Online but not remote: Adapting field‐based ecology laboratories for online learning

Richter, Christoph; Lortie, Christopher J.; Kelly, Tamara; Filazzola, Alessandro; Nunes, Krystal; Sarkar, Raani

doi:10.1002/ece3.7008

Cited by 9 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 26 publications

(31 reference statements)

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“…During the pandemic, most higher education laboratory courses transitioned to remote teaching, resulting in instructors investigating ways to incorporate projects for hands-on learning. Educators suggested using citizen science or backyard science to help continue these experiences during remote learning (Bacon and Peacock 2021;Richter et al 2021). Though it is known that citizen science has been used in the classroom, there is very little in the literature about these experiences in higher education (Mitchell et al 2017;Beacon and Peacock 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Though it is known that citizen science has been used in the classroom, there is very little in the literature about these experiences in higher education (Mitchell et al 2017;Beacon and Peacock 2021). For example, one group used urban ecology and the students' backyards to help continue connecting the students to the ecology content and material and to allow Lichti et al Citizen Science: Theory and Practice DOI: 10.5334/cstp.432 the students to collect authentic data from their local areas during emergency remote teaching (Richter et al 2021). By using Budburst in the laboratory course, we have helped to fill the gap in research about using citizen science in higher education by showcasing how citizen science was incorporated into an online introductory laboratory and by highlighting the skills developed by the students during emergency remote teaching.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Learning from the Trees: Using Project Budburst to Enhance Data Literacy and Scientific Writing Skills in an Introductory Biology Laboratory During Remote Learning

Lichti

Mosley

Callis‐Duehl

2021

CSTP

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Citizen science projects can be used in college laboratory settings to allow students to gain hands-on experience in research during emergency remote learning. During the 2020 spring semester, we used the citizen science project, Budburst, in our introductory biology laboratory during the COVID-19-induced emergency remote learning period. The instructors were able to quickly adapt the project for emergency remote teaching because of the versatility of citizen science projects. The goals of this paper are to describe the project the students completed and to determine which data literacy and scientific writing skills were gained through the process. The students were provided with the research question: "How does temperature affect the phenophases of your trees?" Students collected their own data and downloaded Budburst data sets from the website to compare between years and to connect their results to long-term temperature data sets. The final project was a scientific paper based on their findings from both data sets. After the semester, a subset of papers was scored by two researchers using a previously validated rubric designed to evaluate students' research skills. We evaluated students' higher-order thinking by investigating their ability to develop a prediction statement, and to improve their qualitative skills by developing graphs, statements on the limitations for methods and results, and alternative explanations for their findings. We saw that using citizen science during remote teaching enabled the students to gain authentic research experiences and continue to improve their skill set even if they could not be in the laboratory.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning from the Trees: Using Project Budburst to Enhance Data Literacy and Scientific Writing Skills in an Introductory Biology Laboratory During Remote Learning

Lichti

Mosley

Callis‐Duehl

2021

CSTP

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“…In undergraduate classrooms, this involved shifting in-person courses online, changing course structure, and fundamentally altering student experiences. In field-based biology and ecology, where many courses have historically been taught in high-contact formats with students working cooperatively to collect ecological data in the field, these changes have been particularly acute and dramatically altered the learning environment (Barton 2020, Lashley et al 2020, Richter et al 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Flexible and Inclusive Ecology Projects that Harness Collaboration and NEON‐Enabled Science to Enhance Student Learning

Whitney

Heard

Anderson

et al. 2022

Bulletin Ecologic Soc America

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The COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted undergraduate education and fundamentally altered the structure of course delivery in higher education. In field-based biology and ecology courses, where instructors and students typically work collaboratively and in-person to collect data, this has been particularly challenging. In this context, faculty from the Ecological Research as Education Network (EREN) collaborated with the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) to design five freeflexible learning projects for use by instructors in varied modalities (e.g., socially distanced in-person, remote, or HyFlex). The five flexible learning projects incorporated the Ecological Society of America's 4DEE framework and included field data collection, data analysis components, and an activity that incorporates existing NEON field protocols or datasets. Each project was designed to provide faculty members with a high degree of flexibility so that they could tailor the implementation of the projects to fit course-specific needs. Collectively, these learning projects were designed to be flexible, inclusive, and facilitate hands-on research while working in alternative classroom settings.

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“…Conversely, empirical activities, such as active learning projects (Gahl et al, 2020 ), can be disregarded as less efficient in motivating students into acquiring new knowledge without having to pass an exam. Fortunately, in the current critical context, developing innovative online teaching and learning approaches, and using any available technologies, has become a key priority (Gahl et al, 2020 ; Geange et al, 2020 ; Houtz et al, 2020 ; Richter et al, 2020 ; Van Haeften et al, 2020 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Undergraduates' perceptions on emergency remote learning in ecology in the post‐pandemic era

Pagani‐Núñez

Yan

Hong

et al. 2022

Ecology and Evolution

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The COVID‐19 pandemic has strongly disrupted academic activities, particularly in disciplines with a strong empirical component among other reasons by limiting our mobility. It is thus essential to assess emergency remote teaching plans by surveying learners’ opinions and perceptions during these unusual circumstances. To achieve this aim, we conducted a survey during the spring semester of 2021 in an environmental science program to ascertain learners’ perceptions on online and onsite learning activities in ecology‐based modules. We were particularly interested not only in comparing the performance of these two types of activities but also in understanding the role played by learners’ perceptions about nature in shaping this pattern. Environmental science programs are rather heterogeneous from a conceptual point of view and, thus, learners may also be more diverse than in traditional ecology programs, which may affect their interest for ecology‐based modules. We assessed connectedness to nature by computing the reduced version of the Nature Relatedness Scale. Here, we found that online activities systematically obtained significantly lower scores than onsite activities regardless of the wording employed, and that altruistic behaviors were prevalent among learners. Interestingly, scores for both onsite and online activities were strongly influenced by learners’ connectedness to nature, as learners with a stronger connection to nature gave higher scores to both types of activities. Our results suggest that an effort to improve the efficacy of remote learning activities should be the focus of research about teaching methodologies in predominantly empirical scientific disciplines.

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Online but not remote: Adapting field‐based ecology laboratories for online learning

Abstract: Online learning is defined as the use of technology to either wholly or partially provide instruction and mechanisms for students to meet and collaborate (Moore et al., 2011). With recent advances in technology, adoption of online learning has expanded significantly in re-

Cited by 9 publications

References 26 publications

Learning from the Trees: Using Project Budburst to Enhance Data Literacy and Scientific Writing Skills in an Introductory Biology Laboratory During Remote Learning

Learning from the Trees: Using Project Budburst to Enhance Data Literacy and Scientific Writing Skills in an Introductory Biology Laboratory During Remote Learning

Flexible and Inclusive Ecology Projects that Harness Collaboration and NEON‐Enabled Science to Enhance Student Learning

Undergraduates' perceptions on emergency remote learning in ecology in the post‐pandemic era

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