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Creators/Authors contains: "Smith, Michelle K."

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  1. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ( , Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education)
    Wright, L. Kate (Ed.)
    ABSTRACT Undergraduate genetics courses have historically focused on simple genetic models, rather than taking a more multifactorial approach where students explore how traits are influenced by a combination of genes, the environment, and gene-by-environment interactions. While a focus on simple genetic models can provide straightforward examples to promote student learning, they do not match the current scientific understanding and can result in deterministic thinking among students. In addition, undergraduates are often interested in complex human traits that are influenced by the environment, and national curriculum standards include learning objectives that focus on multifactorial concepts. This research aims to discover to what extent multifactorial genetics is currently being assessed in undergraduate genetics courses. To address this, we analyzed over 1,000 assessment questions from a commonly used undergraduate genetics textbook; published concept assessments; and open-source, peer-reviewed curriculum materials. Our findings show that current genetics assessment questions overwhelmingly emphasize the impact of genes on phenotypes and that the effect of the environment is rarely addressed. These results indicate a need for the inclusion of more multifactorial genetics concepts, and we suggest ways to introduce them into undergraduate courses. 
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  2. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ( , CourseSource)
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  3. ; ; ; ; ( , PLOS ONE)
    Pamucar, Dragan (Ed.)
    Critical thinking is the process by which people make decisions about what to trust and what to do. Many undergraduate courses, such as those in biology and physics, include critical thinking as an important learning goal. Assessing critical thinking, however, is non-trivial, with mixed recommendations for how to assess critical thinking as part of instruction. Here we evaluate the efficacy of assessment questions to probe students’ critical thinking skills in the context of biology and physics. We use two research-based standardized critical thinking instruments known as the Biology Lab Inventory of Critical Thinking in Ecology (Eco-BLIC) and Physics Lab Inventory of Critical Thinking (PLIC). These instruments provide experimental scenarios and pose questions asking students to evaluate what to trust and what to do regarding the quality of experimental designs and data. Using more than 3000 student responses from over 20 institutions, we sought to understand what features of the assessment questions elicit student critical thinking. Specifically, we investigated (a) how students critically evaluate aspects of research studies in biology and physics when they are individually evaluating one study at a time versus comparing and contrasting two and (b) whether individual evaluation questions are needed to encourage students to engage in critical thinking when comparing and contrasting. We found that students are more critical when making comparisons between two studies than when evaluating each study individually. Also, compare-and-contrast questions are sufficient for eliciting critical thinking, with students providing similar answers regardless of if the individual evaluation questions are included. This research offers new insight on the types of assessment questions that elicit critical thinking at the introductory undergraduate level; specifically, we recommend instructors incorporate more compare-and-contrast questions related to experimental design in their courses and assessments. 
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  4. ; ( , CourseSource)
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  5. ; ; ; ( , Frontiers in Education)
    Open Educational Resources (OER) are widely used instructional materials that are freely available and promote equitable access. OER research at the undergraduate level largely focuses on measuring student experiences with using the low cost resources, and instructor awareness of resources and perceived barriers to use. Little is known about how instructors work with materials based on their unique teaching context. To explore how instructors engage with OER, we surveyed users of CourseSource , an open-access, peer-reviewed journal that publishes lessons primarily for undergraduate biology courses. We asked questions aligned with the OER life cycle, which is a framework that includes the phases: Search , Evaluation , Adaptation , Use , and Share . The results show that OER users come from a variety of institution types and positions, generally have positions that focus more on teaching than research, and use scientific teaching practices. To determine how instructors engage throughout the OER life cycle, we examined the frequency of survey responses. Notable trends include that instructors search and evaluate OER based on alignment to course needs, quality of the materials, and ease of implementation. In addition, instructors frequently modify the published materials for their classroom context and use them in a variety of course environments. The results of this work can help developers design current and future OER repositories to better coincide with undergraduate instructor needs and aid content producers in creating materials that encourage implementation by their colleagues. 
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  6. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ( , BioScience)
    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. 
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  7. ; ; ; ( , Ecology and Evolution)
    Abstract

    Critical thinking, which can be defined as the evidence‐based ways in which people decide what to trust and what to do, is an important competency included in many undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses. To help instructors effectively measure critical thinking, we developed the Biology Lab Inventory of Critical Thinking in Ecology (Eco‐BLIC), a freely available, closed‐response assessment of undergraduate students' critical thinking in ecology. The Eco‐BLIC includes ecology‐based experimental scenarios followed by questions that measure how students decide on what to trust and what to do next. Here, we present the development of the Eco‐BLIC using tests of validity and reliability. Using student responses to questions and think‐aloud interviews, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the Eco‐BLIC at measuring students' critical thinking skills. We find that while students generally think like experts while evaluating what to trust, students' responses are less expert‐like when deciding on what to do next.

     
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  8. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ( , CourseSource)
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  9. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ( , International Journal of STEM Education)
    Abstract Background

    The first day of class helps students learn about what to expect from their instructors and courses. Messaging used by instructors, which varies in content and approach on the first day, shapes classroom social dynamics and can affect subsequent learning in a course. Prior work established the non-content Instructor Talk Framework to describe the language that instructors use to create learning environments, but little is known about the extent to which students detect those messages. In this study, we paired first day classroom observation data with results from student surveys to measure how readily students in introductory STEM courses detect non-content Instructor Talk.

     Results

    To learn more about the instructor and student first day experiences, we studied 11 introductory STEM courses at two different institutions. The classroom observation data were used to characterize course structure and use of non-content Instructor Talk. The data revealed that all instructors spent time discussing their instructional practices, building instructor/student relationships, and sharing strategies for success with their students. After class, we surveyed students about the messages their instructors shared during the first day of class and determined that the majority of students from within each course detected messaging that occurred at a higher frequency. For lower frequency messaging, we identified nuances in what students detected that may help instructors as they plan their first day of class.

     Conclusions

    For instructors who dedicate the first day of class to establishing positive learning environments, these findings provide support that students are detecting the messages. Additionally, this study highlights the importance of instructors prioritizing the messages they deem most important and giving them adequate attention to more effectively reach students. Setting a positive classroom environment on the first day may lead to long-term impacts on student motivation and course retention. These outcomes are relevant for all students, but in particular for students in introductory STEM courses which are often critical prerequisites for being in a major.

     
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  10. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; et al ( , Psychological Science in the Public Interest)
    null (Ed.)
    The construct of active learning permeates undergraduate education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), but despite its prevalence, the construct means different things to different people, groups, and STEM domains. To better understand active learning, we constructed this review through an innovative interdisciplinary collaboration involving research teams from psychology and discipline-based education research (DBER). Our collaboration examined active learning from two different perspectives (i.e., psychology and DBER) and surveyed the current landscape of undergraduate STEM instructional practices related to the modes of active learning and traditional lecture. On that basis, we concluded that active learning—which is commonly used to communicate an alternative to lecture and does serve a purpose in higher education classroom practice—is an umbrella term that is not particularly useful in advancing research on learning. To clarify, we synthesized a working definition of active learning that operates within an elaborative framework, which we call the construction-of-understanding ecosystem. A cornerstone of this framework is that undergraduate learners should be active agents during instruction and that the social construction of meaning plays an important role for many learners, above and beyond their individual cognitive construction of knowledge. Our proposed framework offers a coherent and actionable concept of active learning with the aim of advancing future research and practice in undergraduate STEM education. 
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