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Full-Text Articles in Science and Mathematics Education

Seeing Eye To Eye? Comparing Faculty And Student Perceptions Of Biomolecular Visualization Assessments, Josh T. Beckham, Daniel R. Dries, Bonnie L. Hall, Rarchel M. Mitton-Fry, Shelly Engelman, Charmita Burch, Roderico Acevedo, Pamela S. Mertz, Didem Vardar-Ulu, Swati Agrawal, Kristin M. Fox, Shane Austin, Margaret A. Franzen, Henry V. Jakubowski, Walter R. P. Novak, Rebecca Roberts, Alberto I. Roca, Kristen Procko Jan 2024

Seeing Eye To Eye? Comparing Faculty And Student Perceptions Of Biomolecular Visualization Assessments, Josh T. Beckham, Daniel R. Dries, Bonnie L. Hall, Rarchel M. Mitton-Fry, Shelly Engelman, Charmita Burch, Roderico Acevedo, Pamela S. Mertz, Didem Vardar-Ulu, Swati Agrawal, Kristin M. Fox, Shane Austin, Margaret A. Franzen, Henry V. Jakubowski, Walter R. P. Novak, Rebecca Roberts, Alberto I. Roca, Kristen Procko

Chemistry Faculty Publications

While visual literacy has been identified as a foundational skill in life science education, there are many challenges in teaching and assessing biomolecular visualization skills. Among these are the lack of consensus about what constitutes competence and limited understanding of student and instructor perceptions of visual literacy tasks. In this study, we administered a set of biomolecular visualization assessments, developed as part of the BioMolViz project, to both students and instructors at multiple institutions and compared their perceptions of task difficulty. We then analyzed our findings using a mixed-methods approach. Quantitative analysis was used to answer the following research questions: …


Interventions To Increase Stem Retention Of Undergraduate Women: A Literature Review, Josie Braun, Sarah Pille, Majel Baker Aug 2023

Interventions To Increase Stem Retention Of Undergraduate Women: A Literature Review, Josie Braun, Sarah Pille, Majel Baker

Psychology Student Work

The lack of retention of women in STEM majors and careers has been an ongoing issue for years. With stunted percentages of women in participation, representation, interest, pay and more, resolving this problem is necessary. This systematic literature review focuses on interventions that are aiming to increase women’s STEM self-efficacy, performance, sense of belonging, identification, interest, retention, and positivity while decreasing STEM stereotypes and implicit gender biases. Studies were included if they used an experimental or quasi-experimental design in college students within the past 15 years. A total of 26 studies were included in this review. Across the research reviewed, …


Community-Derived Core Concepts For Neuroscience Higher Education, Audrey Chen, Kimberley A. Phillips, Jennifer E. Schaefer, Patrick M. Sonner Jun 2023

Community-Derived Core Concepts For Neuroscience Higher Education, Audrey Chen, Kimberley A. Phillips, Jennifer E. Schaefer, Patrick M. Sonner

Biology Faculty Publications

Core concepts provide a framework for organizing facts and understanding in neuroscience higher education curricula. Core concepts are overarching principles that identify patterns in neuroscience processes and phenomena and can be used as a foundational scaffold for neuroscience knowledge. The need for community-derived core concepts is pressing, because both the pace of research and number of neuroscience programs are rapidly expanding. While general biology and many subdisciplines within biology have identified core concepts, neuroscience has yet to establish a community-derived set of core concepts for neuroscience higher education. We used an empirical approach involving more than 100 neuroscience educators to …


Dual Vocations Of Science And Religion: A Historical Case Study Of Benedictine Women, Diana Fenton Mar 2023

Dual Vocations Of Science And Religion: A Historical Case Study Of Benedictine Women, Diana Fenton

Education Faculty Publications

This study examines Catholic Benedictine sisters who majored in sciences and taught science for over 100 years at the College of Saint Benedict in Saint Joseph, Minnesota, USA. In 1913, the College of Saint Benedict began as a women’s college, expanding Saint Benedict’s Academy, a boarding high school for women. This historical organizational case study analyzed archived data to understand the benefits and challenges of women who lived religious lives and studied science. Although women, in general, are still underrepresented in the sciences, the data collected provides information on how the sisters obtained advanced degrees as early as 1923, well …


Navigating The “Covid Hangover” In Physiology Courses, Jennifer E. Schaefer Jan 2022

Navigating The “Covid Hangover” In Physiology Courses, Jennifer E. Schaefer

Biology Faculty Publications

Undergraduate educators and students must navigate lingering aftereffects of the COVID pandemic on education in the 2021–2022 academic year even as COVID continues to impact delivery of undergraduate science education. This article describes ongoing difficulties for undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) students and educators and suggests strategies and easy-to-use resources that may help educators navigate the “COVID hangover” and ongoing COVID-related disruptions.


Understanding Differences In Underrepresented Minorities And First-Generation Student Perceptions In The Introductory Biology Classroom, Jacob Jantzer, Thomas W. Kirkman, Katherine L. Furniss Dec 2021

Understanding Differences In Underrepresented Minorities And First-Generation Student Perceptions In The Introductory Biology Classroom, Jacob Jantzer, Thomas W. Kirkman, Katherine L. Furniss

Biology Faculty Publications

We used quantitative methods to better understand the perceptions of students in an introductory biology course (Biology 101) at a small, liberal arts college (SLAC) that is also a primarily white institution (PWI). In pre/post surveys, we asked students questions related to their attitudes and beliefs about their professor, classmates, and Biology 101. We were especially interested in the responses and outcomes of underrepresented minorities (URM) and first-generation (FG) students. Our findings suggest URM and FG students have a decreased sense of belonging and increased perceptions of exclusion and differential treatment due to race. These findings can explain, in part, …


Engaging Students In A Bioinformatics Activity To Introduce Gene Structure And Function, Barbara J. May May 2013

Engaging Students In A Bioinformatics Activity To Introduce Gene Structure And Function, Barbara J. May

Biology Faculty Publications

Bioinformatics spans many fields of biological research and plays a vital role in mining and analyzing data. Therefore, there is an ever-increasing need for students to understand not only what can be learned from this data, but also how to use basic bioinformatics tools. This activity is designed to provide secondary and undergraduate biology students to a hands-on activity meant to explore and understand gene structure with the use of basic bioinformatic tools. Students are provided an “unknown” sequence from which they are asked to use a free online gene finder program to identify the gene. Students then predict the …


Undergraduate Students' Self-Reported Use Of Mathematics Textbooks, Aaron Weinberg, Emilie Wiesner, Bret Benesh, Timothy Boester Mar 2012

Undergraduate Students' Self-Reported Use Of Mathematics Textbooks, Aaron Weinberg, Emilie Wiesner, Bret Benesh, Timothy Boester

Mathematics Faculty Publications

Textbooks play an important role in undergraduate mathematics courses and have the potential to impact student learning. However, there have been few studies that describe students' textbook use in detail. In this study, 1156 undergraduate students in introductory mathematics classes were surveyed, and asked to describe how they used their textbook. The results indicate that students tend to use examples, instead of the expository text, to build their mathematical understanding, which instructors may view as problematic. This way of using the textbook may be the result of the textbook structure itself, as well as students' beliefs about reading and the …


The Council On Undergraduate Research As A Resource For Mathematicians, Thomas Q. Sibley Aug 2007

The Council On Undergraduate Research As A Resource For Mathematicians, Thomas Q. Sibley

Mathematics Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Undergraduates' Use Of Mathematics Textbooks, Bret Benesh, Tim Boester, Aaron Weinberg, Eimilie Wiesner Jan 2006

Undergraduates' Use Of Mathematics Textbooks, Bret Benesh, Tim Boester, Aaron Weinberg, Eimilie Wiesner

Mathematics Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.