An official website of the United States government
The number of African American females participating in cyber fields is significantly low. Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education requires a new approach to student engagement to increase African American female participation in cybersecurity. The most common approach to engaging more African American females in STEM is to provide students access to professional images or role models active in STEM; however, more is needed. More race-centered strategies beyond role modeling are necessary to attract and retain African American females in STEM. Research studies show that integrating personal experiences and making cultural connections can help improve student participation in STEM from underrepresented populations. In 2021, faculty in the Center for Cybersecurity Assurance and Policy at Morgan State University developed and implemented the GenCyber ‘‘Females are Cyber Stars’’ (FACS) Summer Camp. This initiative targeted female African American students in Baltimore public middle schools. Thirty-nine girls participated in the virtual program during the summer of 2021, and 25 girls engaged in the in-person program during the summer of 2022. The program’s goals were to increase female students’ interest in cybersecurity and exposure to the security of IoT (Internet of Things) devices in a smart home environment. The GenCyber FACS Summer Camp incorporated culturally responsive strategies to engage the participants in an inclusive and interactive setting. Participants were given pre- and post-program surveys to assess learning outcomes and examine the impact of using culturally responsive teaching strategies. The results showed that the girls reported increased knowledge and a gain in interest in cybersecurity and computing. This paper discusses the summer program and curriculum, culturally responsive teaching strategies deployed, student learning outcomes, and perceptions of cultural responsiveness assessed in the GenCyber FACS Summer Camp.
more »
« less
A Culturally Responsive Curricular Revision to Improve Engagement and Learning in an Undergraduate Microbiology Lab Course
We seek to increase student engagement and success to subsequently lead to increased retention and degree attainment for students at our Hispanic-serving institution. We hypothesized that using a culturally responsive approach in an undergraduate microbiology lab would increase engagement and learning gains. Using a culturally responsive approach allowed students to start their learning from their own place of understanding—centering students’ lived experiences. Students interviewed family members to learn about “home remedies,” and then devised experiments to test whether those home remedies affected growth of bacteria commonly implicated in gastrointestinal distress (Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus, and Escherichia coli) or sore throat (Neisseria gonorrhoeae, Streptococcus pyogenes, and Mycoplasma pneumoniae). As a final assessment, students generated project posters which they presented at a class symposium. Implementation of a culturally responsive research experience focused on the gut microbiome resulted in increased learning gains as evidenced by movement up Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy Scale. Student feedback indicated increased engagement, increased confidence in communicating science and a deeper understanding and appreciation for microbiology. Taken together, the results indicate that students appreciate a more culturally responsive and student-centered approach to learning in microbiology and encourages expansion of this approach to other modules in the course. This paper includes responsive data to support this claim, as well as a sample course calendar and supplementary learning material to support the human microbiome approach to microbiology
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 1953465
- PAR ID:
- 10318310
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Frontiers in microbiology
- ISSN:
- 1664-302X
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Yeong, Foong May (Ed.)ABSTRACT Microbiology courses are often designed as either a lecture class with a laboratory component or a seminar-style class. Each type of course provides students with unique learning opportunities. Lab courses allow students to perform simple experiments that relate to fundamental concepts taught in the corresponding lectures, while seminar courses challenge students to read and discuss primary literature. Microbiology courses offering a combination of seminar-style discussions and laboratory procedures are rare. Our goal in the “Microbial Diversity and Pathogenesis” undergraduate course is to integrate experiences of a seminar class with those of a discovery-driven lab course, thereby strengthening students’ learning experiences through diversified didactic approaches. In the first half of the course, students read and discuss published peer-reviewed articles that cover major topics in both basic and applied microbiology, including antibiotic resistance, pathogenesis, and biotechnology applications. Complementing this primary literature, students perform microbiology experiments related to the topics covered in the readings. The assigned readings, discussions, and experiments provide a foundation in the second half of the course for inquiry-based exploratory research using student-designed transposon screens and selections. The course culminates in each student drafting a hypothesis-driven research proposal based on their literature review, their learned experimental techniques, and the preliminary data generated as a class. Through such first-hand experimental experience, students gain fundamental lab skills that are applicable beyond the realm of microbiology, such as sterile technique and learning how to support conclusions with scientific evidence. We observed a tremendous synergy between the seminar and lab aspects of our course. This unique didactic experience allows students to understand and connect primary literature to their experiments, while the discovery-driven aspect of this approach fosters active engagement of students with scientific research.more » « less
-
ABSTRACT As a validated assessment, the Microbiology for Health Sciences Concept Inventory (MHSCI) is a valuable tool to evaluate student progress in health sciences microbiology courses. In this brief analysis, we survey MHSCI faculty users and report student MHSCI scores to determine the impact on student learning gains of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent quarantine in spring 2020. Although a majority of students reported moving to a fully online lecture and lab microbiology course in the spring 2020 semester, there was no statistically significant impact on student outcomes reported by the MHSCI, and by some measures, student learning gains increased in the semester students moved to online learning. Further research is necessary to determine the continuing impact of online lecture/lab courses on student outcomes on the MHSCI. Our analysis of data from spring 2020 shows that the MHSCI is still a statistically reliable measure of student misconceptions and overall difficulty scores for each item on the MHSCI was unchanged due to the pandemic.more » « less
-
ABSTRACT We previously developed and assessed “The Art of Microbiology,” a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) which uses agar art to spur student experimentation, where we found student outcomes related to science persistence. However, these outcomes were not correlated with specific activities and gains were not reported from more than one class. In this study, we explored which of the three major activities in this CURE—agar art, experimental design, or poster presentations—affected student engagement and outcomes associated with improved understanding of the nature of science (NOS). The Art of Microbiology was studied in three microbiology teaching laboratories: at a research university with either the CURE developer (18 students) or a CURE implementer (39 students) and at a community college with a CURE implementer (25 students). Our quasi-experimental mixed methods study used pre/post-NOS surveys and semi-structured class-wide interviews. Community college students had lower baseline NOS responses but had gains in NOS similar to research university students post-CURE. We surveyed research university students following each major activity using the Assessing Student Perspective of Engagement in Class Tool (ASPECT) survey but did not find a correlation between NOS and activity engagement. Of the three activities, we found the highest engagement with agar art, especially in the CURE developer class. Interviewed students in all classes described agar art as a fun, relevant, and low-stakes assignment. This work contributes to the evidence supporting agar art as a curricular tool, especially in ways that can add research to classrooms in and beyond the research university.more » « less
-
Abstract Field courses provide transformative learning experiences that support success and improve persistence for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics majors. But field courses have not increased proportionally with the number of students in the natural sciences. We conducted a scoping review to investigate the factors influencing undergraduate participation in and the outcomes from field courses in the United States. Our search yielded 61 articles, from which we classified the knowledge, affect, behavior, and skill-based outcomes resulting from field course participation. We found consistent reporting on course design but little reporting on demographics, which limits our understanding of who takes field courses. Cost was the most commonly reported barrier to student participation, and knowledge gains were the most commonly reported outcome. This scoping review underscores the need for more rigorous and evidence-based investigations of student outcomes in field courses. Understanding how field courses support or hinder student engagement is necessary to make them more accessible to all students.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2020.577852
