Cbe-Life Sciences Education最新文献

The purpose of the Current Insights feature is to highlight recent research and scholarship from outside the LSE community. In this installment, I draw together work by research teams to address inequities facing multilingual learners in science classrooms. The articles in this set represent a movement based in the ideas and pedagogies of translanguaging. Translanguaging describes the diverse and fluid ways in which learners use and develop language and rejects narrow definitions of language that have been used to marginalize multilingual learners. Applied to science education, translanguaging inspires questions about how to help multilingual learners navigate existing science learning environments while also working to transform restrictive language systems that continue to dominate science learning spaces.

Grades are a staple of education and a gateway to future career opportunities. Yet, grading practices can (re)produce inequities and cause students to feel inadequate and unmotivated. Alternative grading practices may address these problems, but these strategies are often time intensive and impractical in larger classroom settings. In this study, we explore an easy-to-implement grading practice, in-class quiz retakes, to conceptualize how grades motivate learning and impact well-being for undergraduate students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Through the lens of self-determination theory, we conducted semistructured interviews with undergraduates who experienced quiz retakes in two STEM courses. Our results revealed that retakes largely improved students' perceptions of their competence in the subject matter, autonomy in grade outcomes, feelings of relatedness to the instructors, and overall motivation to learn. The majority of students also expressed how traditional grading practices negatively impacted their motivation and well-being. In addition, a quantitative analysis revealed that quiz retakes particularly benefitted students who scored lower on their initial quizzes. We aspire for this study to prompt educators to reconsider traditional grading practices by opting for more equitable and just alternative grading approaches that motivate student learning and mitigate systemic barriers in education.

Evidence abounds that passive strategies such as rereading or highlighting are less effective than active strategies such as drawing models or explaining concepts to others. However, many studies have also reported that students tend to use learning strategies that they perceive as comfortable and easy, even when other strategies may be more successful. In this study, we asked students to self-report their study strategies after test-taking, as well as any planned new strategies. We also compared their self-reports with their actual use of the technique of self-testing, which was defined as completing practice problems in their online courseware system. In contrast to prior studies, students reported using self-testing more than any other strategy, and the amount of self-testing they used predicted their final performance in the course. Students' continued reporting of intended new strategies also correlated with performance, as did the accuracy of their reports of self-testing. These findings demonstrate that the amount of self-testing affects performance, and that students' accurate reporting of self-testing could be an indicator of their awareness.

When students use metacognition, they can more effectively problem solve on their own and in groups. Most metacognition studies have focused on individual learners while a few studies have begun to explore the metacognition learners use in social settings. Little is known about the comparison between how an individual student may use metacognition in solitary and collaborative contexts. To explore the relationship between individual and social metacognition, we asked: how do life science students' approaches for metacognition while problem solving on their own relate to their metacognitive approaches when problem solving in groups? We recorded students working in small groups and conducted think-aloud interviews with the same students. By coding for metacognition, we found that students vary in their use of metacognition during individual and group problem solving. The majority of the students in our study used similar metacognitive approaches across settings, while other students showed greater evidence of one form of metacognition over the other. Interestingly, we found that students corrected or evaluated their peers' thinking more than their own thinking, and we hypothesize that group dynamics can affect students' social metacognition. We present our results in a series of cases that illustrate the variation observed and offer suggestions for instructors for promoting metacognition.

Molecular biology can be challenging for undergraduate students because it requires visual literacy skills to interpret abstract representations of submicroscopic concepts, structures, and processes. The Conceptual-Reasoning-Mode framework suggests that visual literacy relies on applying conceptual knowledge to appropriately reason with the different ways of representing concepts in molecular biology. We used this framework to specifically explore visual literacy related to chromosomes. We conducted 35 semistructured interviews with students who had taken at least a year of college-level biology courses, and we asked them to sketch chromosomes, interpret an abstract representation of chromosomes, and use the abstract representation to answer a multiple choice question about meiosis. While many participants used the correct vocabulary to describe chromosome structure and function, probing their visual literacy skills revealed gaps in their understanding. Notably, 97% of participants (34 of 35) held conceptual errors related to chromosome structure and function, which were often only revealed in their sketches or explanations of their sketches. Our findings highlight the importance of scaffolding visual literacy skills into instruction by teaching with a variety of visual models and engaging students in using and interpreting the conventions of abstract representations of chromosomes.

Science remains an exclusionary field to people who do not align with "acceptable" worldviews (e.g., white, Western, masculine). One avenue for making science more welcoming and inclusive is to empower current science students to become change agents in their fields. However, it is useful to understand where students are starting from before we can empower them as change agents. In the context of a new course focused on Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility in science technology engineering and mathematics (STEM), we explore students' reflections on their socialization into science and observations of the figured worlds of science in their higher education learning spaces. We found that students can recognize and reflect critically on various forms of identity and capital that are involved in and impact their socialization into science. We also found that students can describe, connect, and critique many aspects of the figured worlds of science presented in their higher education learning spaces. Not all students in this study made the same degree of reflections and observations, indicating different levels of preparedness for change agency. Asking students to reflect on their pathways into and experiences of science can also encourage more students to identify, recognize, and push back against inequities in science.

Engagement in scientific discourse is an essential part of becoming a scientist. In this exploratory study, we aim to examine the scientific discourse (and resulting benefits) between undergraduate biology students and professional scientists. We developed a novel method for engaging in scientific discourse, grounded in the theory of legitimate peripheral participation, where undergraduate biology students participate in communities of practice within their own departments. Students selected a piece of primary scientific literature (PSL) from a professional scientist in their department and, after spending time annotating the PSL, met with the professional scientist to engage in scientific discourse. We analyzed the time students spent speaking and characterized questions students ask professional scientists. In addition, student motivation for reading PSL and students' sense of belonging to their department shifted positively, suggesting that students are integrating into the scientific community of practice being formed between students and professional scientists. We discuss best practices for supporting effective scientific discourse between undergraduates and scientists.

Mindset (beliefs about the malleability of intelligence) has been studied in a variety of contexts for decades. Recent research highlights the importance of contextual factors in moderating mindset's impact on student outcomes. The commonly-used original mindset measure is context-general. Recently, a mindset measure that is specific to science and math undergraduates was developed: the Undergraduate Lay Theories of Abilities (ULTrA) Survey. I hypothesized that a context-specific measure of mindset would associate more strongly with undergraduates' outcomes than a context-general measure. I surveyed 1537 undergraduates with Dweck's 3-item original mindset measure, ULTrA, and measures of outcomes (sense of belonging, goal orientation, self-handicapping, evaluative concern and intent to persist in science) and collected course grades. Structural equation modeling indicated that the fixed factor of the ULTrA exhibited stronger and more consistent relationships with outcomes than the 3-item original mindset measure and predicted unique variance in outcomes above and beyond what the original mindset measure accounted for. The academic outcomes (intent to persist and course grade) were significantly related to ULTrA, but not the original mindset measure. Our results provide evidence that the context-specific ULTrA survey can detect relationships with undergraduate outcomes that the context-general original mindset measure can fail to detect.

Active-learning instructors are more effective when they use pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) to anticipate, interpret, and respond to student thinking. PCK is topic-specific and includes knowledge of student thinking (e.g., common difficulties) and knowledge of instructional strategies (e.g., effective learning tasks). Currently, we know little about how instructors develop PCK. We documented how 11 early-career undergraduate life science instructors developed PCK over multiple semesters by eliciting knowledge as instructors planned, implemented, and reflected on instruction. Qualitative content analysis indicated that instructors' PCK about student thinking was not necessarily grounded in evidence from students and their PCK about instructional strategies varied in whether and how it considered student thinking. We adapted a rubric to test hypotheses about PCK development trajectories. Participants' PCK about student thinking tended to become more grounded in evidence from students and their PCK about instructional strategies tended to focus more on student thinking over time. However, teaching experience did not necessarily lead to PCK development. Case study analysis revealed that pedagogical knowledge and specific practices supported PCK development. We propose a hypothetical model to explain how teaching knowledge and practices support PCK development. We also suggest reflections and actions for instructors who want to develop their PCK.