Welcome and Challenge

Pat MarstellerBQ Faculty Workshop

June 2013

Cases, Data, Simulations, Tools

We use Math Everyday!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaAftRgptkQ

Reports, Reports, Reports

Using Data in Undergraduate Science Classrooms (2002)

Shaping the Future: New Expectations for Undergraduate Education in Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology (NSF 96-139)

Shaping the Future Volume II: Perspectives on Undergraduate Education in Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology NSF 98-128

NRC Board on

Life Sciences (2009).

MAA(2004)

NRC Board on Life Sciences

(2003)

MAA (2005)

American Association for the Advancement of Science &

National Science Foundation(2011)

Association of American Medical

Colleges &Howard Hughes Medical Institute

(2009)College Board (2011)

Biology education should be interdisciplinary with a strong emphasis on developing quantitative skills.

Laboratory courses should focus on developing critical thinking skills.

Students should pursue independent research. Teaching methods should be examined. Resources must be adequate. Faculty should be rewarded.

Bio 2010 Recommendations

Core competencies V&C Fundamental Understanding of the Process of science

Quantitative competency and the ability to interpret data

Basic computational skills

The ability to see connections between biology and other disciplines

Competency in communication and collaboration

Understanding of how biology is practiced in a societal context with potential to address critical issues in society and global issues

9National Research Council 2000 National Research Council 2003

What are we waiting for?

How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience and School. National Research Council, National Academy Press, 2000.

Learners come “to formal education with a range of prior knowledge, skills, beliefs and concepts” which affect:

• what learners notice,• how they reason and solve problems,• how they remember (p.10).

The collaborative investigation of cases (and problem spaces) provides opportunities for learners to share and question what they already know with their peers.

Effective Learning and TeachingQuality, not Quantity

Connects New Knowledge to Old

Constructive, restructures old frameworks based on new knowledge

Concrete to Abstract: embed specifics in organized, coherent frameworks

Relevant and Real

Active

How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience and School. National Research Council, 2000

AP RedesignBiology, Chemistry, Environmental Science, Physics (2012-16)

• Big Ideas / Unifying Themes

• Enduring Understandings• Competencies• Evidence Models

(Formative Assessments)

Evidence of Learning• The student can use

representations and models to communicate scientific phenomena and solve scientific problems.

• The student can use mathematics appropriately

• The student can engage in scientific questioning

• The student can perform data analysis and evaluation of evidence

• The student can work with scientific explanations and theories

• The student is able to transfer knowledge across various scales, concepts, and representations in and across domains

Next Generation Science Standards Investigate, build models &

theories

Includes engineering practices

Crosscutting patterns, scale, cause & effect etc

Core ideas; key concepts, broad import, relate to student interests, learnable across grade levels

http://nextgenscience.org/

I repeatWhat are we waiting for?

Cases, Simulations, Games & Problem Spaces Can Integrate Core Concepts and Competencies throughout the Curriculum

Introduce science process skills early and reinforce in all courses

Learning goals focus on core concepts & assessments align with learning goals

Real world examples and relevance

Develop lifelong science learning competencies

Fewer concepts in greater depth

Stimulate curiosity about the natural world

Help scientists demonstrate passion for the discipline and delight in sharing passion with students

What do you want your learners to do?

Learn specific disciplinary content? Use interdisciplinary skills to answer their questions? Develop scientific data literacy? Engage in collaborative problem solving? Relate the disciplinary content to their own lives? Learn how to use tools such as BLAST? Navigate the online environment? Make evidence-based decisions? Develop an appreciation for scientific thinking? Discover their strengths and weaknesses as learners?

Your own objective here??

Shouldn’t all Students Understand the Evidence Behind the Headlines?

Wider Warnings after 3rd hanta virus death Corporations Slow to Act on Climate Change Earlier Mass Extinction for Most of Marine Life New York Is Lagging as Seas and Risks Rise, Critic

s Warn Ovarian Cancer Screenings Are Not Effective, Pan

el Says Literacy and the Population Problem

And Know about Big Questions that remain? http://www.sciencemag.org/site/feature/misc/web

feat/125th/

Why we care ! we have recognized the

importance quantitative biology in the undergraduate curriculum

we want to identify and share best practices and resources

we want to work together to create new materials

establish a community of educators who will continue advancing this effort for many years to come

properly done, quantitative methods must be part of the first biology courses an undergrad takes (and biological concepts in early mathematical courses,too)

To do list efforts must be scalable

and sustainable (from fiscal and human resource perspectives)

activities should count toward graduation

must included research or research-like experiences

We must make efforts to push the adoption curve forward

make our work visible to those outside this community

persuade others that our innovations work prepares students (assessment!)

give others the tools and support that will guarantee their success

Additional Challenges Increasing STEM

undergraduate degree production

Increasing participation of traditionally underrepresented groups

Involve pre-K thru 12 and community college teachers in “the revolution”

Where are we now? Where do we need to go?

General biology texts: have less than 3

equations Rarely have quantitative

data Graph complexity

primarily linear No quantitative problems

Biology education that uses calculus, discrete mathematics, & statistics

Quantitative problem solving throughout

Modeling top down, bottom up, nonlinear feedback

Deal with complexity of terabytes of data per day

John Jungck 2007 and every time I’ve seen him since 2002

Central role of problem-solving environments:

Powerful tools that develop professional skills InteractiveOpen-ended ChallengingResearch-relatedDepth of analysisEmpoweringLend themselves to collaborative learning

Goals of a Bioscience Curriculum

Students should “be conversant not only with the language of biology but also with the languages of mathematics, computation, and the physical sciences”

Bialek & Botstein 2004, Science 303:788

Institutionalizing innovations in science education requires

Support from facultySupport from administrationRecognition through competitive grant

funding and national awardsDissemination through articles, books,

workshops, and national meetings

– Joint Meeting of HHMI Program Directors and HHMI Professors, 2006

The important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them.

Sir William Bragg (1862 - 1942)

Go forth and create new problem spaces!

Join us for the HHMI Workshop, too!