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Incorporating Quantitative Skills into the Undergraduate
Biology Classroom
Melissa L. AikensUniversity of New HampshireMay 26, 2017
2003
2009
2011
What quantitative skills do you want your students to have?
Backward Design Approach to Teaching Quantitative Skills
1) Identify desired results2) Determine acceptable evidence of
student understanding and proficiency3) Plan learning experiences and instruction
Learning Objectives
Assessment Teaching Strategy
Wiggins and McTighe, 1998
1) Learning ObjectivesAt the end of the course, students should be able to…
https://www.cmu.edu/teaching/resources/Teaching/CourseDesign/Objectives/BloomsTaxonomyVerbs.pdf
Resources for Learning Objectives for
Quantitative Skills
• BIO2010• Scientific Foundations for Future Physicians
• Vision and Change • AP Biology Quantitative Skills• Next Generation Science Standards Science and Engineering Practices
Practice 5: Using Mathematics and Computational Thinking
NGSS Lead States, 2013
2) Assessment
How will you know that the students have mastered the learning objective?↳ Align Assessment with Learning Objective
Angelo and Cross, 1993
2) Assessment
How will you know that the students have mastered the learning objective?↳ Align Assessment with Learning Objective
Published (or soon to be published) Assessments
• BioSQuaRE(Stanhope et al., in revision)
• Statistical Reasoning in Biology Concept Inventory(Deane et al., 2016)
• Quantitative Biology Concept Inventory(In development)
• Test of Scientific Literacy Skills (TOSLS)(Gormally et al., 2012)
• Quantitative Literacy and Reasoning Assessment(Gaze et al., 2014)
3) Teaching Strategies
Challenges of teaching quantitative skills
Math aversion: high math anxiety, low self-confidence, general disinterest
Math Averse Students
Hester et al., 2014
Attitudes and Self-beliefs
Motivation Performance
Wigfield and Eccles, 2000; Eccles and Wigfield, 2002
Biology Students’ Math Attitudes
Andrews and Aikens, in prep
Biology Students’ Math Attitudes
Andrews and Aikens, in prep
***
Linear mixed model***p < 0.001; **p < 0.01; *p < 0.05
****
*
Promoting Positive Math Attitudes and Self-beliefs
Example: Figure of the Day
https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisugly/
Promoting Positive Math Attitudes and Self-beliefs
Example: Figure of the DayPromoting interest• Relevant and
personally meaningful contexts
• Humor• Challenge
Increasing self-confidence• Opportunities to
be successful on challenging tasks
https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisugly/
Promoting Positive Math Attitudes and Self-beliefs
Reducing math anxiety• Creating a comfortable learning environment• Expressive writing (Park et al., 2014)
• Teaching growth mindset
NSF IUSE: Jeremy Wojdak & Arietta Fleming-Davies (Radford University)
https://qubeshub.org/groups/biomaap
• Teaching growth mindset• Developing number sense• Metacognition
Your brain is plastic.
Thompson et al., 2010
http://mathbench.umd.edu/index.htmlKären Nelson and Kaci Thompson, University of Maryland
Lots of resources for teaching quantitative skills!
• Figure Facts (Round and Campbell, 2013)
• Math-Biology Manipulatives (Jungck et al., 2010)
• BioQUEST and ESTEEM (http://bioquest.org/)
• Spreadsheets Across the Curriculum (http://serc.carleton.edu/sp/ssac/index.html)
• UMBC Nexus (Hoffman et al., 2016; http://nexus.umbc.edu/)
• Netlogo (http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/index.shtml)
• Data Nuggets (Schultheis and Kjelvik, 2015; http://datanuggets.org/)
• DryadLab (http://datadryad.org/pages/dryadlab)
• HHMI BioInteractive (https://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive)
• National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science (http://sciencecases.lib.buffalo.edu/cs/)
• CourseSource (http://www.coursesource.org)
• TIEE (http://tiee.esa.org/)
https://qubeshub.org/
• Quantitative biology teaching resources• Run mathematical and statistical software directly
from website• Online collaborative spaces for use in teaching or
research• Build user community around an existing project• Mentoring to help make courses more quantitative
Professional Development Opportunities
Summer WorkshopJune 18-23, 2018
Harvey Mudd College
QUBES Faculty Mentoring Networks
Summary
National reports can be used to help guide development of learning objectives.Frequent, low-stakes assessment, aligned with the learning objectives, should be used to determine whether students are mastering learning objectives.Lots of teaching resources on the internet – pick those that complement the content of the course and are likely to engage your set of students.
Quantitative skills are an integral part of the field of biology; therefore they should be an integral part of our biology courses.
Questions?
Acknowledgements
• Sarah Andrews, University of New Hampshire• Nicholas Wakeman, University of New Hampshire• Nijly Vilme, University of New Hampshire• Arietta Fleming-Davies, Radford University
NSF DUE-1640347
ReferencesAAAS (2011). Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education: A Call to Action. Washington, DC: American Association for the Advancement of Science.http://visionandchange.org/files/2013/11/aaas-VISchange-web1113.pdf
AAMC-HHMI (2009). Scientific Foundations for Future Physicians. Washington, DC: Association of American Medical Colleges.https://www.aamc.org/download/271072/data/scientificfoundationsforfuturephysicians.pdf
Angelo, TA, & Cross, KP (1993). Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Deane, T, Nomme, K, Jeffery, E, Pollock, C, & Birol, G (2016). Development of the Statistical Reasoning in Biology Concept Inventory (SRBCI). CBE-Life Sciences Education, 15, ar5.http://www.lifescied.org/content/15/1/ar5.full.pdf+html
Eccles, JS, & Wigfield, A (2002). Motivational beliefs, values, and goals. Annual Review of Psychology, 53, 109-132.
Gaze, EC, Montgomery, A, Kilic-Bahi, S, Leoni, D, Misener, L, & Taylor, C (2014). Towards developing a quantitative literacy/reasoning assessment instrument. Numeracy, 7, 4.http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1153&context=numeracy
Gormally, C, Brickman, P, & Lutz, M (2012). Developing a Test of Scientific Literacy Skills (TOSLS): measuring undergraduates’ evaluation of scientific information and arguments. CBE-Life Sciences Education, 11, 364-377.http://www.lifescied.org/content/11/4/364.full.pdf+html
Jungck, JR, Gaff, H, & Weisstein, AE (2010). Mathematical manipulative models: In defense of “Beanbag Biology”. CBE-Life Sciences Education, 9, 201-211.http://www.lifescied.org/content/9/3/201.full.pdf
ReferencesHester, S, Buxner, S, Elfring, L, Nagy, L (2014). Integrating quantitative thinking into an introductory biology course improves students’ mathematical reasoning in biological contexts. CBE - Life Sciences Education, 13, 54-64.http://www.lifescied.org/content/13/1/54.full.pdf+html
Hoffman, K, Leupen, S, Dowell, K, Kephart, K, & Leips, J (2016). Development and Assessment of Modules to Integrate Quantitative Skills in Introductory Biology Courses. CBE-Life Sciences Education, 15, ar14.http://www.lifescied.org/content/15/2/ar14.full.pdf+html
NGSS Lead States (2013). Next Generation Science Standards: For States, By States. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.https://www.nap.edu/catalog/18290/next-generation-science-standards-for-states-by-states(See Appendix F for Science and Engineering Practices)
NRC (2003). BIO2010: Transforming Undergraduate Education for Future Research Biologists. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.https://www.nap.edu/catalog/10497/bio2010-transforming-undergraduate-education-for-future-research-biologists
Park, D, Ramirez, G, & Beilock, SL (2014). The role of expressive writing in math anxiety. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 20, 103-111.
Round, JE, & Campbell, AM (2013). Figure facts: encouraging undergraduates to take a data-centered approach to reading primary literature. CBE-Life Sciences Education, 12, 39-46.http://www.lifescied.org/content/12/1/39.full.pdf
ReferencesSchultheis, EH, & Kjelvik, MK (2015). Data nuggets. The American Biology Teacher, 77, 19-29.
Stanhope and colleagues. In revision. BioSQuaRE. https://www.macalester.edu/hhmi/biosquare/
Tanner, K, & Allen, D (2004). Approaches to biology teaching and learning: from assays to assessments—on collecting evidence in science teaching. Cell Biology Education, 3, 69-74.http://www.lifescied.org/content/3/2/69.full.pdf+html
The College Board (2012). AP Biology Quantitative Skills: A Guide for Teachers. New York, NY: The College Board.http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/ap/AP_Bio_Quantitative_Skills_Guide-2ndPrinting_lkd.pdf
Thompson, KV, Nelson, KC, Marbach-Ad, G, Keller, M, & Fagan, WF (2010). Online interactive teaching modules enhance quantitative proficiency of introductory biology students. CBE-Life Sciences Education, 9, 277-283.http://www.lifescied.org/content/9/3/277.full.pdf+html
Wigfield, A, Eccles, JS (2000). Expectancy-value theory of achievement motivation. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 25, 68-81.
Wiggins, GP, McTighe, J (1998). Understanding by Design. ASCD, Alexandria, VA.