2024
Exploring Generative AI-Assisted Feedback on Research Proposals: A Qualitative Study of Student and Instructor Experiences
Michele Westin and Tammy Long, Michigan State University
Generative AI (genAI) has the potential to enhance student learning through its application in the development of individualized formative feedback on scientific writing. To harness this potential effectively, it is essential to understand how both instructors and students experience and perceive genAI-assisted feedback. This exploratory study investigates instructors’ perceptions and experiences as they develop genAI-assisted feedback on lab proposals, highlighting both its advantages and its challenges. Additionally, the study explores students’ cognitive and emotional responses to genAI-assisted feedback and how they use it to revise their writing. By examining these complementary perspectives, the study will contribute to a deeper understanding of genAI’s role in formative assessment.
Designing Teaching Practices Centered on “How We All Learn” in order to Maximize Students STEM Learning
Chelsea Ward, Tara R Beziot, Matt Grilliot, and M Florencia Breitman, Auburn University at Montgomery
Faculty are rarely trained in how learning occurs yet are expected to teach effectively. Universities offer faculty development that can be overwhelming, leading to a failure to implement useful techniques. Educational psychology advises that faculty implement evidence-based changes that are manageable and promote reflection on how the brain processes and retains information, emphasizing attention span, dual coding, chunking, and retrieval practice. We present a practical framework for lesson planning grounded in a simplified memory model drawn from cognitive and educational psychology. We present two tools to aid instructors in designing lesson plans for college courses based on three principles from these theories: attention, encoding, and retrieval. The first lesson’s objective is to help students evaluate how learning occurs, the second lesson plan is a template instructors can use to align instruction with cognitive principles. These tools are accessible, low stakes, and easy to implement, minimizing cognitive load for faculty. Faculty at our institution, which serves a high percentage of Pell grant recipients and first-generation students, have adopted these strategies with remarkable success. Courses that implemented the approach have seen dramatic reductions in DFW (drop/fail/withdraw) rates, increased student engagement, and enhanced knowledge retention across course sequences. Students report greater satisfaction, improved academic confidence, and an appreciation for the intentional structure of their classes. Faculty also report more satisfaction while teaching class due to student engagement and participation. This paper offers an actionable model for transforming teaching practices, grounded in how we all learn, and adaptable for use across STEM disciplines.
2023
Student-Led DBER and Teaching Practice in Introductory Biology Courses
Eric Hastie and Lauro Ott, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The UNC Biology Department recently introduced BIOL 295: Educational and Social Research in Biology. BIOL 295 is overseen by Drs. Laura Ott and Eric Hastie (Directors of the Carolina Biology Education Research Lab: https://cberlab.com/) and provides authentic inquiry experiences through development, implementation, and assessment of traditional classroom, online asynchronous, and wet lab-based modules. Our goals with 295 is to mentor undergraduates in the creation of active learning, student-centered modules on a variety of topics that can be shared. These curricular interventions are generally for first year or second year students enrolled in large-enrollment courses and are implemented to increase STEM retention by allowing students to develop their science identity and research self-efficacy, which have been shown to promote academic success, retention, and persistence of diverse students in STEM. Two of our projects that were developed in Fall 2023 were tested in early Spring 2024 and the students are analyzing the data now as well as preparing posters and manuscripts for submission. One project focus on helping introductory cell and molecular biology students understand gene and mRNA structure using Legos while the other focused on helping introductory biology students understand enzyme biology using a 3D printed model.
Making the Invisible Visible: An interactive online tool to develop visual literacy about DNA
L. Kate Wright and Dina Newman, Rochester Institute of Technology
Project Goal: The overall goal of this research project is to help students develop skills in visual literacy and promote learning about topics in Molecular Biology. To accomplish our goal we will create an interactive, online tool that allows for exploration of DNA at different levels of abstraction and scale.
Biologists use a variety of symbols and shapes, such as lines, letters, and ladders, to represent and communicate about concepts in molecular biology. The DNA Landscape framework (Wright et al., 2022) categorizes these different representations in a 3-by-3 matrix to show variation in representations across scale (nucleotide, gene, and chromosome) and abstraction (very abstract, elements of shape and abstraction, and literal shape). To appropriately interpret and use these varied representations, students need to develop skills in visual literacy. With the help of a game design student, we designed a gamified version of the DNA landscape to help users navigate across the DNA Landscape and build visual literacy skills. One level of the video game involves sorting falling images into buckets as a method of building recognition of varied representations at different scales. This level is somewhat reminiscent of the video puzzle game “Tetris”; as users sort correctly, pieces will fall faster and faster. The second level of the game uses a teeter-totter balance to emphasize equivalence in scale across representations. Users must quickly select two equivalent images to place on either side of a teeter-totter (Figure 1). An incorrect pairing of an image of a “heavier” gene with an image of a “lighter” nucleotide on the opposite side of the balance catapults the nucleotide out of the frame. The third level of the game brings in elements of “whac-a-mole”, in which several DNA representations pop up simultaneously, and users have to quickly decide which of them doesn’t belong and need to be “whacked” with a hammer. This aspect of the game allows users to practice comparing to find conceptual (not superficial) similarities or differences between representations. Together, the digitized and gamified DNA Landscape provide students opportunities to learn conventions of scientific diagrams that are often not explicitly discussed during biology courses, develop visual literacy skills in molecular biology, and assedss their understanding of the many different representations of DNA. Future work will involve focus group observations and interviews with game testers. Long-term goals include development of a plan for widespread dissemination.
Biology Career Videos: Increasing the visibility of diverse scientific career pathways through counterstereotypical scientist role models
Monica P Montoya, Florida State University
Scientists featured in traditional undergraduate educational resources often do not
reflect the diverse identities and backgrounds of contemporary scientists. Importantly,
there are gaps in the degree to which they match the identities of students interacting
with these resources. Compounded with these limitations is a lack of resources where
students can learn about the diverse career pathways that are possible with a degree in
science. We are designing educational videos that highlight diversity in career pathways
and identities within the scientific community by centering scientists’ voices and stories.
Our educational videos will be paired with teaching materials that address standard
course goals for undergraduate biology instruction and lesson plans that guide students
through career exploration. We will partner with faculty at various institutions to test the
efficacy of our educational videos using pre- and post- assessments that evaluate
students’ understanding of diverse careers and pathways in biology and enhanced
relatability of counterstereotypical scientist role models observed in the teaching
materials.
An example of a classroom activity that can be paired with an educational career video featuring the scientist.