Walk and Talk in larger settings, to transition from a lecture-style, PowerPoint-based presentation on the “why, what, when, and how?” of genetic testing to thinking and talking personally about related ethical issues, with questions such as “Would you want to get a genetic test for a disease?,” What if you were predisposed to it?,” “Who should know the results?” We also view a relevant segment of Ferocious Beauty: Genome that features a performer with osteogenesis imperfecta who dances in a wheelchair and on crutches. In the DNA Helix module, the aim is for students to learn DNA properties from one another and engage in model building, but rather than using the machined metal pieces Watson and Crick used, they use their own bodies (Figure 1). By doing this in stages, the students can start to understand more viscerally what the structures are, and how some models are more robust than others. The embodying tools are designed so they can be used independently of the specific modules, for example, as a kinesthetic mnemonic to help students remember a pathway or as a means for an instructor to find out what students know about a specific topic. Getting the students up on their feet in the midst of a conventional sedentary classroom setting is restorative and invigorating. Figure 1. High school students building DNA. While informal feedback and survey responses from students and teachers has been positive (Science Choreography, 2011 ), future studies are needed to directly test the efficacy of the approach.

Tutor-Less Problem-Based Learning in a Large Classroom Setting—Could It Also Save Costs?

Dear Editor: Klegeris et al. (2013 ) are to be congratulated for adding another important piece to our knowledge of how problem-based learning (PBL) can be implemented. As the debate about PBL is less about whether it works and more about what forms of it work, studies such as this will become more important. However, the authors miss one vital outcome measure of the research—that of cost. One of the major criticisms of PBL is that it can increase costs. Such increased costs are largely related to increased numbers of faculty. The average size of a PBL group is seven, and large faculty numbers are therefore required (Albanese, 2010 ). Anything that adjusts the student:facilitator ratio should have a dramatic effect on the number of facilitators required and thus on costs. Also, if tutor-less PBL can be carried out in a large classroom setting, then the cost of facilities will also be reduced. Forty-seven students received the intervention in this study; if we assume the group size was seven (as is usual in PBL), then this form of PBL would have saved the time of at least five tutors and the space requirements of five tutorial rooms. The costs of PBL relate mainly to faculty, facilities, scenarios, and learner inputs. Faculty and facilities are likely to make up a large majority of the costs, and these are the two components that are likely to be reduced if the study format is implemented. If the five tutors would normally have to meet their small group once per week for one half-day session in a tutorial room throughout the college year (which would constitute in the region of 30 weeks), then 75 tutor days and 75 days’ worth of room occupancies would be saved. The actual amount saved would depend on tutor salaries and room rates and would vary from country to country. At a time when student fees are increasing, any suggestions regarding more cost-effective forms of education are welcome. There is little published evidence on cost and value in PBL and some doubt as to whether cost-effectiveness and PBL are compatible, prompting Wittert and Nelson (2010 ) to entitle their chapter on the subject “Problem-Based Learning: Is a Cost Effective Approach Possible?” According to Finucane et al. (2009 ), the cost of delivering PBL to 240 students in the first 2 years of a graduate-entry medical school was €1,526,952 ($1,997,191), and the annual recurring cost was €664,000 ($868,485) per year. Klegeris et al. (2013 ) may have shown one possible cost-effective approach to this important pedagogy.

Societies Coming Together in Support of Life Sciences Education

Since its founding, CBE–Life Sciences Education has become the go-to place for biology education research and scholarship. Although the journal has always cultivated a broad range of authors, reviewers, and editors, we are pleased to announce that the Genetics Society of America will be joining ASCB as an editorial partner.

Structure Matters: Twenty-One Teaching Strategies to Promote Student Engagement and Cultivate Classroom Equity

A host of simple teaching strategies—referred to as “equitable teaching strategies” and rooted in research on learning—can support biology instructors in striving for classroom equity and in teachi...

The Human Animal

In his Perspective “Animal conformists” (26 April, p. [437][1]), F. B. M. de Waal asks “Do animals learn from each other in the same way as humans do?” Implying that humans occur in a category separate from animals may have unintended consequences. First, the “humans and animals” paradigm undermines the unifying concept of all biology—evolution. Under this paradigm, it seems coincidental that a trait would occur in both humans and dogs, for example, despite their common ancestry. Second, the loose use of “humans and animals” handicaps future learning. Research in science education has shown that students are prone to a number of misconceptions, which are often integrated into their cognitive framework early, making them remarkably difficult to correct ([ 1 ][2]). Third, our future as a species hinges on a worldview that places humans deep within the context of ecology. We consider ourselves superior to other animals due to our sharp intellect, complex social structure, and domination of most ecosystems and natural resources. This feeling of separateness from the other members of our ecosystems hinders efforts to promote conservation and sustainability. 1. [↵][3] 1. J. D. Coley, 2. K. D. Tanner , CBE Life Sci. Ed. 11, 209 (2012). [OpenUrl][4][CrossRef][5][Web of Science][6] [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.1237521 [2]: #ref-1 [3]: #xref-ref-1-1 View reference 1 in text [4]: {openurl}?query=rft.jtitle%253DCBE%2BLife%2BSci.%2BEd.%26rft.volume%253D11%26rft.spage%253D209%26rft_id%253Dinfo%253Adoi%252F10.1187%252Fcbe.12-06-0074%26rft.genre%253Darticle%26rft_val_fmt%253Dinfo%253Aofi%252Ffmt%253Akev%253Amtx%253Ajournal%26ctx_ver%253DZ39.88-2004%26url_ver%253DZ39.88-2004%26url_ctx_fmt%253Dinfo%253Aofi%252Ffmt%253Akev%253Amtx%253Actx [5]: /lookup/external-ref?access_num=10.1187/cbe.12-06-0074&link_type=DOI [6]: /lookup/external-ref?access_num=000308736500004&link_type=ISI

Integration of Physics and Biology: Synergistic Undergraduate Education for the 21st Century

This is an exciting time to be a biologist. The advances in our field and the many opportunities to expand our horizons through interaction with other disciplines are intellectually stimulating. This is as true for people tasked with helping the field move forward through support of research and education projects that serve the nation's needs as for those carrying out that research and educating the next generation of biologists. So, it is a pleasure to contribute to this edition of CBE-Life Sciences Education. This column will cover three aspects of the interactions of physics and biology as seen from the viewpoint of four members of the Division of Undergraduate Education of the National Science Foundation. The first section places the material to follow in context. The second reviews some of the many interdisciplinary physics-biology projects we support. The third highlights mechanisms available for supporting new physics-biology undergraduate education projects based on ideas that arise, focusing on those needing and warranting outside support to come to fruition.

From Vision to Change: Educational Initiatives and Research at the Intersection of Physics and Biology

In this editorial we link the articles published in this Special Issue with the framework from Vision and Change and summarize findings from the editorial process of assembling the Special Issue.

The Vision Is Set, Now Help Chronicle the Change

The Vision and Change effort to explore and implement needed changes in undergraduate biology education has been ongoing since 2006. It is now time to take stock of changes that have occurred at the faculty and single-course levels, and to consider how to accomplish the larger-scale changes needed at departmental and institutional levels. This article is a continuation of our efforts to keep people informed about the next steps for Vision and Change, in particular ongoing activities that need community (your) input, and what resources are available to support the Vision stated in 2009: “the biology we teach should reflect the biology we do” (American Association for the Advancement of Science [AAAS], 2011 ).

Biology Education Research—A Cultural (R)evolution

Biology Education Research—A Cultural (R)evolution

Teaching

Can we model scientific practice better through conscientious course design and lecture strategies? Transformations is an up-to-date source book that addresses this question with teaching ideas drawn from the primary literature of the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) and accumulated teacher lore in biology. This book starts from the uncontroversial premise that more active-learning approaches will promote learning in biology courses, but extends this premise toward course engagement and self-reflection about how we interact with our students.The authors have reprinted a series of features they published in CBE–Life Sciences Education. These features, arranged thematically, are intended to be used as independent segments for faculty who want to tool up on particular topics or practices. The volume opens with seven techniques for boosting active learning in lectures, briefly introduced in order of increasing prep time for the instructor. Several of these techniques – especially problem-based learning (PBL), peer-teaching, and cooperative learning – are elaborated upon in later chapters. The second group of chapters outlines ideas about course design, assessment, and content standards, and the reader is directed to more in-depth sources on those topics.For me, some of the most interesting ideas were from the section about student engagement, particularly the chapters about developing cultural competence as well as the practice of framing scientific content with historical or cultural perspectives in order to engage students. Their discussion of cultural competency offered starting points for faculty to self-reflect about our attitudes when working with students whose backgrounds differ from our own. Some of the practices introduced there may stop students from underrepresented groups from switching away from science because they don’t see themselves as belonging to the scientific culture.The final chapters emphasize teaching scientists’ ongoing development in scientific education. Many of these ideas are attainable by a single faculty member, such as exploring the literature of SoTL or developing partnerships with teachers in P–12 settings. Some chapters are more polemical in nature, particularly in regard to developing the teaching skills of biology graduate students as a systematic element of their training. Surprisingly, offices of teaching and learning that are dedicated to faculty development get no mention in this section.Even with the authors’ stated goal of producing stand-alone chapters, I would have preferred more integration across the volume. For example, three fine short chapters about questions in class, student talk, and evaluating answers could have been integrated into a single cohesive unit. The citations also reflect this lack of integration – features the authors had written (often summaries of the primary literature of SoTL) are cited as stand-alone publications in this book, despite also appearing as chapters in the volume. Sometimes the references are even contradictory: for example, student-group projects are introduced offhandedly in chapter 1 as a way to promote active learning, but in an expanded treatment in chapter 13 this model is revealed to be quite intensive in terms of preclass planning and ongoing coordination by faculty.Some practices and resources get very short shrift. The authors basically do not stray into the laboratory at all. I think that the proliferation of worksheet-based laboratory manuals has dulled the discovery aspect of doing science, particularly in the first-year or nonmajor experience. The inquiry-based practices of PBL or cooperative learning appear in several chapters, but they aren’t applied to the activities in the laboratory or the field. Some classroom-response systems are mentioned, but there is little coverage of other classroom technology.As a teaching scientist, I know that I am responsible for setting the tone and the level of the learning experience of my students. However, something crystallized for me in this book when I read about how “students experience learning (p. 157).” Do students experience learning or do they learn? I believe that we should strive to guide students toward more scientific sophistication, but throughout the text the authors seem to attribute very little agency to students for their own learning. Overall, the strategies the authors present for modeling how science is done are quite good, but these feature articles and others are already available as a collection on the journal’s open-access website. More time spent to integrate these ideas for the reader would have made this volume an even stronger contribution in its own right.

Teacher, Know Thyself

Teacher, Know Thyself

Next Steps for Vision and Change: Moving from Setting the Vision to Change

Next Steps for <i>Vision and Change</i>: Moving from Setting the Vision to Change

Integrating Genomics Research throughout the Undergraduate Curriculum: A Collection of Inquiry-Based Genomics Lab Modules

Integrating Genomics Research throughout the Undergraduate Curriculum: A Collection of Inquiry-Based Genomics Lab Modules

Changing and Evolving Relationships between Two- and Four-Year Colleges and Universities: They're Not Your Parents' Community Colleges Anymore

This paper describes a summit on Community Colleges in the Evolving STEM Education Landscape organized by a committee of the National Research Council (NRC) and the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and held at the Carnegie Institution for Science on December 15, 2011. This summit followed a similar event organized by Dr. Jill Biden, spouse of the Vice President, and held at the White House in October 2010, which sought to bring national attention to the changing missions and purposes of community colleges in contemporary American society.1 The NRC/NAE event built on the White House summit, while focusing on the changing roles of community colleges in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. An in-depth summary of the summit was prepared by the NRC and NAE for publication in late Spring 2012 by the National Academies Press (NRC and National Academy of Engineering, 2012 ). This paper provides a synopsis of that report, which is available at www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13399, and emphasizes how we can use the report to improve STEM education for our students, but also how much progress still needs to be made to realize this ideal.

Bring Your Self to Work Day—Every Day

But at other moments, the classroom is so lifeless or painful or confused—and I am so powerless to do anything about it—that my claim to be a teacher seems a transparent sham. Then the enemy is everywhere: in those students from some alien planet, in that subject I thought I knew, and in the personal pathology that keeps me earning my living this way. What a fool I was to imagine that I had mastered this occult art—harder to divine than tea leaves and impossible for mortals to do even passably well! (p. 1).