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Abstract Undergraduate STEM lecture courses enroll hundreds who must master declarative, conceptual, and applied learning objectives. To support them, instructors have turned to active learning designs that require students to engage inself-regulated learning(SRL). Undergraduates struggle with SRL, and universities provide courses, workshops, and digital training to scaffold SRL skill development and enactment. We examined two theory-aligned designs of digital skill trainings that scaffold SRL and how students’ demonstration of metacognitive knowledge of learning skills predicted exam performance in biology courses where training took place. In Study 1, students’ (n = 49) responses to training activities were scored for quality and summed by training topic and level of understanding. Behavioral and environmental regulation knowledge predicted midterm and final exam grades; knowledge of SRL processes did not. Declarative and conceptual levels of skill-mastery predicted exam performance; application-level knowledge did not. When modeled by topic at each level of understanding, declarative knowledge of behavioral and environmental regulation and conceptual knowledge of cognitive strategies predicted final exam performance. In Study 2 (n = 62), knowledge demonstrated during a redesigned video-based multimedia version of behavioral and environmental regulation again predicted biology exam performance. Across studies, performance on training activities designed in alignment with skill-training models predicted course performances and predictions were sustained in a redesign prioritizing learning efficiency. Training learners’ SRL skills –and specifically cognitive strategies and environmental regulation– benefited their later biology course performances across studies, which demonstrate the value of providing brief, digital activities to develop learning skills. Ongoing refinement to materials designed to develop metacognitive processing and learners’ ability to apply skills in new contexts can increase benefits.
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Triage and Recovery of STEM Laboratory Skills
ABSTRACT The global COVID-19 pandemic left universities with few options but to turn to remote learning. With much effort, STEM courses made this change in modality; however, many laboratory skills, such as measurement and handling equipment, are more difficult to teach in an online learning environment. A cohort of instructors who are part of the NSF RCN-UBE funded Sustainable, Transformative Engagement across a Multi-Institution/Multidisciplinary STEM (STEM 2 ) Network (a working group of faculty from two community colleges and three 4-year universities) analyzed introductory biology and chemistry courses to identify essential laboratory skills that students will need in advanced courses. Seven essential laboratory proficiencies were derived from reviewing disciplinary guiding documents such as AAAS’s Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education, the American Society for Microbiology’s Recommended Curriculum Guidelines for Undergraduate Microbiology Education , and the American Chemical Society’s Guidelines for Chemistry : data analysis, scientific writing, proper handling and disposal of laboratory materials, discipline-specific techniques, measurement, lab safety and personal protective equipment, and interpersonal and collaborative skills. Our analysis has determined that some of these skills are difficult to develop in a remote online setting but could be recovered with appropriate interventions. Skill recovery procedures suggested are a skills “boot camp,” department and college coordinated club events, and a triage course. The authors recommend that one of these three recovery mechanisms be offered to bridge this skill gap and better prepare STEM students for upper-level science courses and the real world.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1919614
- PAR ID:
- 10285875
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education
- Volume:
- 22
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 1935-7877
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1128/jmbe.v22i1.2565
