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1. Nationally endorsed learning objectives to improve course design in introductory biology

   https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0308545  

   Hennessey, Kelly M; Freeman, Scott (August 2024, PLOS ONE)

   Vallespin, Mc_Rollyn Daquiado (Ed.)

   Introductory biology for majors is one of the most consequential courses in STEM, with annual enrollments of several hundred thousand students in the United States alone. To support increased student success and meet current and projected needs for qualified STEM professionals, it will be crucial to redesign majors biology by using explicit learning objectives (LOs) that can be aligned with assessments and active learning exercises. When a course is designed in this way, students have opportunities for the practice and support they need to learn, and instructors can collect the evidence they need to evaluate whether students have mastered key concepts and skills. Following an iterative process of review, revision, and evaluation, which included input from over 800 biology instructors around the country, we produced a nationally endorsed set of lesson-level LOs for a year-long introductory biology for major’s course. These LOs are granular enough to support individual class sessions and provide instructors with a framework for course design that is directly connected to the broad themes inVision and Changeand the general statements in the BioCore and BioSkills Guides. Instructors can implement backward course design by aligning these community endorsed LOs with daily and weekly learning activities and with formative and summative assessments. 

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2. Evaluating introductory biology student perceptions surrounding the use of integrative cases related to human health for evolution education

   https://doi.org/10.1186/s12052-023-00185-7  

   Filice, David C. S.; Riedy, Joseph J.; Heidemann, Merle K.; Smith, James J.; White, Peter J. T. (April 2023, Evolution: Education and Outreach)

   Abstract BackgroundIn introductory biology classrooms, cell and molecular concepts are often taught separate from those related to evolution and ecology, and usually in completely different courses. Furthermore, many examples used to teach introductory concepts are difficult for students to relate to. To address these issues, we developed curricular materials focused on the topic of breast cancer that: (1) aim to teach students how to integrate the various sub-disciplines of biology, with evolution as the unifying theme, and (2) aim to present course materials using relatable examples such as human health and disease. To assess the potential value of these materials, we asked students to complete a pre-unit and post-unit assessment before and after completing the interactive course unit on breast cancer. ResultsWe found that after learning about breast cancer, students reported that learning about biology in the context of human health made their learning experience easier, more interesting, and more relatable. After the unit, students also rated evolutionary concepts as being more important for understanding human health and disease. ConclusionsThese results have important implications for developing introductory biology curricula that have more personal appeal to students and may thus translate to better learning outcomes, as well as help students better understand the process of evolution as it occurs in humans. 

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3. How students taking introductory biology experience the chemistry content

   https://doi.org/10.1128/jmbe.00111-24  

   Mendez, Lilyan; Rivera, Angelita T; Vasquez, Izabella; Godínez_Aguilar, Alfonso; Owens, Melinda T; Meaders, Clara L (December 2024, Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education)

   Student experiences learning chemistry have been well studied in chemistry courses but less so in biology courses. Chemistry concepts are foundational to introductory biology courses, and student experiences learning chemistry concepts may impact their overall course experiences and subsequent student outcomes. In this study, we asked undergraduate students enrolled in introductory biology courses at a public R1 institution an open-response question asking how their experiences learning chemistry topics affected their identities as biologists. We used thematic analysis to identify common ideas in their responses. We found that while almost half of student respondents cited learning chemistry as having positive impacts on their experiences learning biology, students who struggled with chemistry topics were significantly more likely to have negative experiences learning biology. We also found significant relationships between prior chemistry preparation, student background, and the likelihood of students struggling with chemistry and negative experiences learning biology. These findings emphasize the impact of learning specific content on student psychosocial metrics and suggest areas for biology educators to focus on to support learning and alleviate student stress in introductory biology. 

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4. Increasing Student Motivation and Learning by Adopting the Experiment-Centric Pedagogy: A Case of Undergraduates in Biology

   Adeika, B. (June 2023, ASEE https://peer.asee.org/43669)

   This research is focused on the adoption of an experiment-centric teaching approach to enhance student’s learning, develop their critical thinking skills, and help students better understand the underlying concepts in biology, thereby giving them a better comprehension of how these concepts may be applied in practice as well as facilitating their academic success. Traditional and experiment-centric teaching methods are used to instruct students in four biology courses (BIO 101-W09 Introductory Biology for Non-Major, Bio 103 Introductory Biology for Nursing Major, BIO 109-001 Foundations in Biology, Diversity, and Organismal Systems and Bio 201. Anatomy and Physiology I) taken by first and second-year students. The sensor from a heart rate app is used to conduct and monitor several common experiments in Biology. On phone screens, the data gathered from these experiments can be visualized in real-time. In order to measure the key constructs associated with students’ success (motivation, epistemic and perceptual curiosity, and self-efficacy), data collection was done pre-and post-implementation of the experiments using the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) developed by Pintrich, Smith, García, and McKeachie, in 1991. Also, the Classroom Observation Protocol for Undergraduate STEM (COPUS) was employed to characterize the simultaneous activities of instructors and learners during class sessions. More so, students’ understanding of the course and how they process instructions were evaluated using signature assignments. Data analysis would be conducted using Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS 25.0). This research would carefully investigate the association between students’ motivation and their gender at 95% confidence level. 

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5. What Do Students in Biology Courses Understand and Appreciate About Statistics

   https://doi.org/10.52041/iase.icots11.t7b2  

   Tintle, Nathan; McGaughey, Karen; Chance, Beth (December 2022, Bridging the Gap: Empowering and Educating Today's Learners in Statistics. Proceedings of the Eleventh International Conference on Teaching Statistics)

   Learning standards for biology courses have called for increasing statistics content. Little is known, however, about biology students’ attitudes towards statistics content and what students actually learn about statistics in these courses. This study aims to uncover changes in attitudes and content knowledge in statistics for students in biology courses. One hundred thirty-four introductory biology students across five different instructors participated in a pre-post study of statistical thinking and attitudes toward statistics. Students performed better on the statistics conceptual inventory at the end of a biology course compared to the beginning. Student attitudes showed no change. These preliminary results suggest the potential importance for laying a conceptual foundation in statistics prior to taking biology courses with little formal statistical instruction. 

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