Incorporating Quantitative Skills into the Undergraduate

Biology Classroom

Melissa L. AikensUniversity of New HampshireMay 26, 2017

2003

2009

2011

What quantitative skills do you want your students to have?

Backward Design Approach to Teaching Quantitative Skills

1) Identify desired results2) Determine acceptable evidence of

student understanding and proficiency3) Plan learning experiences and instruction

Learning Objectives

Assessment Teaching Strategy

Wiggins and McTighe, 1998

1) Learning ObjectivesAt the end of the course, students should be able to…

https://www.cmu.edu/teaching/resources/Teaching/CourseDesign/Objectives/BloomsTaxonomyVerbs.pdf

Resources for Learning Objectives for

Quantitative Skills

• BIO2010• Scientific Foundations for Future Physicians

• Vision and Change • AP Biology Quantitative Skills• Next Generation Science Standards Science and Engineering Practices

Practice 5: Using Mathematics and Computational Thinking

NGSS Lead States, 2013

2) Assessment

How will you know that the students have mastered the learning objective?↳ Align Assessment with Learning Objective

Angelo and Cross, 1993

2) Assessment

How will you know that the students have mastered the learning objective?↳ Align Assessment with Learning Objective

Published (or soon to be published) Assessments

• BioSQuaRE(Stanhope et al., in revision)

• Statistical Reasoning in Biology Concept Inventory(Deane et al., 2016)

• Quantitative Biology Concept Inventory(In development)

• Test of Scientific Literacy Skills (TOSLS)(Gormally et al., 2012)

• Quantitative Literacy and Reasoning Assessment(Gaze et al., 2014)

3) Teaching Strategies

Challenges of teaching quantitative skills

Math aversion: high math anxiety, low self-confidence, general disinterest

Math Averse Students

Hester et al., 2014

Attitudes and Self-beliefs

Motivation Performance

Wigfield and Eccles, 2000; Eccles and Wigfield, 2002

Biology Students’ Math Attitudes

Andrews and Aikens, in prep

Biology Students’ Math Attitudes

Andrews and Aikens, in prep

***

Linear mixed model***p < 0.001; **p < 0.01; *p < 0.05

****

*

Promoting Positive Math Attitudes and Self-beliefs

Example: Figure of the Day

https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisugly/

Promoting Positive Math Attitudes and Self-beliefs

Example: Figure of the DayPromoting interest• Relevant and

personally meaningful contexts

• Humor• Challenge

Increasing self-confidence• Opportunities to

be successful on challenging tasks

https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisugly/

Promoting Positive Math Attitudes and Self-beliefs

Reducing math anxiety• Creating a comfortable learning environment• Expressive writing (Park et al., 2014)

• Teaching growth mindset

NSF IUSE: Jeremy Wojdak & Arietta Fleming-Davies (Radford University)

https://qubeshub.org/groups/biomaap

• Teaching growth mindset• Developing number sense• Metacognition

Your brain is plastic.

Thompson et al., 2010

http://mathbench.umd.edu/index.htmlKären Nelson and Kaci Thompson, University of Maryland

Lots of resources for teaching quantitative skills!

• Figure Facts (Round and Campbell, 2013)

• Math-Biology Manipulatives (Jungck et al., 2010)

• BioQUEST and ESTEEM (http://bioquest.org/)

• Spreadsheets Across the Curriculum (http://serc.carleton.edu/sp/ssac/index.html)

• UMBC Nexus (Hoffman et al., 2016; http://nexus.umbc.edu/)

• Netlogo (http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/index.shtml)

• Data Nuggets (Schultheis and Kjelvik, 2015; http://datanuggets.org/)

• DryadLab (http://datadryad.org/pages/dryadlab)

• HHMI BioInteractive (https://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive)

• National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science (http://sciencecases.lib.buffalo.edu/cs/)

• CourseSource (http://www.coursesource.org)

• TIEE (http://tiee.esa.org/)

https://qubeshub.org/

• Quantitative biology teaching resources• Run mathematical and statistical software directly

from website• Online collaborative spaces for use in teaching or

research• Build user community around an existing project• Mentoring to help make courses more quantitative

Professional Development Opportunities

Summer WorkshopJune 18-23, 2018

Harvey Mudd College

QUBES Faculty Mentoring Networks

Summary

National reports can be used to help guide development of learning objectives.Frequent, low-stakes assessment, aligned with the learning objectives, should be used to determine whether students are mastering learning objectives.Lots of teaching resources on the internet – pick those that complement the content of the course and are likely to engage your set of students.

Quantitative skills are an integral part of the field of biology; therefore they should be an integral part of our biology courses.

Questions?

Acknowledgements

• Sarah Andrews, University of New Hampshire• Nicholas Wakeman, University of New Hampshire• Nijly Vilme, University of New Hampshire• Arietta Fleming-Davies, Radford University

NSF DUE-1640347

ReferencesAAAS (2011). Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education: A Call to Action. Washington, DC: American Association for the Advancement of Science.http://visionandchange.org/files/2013/11/aaas-VISchange-web1113.pdf

AAMC-HHMI (2009). Scientific Foundations for Future Physicians. Washington, DC: Association of American Medical Colleges.https://www.aamc.org/download/271072/data/scientificfoundationsforfuturephysicians.pdf

Angelo, TA, & Cross, KP (1993). Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Deane, T, Nomme, K, Jeffery, E, Pollock, C, & Birol, G (2016). Development of the Statistical Reasoning in Biology Concept Inventory (SRBCI). CBE-Life Sciences Education, 15, ar5.http://www.lifescied.org/content/15/1/ar5.full.pdf+html

Eccles, JS, & Wigfield, A (2002). Motivational beliefs, values, and goals. Annual Review of Psychology, 53, 109-132.

Gaze, EC, Montgomery, A, Kilic-Bahi, S, Leoni, D, Misener, L, & Taylor, C (2014). Towards developing a quantitative literacy/reasoning assessment instrument. Numeracy, 7, 4.http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1153&context=numeracy

Gormally, C, Brickman, P, & Lutz, M (2012). Developing a Test of Scientific Literacy Skills (TOSLS): measuring undergraduates’ evaluation of scientific information and arguments. CBE-Life Sciences Education, 11, 364-377.http://www.lifescied.org/content/11/4/364.full.pdf+html

Jungck, JR, Gaff, H, & Weisstein, AE (2010). Mathematical manipulative models: In defense of “Beanbag Biology”. CBE-Life Sciences Education, 9, 201-211.http://www.lifescied.org/content/9/3/201.full.pdf

ReferencesHester, S, Buxner, S, Elfring, L, Nagy, L (2014). Integrating quantitative thinking into an introductory biology course improves students’ mathematical reasoning in biological contexts. CBE - Life Sciences Education, 13, 54-64.http://www.lifescied.org/content/13/1/54.full.pdf+html

Hoffman, K, Leupen, S, Dowell, K, Kephart, K, & Leips, J (2016). Development and Assessment of Modules to Integrate Quantitative Skills in Introductory Biology Courses. CBE-Life Sciences Education, 15, ar14.http://www.lifescied.org/content/15/2/ar14.full.pdf+html

NGSS Lead States (2013). Next Generation Science Standards: For States, By States. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.https://www.nap.edu/catalog/18290/next-generation-science-standards-for-states-by-states(See Appendix F for Science and Engineering Practices)

NRC (2003). BIO2010: Transforming Undergraduate Education for Future Research Biologists. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.https://www.nap.edu/catalog/10497/bio2010-transforming-undergraduate-education-for-future-research-biologists

Park, D, Ramirez, G, & Beilock, SL (2014). The role of expressive writing in math anxiety. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 20, 103-111.

Round, JE, & Campbell, AM (2013). Figure facts: encouraging undergraduates to take a data-centered approach to reading primary literature. CBE-Life Sciences Education, 12, 39-46.http://www.lifescied.org/content/12/1/39.full.pdf

ReferencesSchultheis, EH, & Kjelvik, MK (2015). Data nuggets. The American Biology Teacher, 77, 19-29.

Stanhope and colleagues. In revision. BioSQuaRE. https://www.macalester.edu/hhmi/biosquare/

Tanner, K, & Allen, D (2004). Approaches to biology teaching and learning: from assays to assessments—on collecting evidence in science teaching. Cell Biology Education, 3, 69-74.http://www.lifescied.org/content/3/2/69.full.pdf+html

The College Board (2012). AP Biology Quantitative Skills: A Guide for Teachers. New York, NY: The College Board.http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/ap/AP_Bio_Quantitative_Skills_Guide-2ndPrinting_lkd.pdf

Thompson, KV, Nelson, KC, Marbach-Ad, G, Keller, M, & Fagan, WF (2010). Online interactive teaching modules enhance quantitative proficiency of introductory biology students. CBE-Life Sciences Education, 9, 277-283.http://www.lifescied.org/content/9/3/277.full.pdf+html

Wigfield, A, Eccles, JS (2000). Expectancy-value theory of achievement motivation. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 25, 68-81.

Wiggins, GP, McTighe, J (1998). Understanding by Design. ASCD, Alexandria, VA.