The why, when, and how of computing in biology classrooms

Abstract

Many biologists are interested in teaching computing skills or using computing in the classroom, despite not being formally trained in these skills themselves. Thus biologists may find themselves researching how to teach these skills, and therefore many individuals are individually attempting to discover resources and methods to do so. Recent years have seen an expansion of new technologies to assist in delivering course content interactively. Educational research provides insights into how learners absorb and process information during interactive learning. In this review, we discuss the value of teaching foundational computing skills to biologists, and strategies and tools to do so. Additionally, we review the literature on teaching practices to support the development of these skills. We pay special attention to meeting the needs of diverse learners, and consider how different ways of delivering course content can be leveraged to provide a more inclusive classroom experience. Our goal is to enable biologists to teach computational skills and use computing in the classroom successfully.

Training Data: How can we best prepare instructors to teach data science in undergraduate biology and environmental science courses?

“…Across institution types, student majors were very likely to learn data science in a required or elective course offered by their institution (Figure 4). This is encouraging as it suggests that biology and environmental science departments acknowledge the importance of data science skills for life science curricula (Madlung 2018, Wilson Sayres et al 2018Wright et al 2019). However, our findings suggest that not all data science skills are taught equally across courses ( Figure 5).…”

“…The push for more data science instruction across disciplines, and in biology in particular, has led to two strategies. Some use the approach of introducing problems in biology to computer science students (LeBlanc & Dyer 2004;Berger-Wolf et al 2018, Oesper & Vostinar 2020 while others have incorporated computational skills into biology courses (Madlung 2018, Sayres et al 2018Wright et al 2019. While both strategies are beneficial for teaching data science concepts, bringing life science into the computer science curricula should not replace quantitative instruction in life science courses.…”

From panic to pedagogy: Using online active learning to promote inclusive instruction in ecology and evolutionary biology courses and beyond

“…Wright et al. (2019) lay out a number of considerations for choosing software, including consistency with what other instructors are using, instructor comfort with the tool, and the current status of research tools in the field. For example, if analyses in the discipline are commonly performed in R, and other courses in the curriculum are taught using Excel, the instructor might go with either methods depending on their comfort with the two tools.…”

Ten quick tips for teaching with participatory live coding

“…Most studies focus on nonparticipatory live coding, demonstrating the programming process and contrasting this with the use of static code on slides (see [ 7 ] and references therein, as well as [ 8 ]). So far, these studies show that live coding is as good as, if not better than, using static code examples [ 7 , 9 ] and, thus, is a recommended approach for teaching programming [ 10 , 11 ].…”