The tragic murder of Mr. George Floyd brought to the head long-standing issues of racial justice and equity in the United States and beyond. This prompted many institutions of higher education, including professional organizations and societies, to engage in long-overdue conversations about the role of scientific institutions in perpetuating racism. Similar to many professional societies and organizations, the Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research (SABER), a leading international professional organization for discipline-based biology education researchers, has long struggled with a lack of representation of People of Color (POC) at all levels within the organization. The events surrounding Mr. Floyd’s death prompted the members of SABER to engage in conversations to promote self-reflection and discussion on how the society could become more antiracist and inclusive. These, in turn, resulted in several initiatives that led to concrete actions to support POC, increase their representation, and amplify their voices within SABER. These initiatives included: a self-study of SABER to determine challenges and identify ways to address them, a year-long seminar series focused on issues of social justice and inclusion, a special interest group to provide networking opportunities for POC and to center their voices, and an increase in the diversity of keynote speakers and seminar topics at SABER conferences. In this article, we chronicle the journey of SABER in its efforts to become more inclusive and antiracist. We are interested in increasing POC representation within our community and seek to bring our resources and scholarship to reimagine professional societies as catalyst agents towards an equitable antiracist experience. Specifically, we describe the 12 concrete actions that SABER enacted over a period of a year and the results from these actions so far. In addition, we discuss remaining challenges and future steps to continue to build a more welcoming, inclusive, and equitable space for all biology education researchers, especially our POC members. Ultimately, we hope that the steps undertaken by SABER will enable many more professional societies to embark on their reflection journeys to further broaden scientific communities.
We investigated the intersectional relationships between racism, sexism, and classism in inequities in student conceptual knowledge in introductory biology courses using a quantitative critical framework. Using Bayesian hierarchical linear models, we examined students' conceptual knowledge as measured by the Introductory Molecular and Cell Biology Assessment. The data came from the LASSO database and included 6,547 students from 87 introductory courses at 11 institutions. The model indicated that students with marginalized identities by race, gender, and class tended to start with lower scores than continuing-generation, White men. We conceptualized these differences as educational debts society owed these students due to racism, sexism, and classism. Instruction added to these educational debts for most marginalized groups, with the largest increases for students with multiple marginalized identities. After instruction, society owed Black and Hispanic, first-generation women an educational debt equal to 60-80% of the average learning in the courses. These courses almost all (85/87) used collaborative learning and half (45/87) supported instruction with learning assistants. While research shows collaborative learning better serves students than lecture-based instruction, these results indicate it does not repay educational debts due to racism, sexism, and classism.
Mechanisms that contribute to the development of cancer are numerous and complicated, though most can be traced to a set of mutations in cell cycle regulatory genes that throw the process of cell division off balance. Communication of these complex mechanisms in an engaging way often presents a challenge in a large introductory course with students from varied backgrounds and at distinct knowledge levels. We present a mixed active learning approach to facilitate student understanding of how mutation-mediated disruptions in cell cycle regulation can lead to the development of lung cancer. This lesson includes a case-based scenario, a card game about cell cycle checkpoints, mutations, and disrupted mechanisms in cancer, a problem-solving worksheet about mutations, and several electronic audience response questions interspersed throughout to monitor student progress. Through assessment of student content knowledge and perceptions, we have found this lesson to be an effective, engaging, and enjoyable way for students to learn about the molecular mechanisms underlying cancer development.
Students learn concepts and skills more efficiently when they actively engage with content, and introductory biology courses nationwide are shifting towards student‐centered classes. However, incorporating student‐centered learning into a large‐enrollment course presents unique challenges. Here we describe a Faculty Learning Community (FLC) where faculty instructors collaborate to transform a large enrollment introductory biology course from a traditional lecture format into a student‐centered course. Activities and strategies are incorporated and improved over time as faculty discuss successes and new approaches, allowing the FLC to optimize activities and build up a resource pool. We evaluate the effect of this iterative change on the classroom environment, student learning, and student attitudes utilizing a pre‐ and ‐post survey design. Preliminary results suggest that student content learning is increasing over time. Further, certain types of activities may be particularly effective at improving learning. Longitudinal data from three semesters of the course will be used to explore 1) how iterative change affects student learning, 2) which approaches are most effective, 3) how to target difficult concepts and 4) how different student populations are impacted by the changes. Results will provide a template for other institutions seeking to incorporate similar course improvements. Grant Funding Source: Supported by HHMI “Engage to Excel” grant at Iowa State University
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