| NSF Org: |
DRL Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings (DRL) |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | August 21, 2014 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | August 21, 2014 |
| Award Number: | 1420320 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Michael Ford
miford@nsf.gov (703)292-5153 DRL Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings (DRL) EDU Directorate for STEM Education |
| Start Date: | September 1, 2014 |
| End Date: | August 31, 2019 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $159,165.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $159,165.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
221 N GRAND BLVD SAINT LOUIS MO US 63103-2006 (314)977-3925 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
MO US 63103-2006 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | REAL |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.076 |
ABSTRACT
The purposes of this study are to promote and understand how undergraduate students learn foundational biology ideas in introductory biology courses. It will implement and study an innovative approach, which has students learn biological explanations by modeling phenomena as biologists do. The approach directs students to think about structures, behaviors and functions in nature, and to write these out and discuss them. This study will explore in detail student reasoning while they do this and how they learn. The project has potential not only to advance the field's ability to measure student competencies that are valued in recent science education standards documents (e.g., NGSS), but also to advance the field's understanding of how student "modeling ability" develops in a particular discipline. In this way, it can provide an important foundation for other research on the learning of modeling practices in science. Moreover, because the innovations take place in an introduction to biology course and introduction to biology is required for a large number of college majors, the project can be transformative for a large number of students across the country.
This study will be conducted in a pre-designed undergraduate biology course across four universities, two public and two private, serving diverse populations. The aims are: (1) propose systems thinking skills needed by biology students, by (a) getting feedback from academics, and reviewing; (2) to examine more closely student thinking during their activities by (a) recording group discussions, (b) conducting clinical interviews with a subset of students, and (c) collecting student drawings in response to different prompts than they have used previously that help the instructors better understand what students are thinking; (3) conduct open-ended comparisons between other assessments and their assessments of student models; (4) compare outcomes when students are provided different visual representations as feedback (split-plot design); and (5) make comparisons between different demographic groups.
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
Intellectual Merit
This project contributed to advance research and generate new knowledge in two important, closely related areas: (1) systems and systems thinking as a potential conceptual framework for biology education, and (2) model-based learning about complex biological systems in undergraduate introductory biology. Modeling is a foundational practice in STEM and a core competency in most science education frameworks. Model-based instruction is particularly conducive to biology teaching and learning because it enables learners to construct, interpret, revise and use external, tangible, simplified representations of living systems. Vision and Change (Brewer and Smith, 2011) frames systems as one of five core concepts, and the ability to use modeling as one of the core competencies that undergraduate biology education should target. With this project, we sought to explicate the mutual interdependence of systems and modeling, and to articulate a framework for undergraduate biology that is grounded in the broader context of systems thinking.
Outcome 1: Developing a Systems Thinking (ST) framework. The underlying principles, goals, and skills associated with ST are not easily defined in the primary literature, partly because different scholarly communities developed their own formulations, each steeped within a unique set of disciplinary values and practices. Our collaborative team explored and mined the cross-disciplinary literature on systems thinking to (a) identify the research communities that have contributed significantly to the general understanding of ST, (b) summarize the specific contributions of these communities to the definition and application of ST, and (c) guide development of a tentative ST framework for undergraduate biology education.
Two manuscripts in preparation illustrate, respectively: (1) the results of our qualitative analysis, aimed at synthesizing the characteristics of ST that are unique to each disciplinary area, and proposing how these characteristics may be relevant to ST in biology and biology education (Trujillo et al., in preparation), and (2) our proposed framework for ST in biology education, in which we identify specific sets of target skills and offer ideas for classroom implementation (Momsen, Bray Speth, Wyse, and Long, in preparation).
Outcome 2: Research findings about model-based teaching and learning. This project built upon our previous research, which focused on analyzing student-generated models as representations of their understanding of the structure and function of biological systems. In this work, we aimed to further investigate how modeling can be implemented in large-enrollment courses (as a type of summative assessment, and as a tool for formative assessment), in ways that are both effective and sustainable.
Significant outcomes of our research (which have been shared at conferences and will be further disseminated through manuscripts) include: (a) classroom assessment data, evidencing how student-generated conceptual models, paired with conventional types of assessment, yield a richer and more nuanced measure of student learning than either assessment type alone; (b) evidence-based classroom implementation practices, including assessment prompts, rubrics, and feedback strategies; and (c) evidence that student performance on high-stakes modeling tasks is strongly associated with their performance on other assessment types, but is mostly independent of a variety of attitudinal characteristics of the learners.
Broader Impacts: This project has generated several opportunities for synergistic activities. To begin with, at least 1000 students at SLU have learned in introductory biology course sections that implemented model-based instructional practices. The intellectual engagement with systems and systems thinking as a framework for biology teaching and learning has translated into an impetus to revise the topic structure and organization of the introductory biology course sequence for majors at SLU. Our new introductory curriculum, grounded within systems principles, is in its second year of successful implementation. Instructional strategies and materials have been disseminated at local and national conferences, and the project PIs have been invited to contribute to an Evidence-Based Teaching Guide on Modeling as a special feature in CBE-Life Sciences Education.
Professional Development: This project provided support for a PhD student who investigated association of students' modeling proficiency with multiple (academic and attitudinal) variables, and served as the context in which several undergraduate students conducted independent research studies. Finally, this project provided the framework and preliminary data that serve as the basis for a second graduate student's dissertation research.
Last Modified: 01/16/2020
Modified by: Elena Bray Speth
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