Biology Commons^™

Aligning Best Practices In Student Success And Career Preparedness: An Exploratory Study To Establish Pathways To Stem Careers For Undergraduate Minority Students, Kimberly D. Kendricks, Anthony A. Arment, K. V. Nedunuri, Cadance A. Lowell

Journal of Research in Technical Careers

Undergraduate minority retention and graduation rates in STEM disciplines is a nationally recognized challenge for workforce growth and diversification. The Benjamin Banneker Scholars Program (BBSP) was a five-year undergraduate study developed to increase minority student retention and graduation rates at an HBCU. The program structure utilized a family model as a vehicle to orient students to the demands of college. Program activities integrated best K-12 practices and workforce skillsets to increase academic preparedness and career readiness. Findings revealed that a familial atmosphere improved academic performance, increased undergraduate research, and generated positive perceptions of faculty mentoring. Retention rates among BBSP participants …

The Effect Of Interactive Notebooks On The Science Proficiency Of Biology 1 Students, Shereka Faye Newson

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Local High School, a pseudonym, located in Northwest Mississippi has in place two differing Biology 1 curricula; in one curriculum, the students use interactive notebooks daily and in the other curriculum, they are not used. The purpose of this ex post facto quasi-experimental study was to investigate the impact that an instructional tool, such as the interactive notebook, could have on student achievement. Instructional design theory and the materials, methods, environment, collaboration, content, and assessment (MMECCA) framework served as the theoretical framework for this study. The standard measure of science proficiency was provided by the test results from the Biology …

Ne Stem 4u Afterschool Intervention Leads To Gains In Stem Content Knowledge For Middle School Youth, Christine E. Cutucache, Taylor Boham, Jamie Luhr, Amie Sommers, Nikolaus Stevenson, Erkko Sointu, Kati Mäkitalo‐Siegl, Sirpa Kärkkäinen, Teemu Valtonen, Neal Grandgenett, William Tapprich

Biology Faculty Publications

Afterschool interventions in STEM are linked to learning gains during the school day. These opportunities engage and excite students about STEM concepts since they observe a more hands-on, project-oriented approach. Often these opportunities for afterschool interventions are infrequent in nature and leave gaps for students in their maturation and understanding. Herein we describe the first report of an afterschool intervention, named NE STEM 4U, targeting socioeconomically disadvantaged middle school youth via a twice weekly, year-long intervention, studied across two years. We assessed the impact of this program on i.) short-term, individual student gains in STEM content knowledge and ii.) delivery …

The Impact Of Online Homework, Time On Homework, Gender, And Metacognition In Improving Student Achievement In Undergraduate Biology Courses, Donald Bishop Cook Jr

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This study sought to address a gap in the literature to determine whether a relationship exists between use of online homework and student achievement in undergraduate biology courses. Previous studies have examined other STEM courses, but few have considered biology. The purpose of the study was to determine whether homework grades in online homework systems can predict student achievement in introductory undergraduate biology courses. This study utilized a correlational analysis by multiple regression using archival data to determine whether final course grades in undergraduate biology courses can be predicted by grades on online homework, time spent on online homework, gender, …

Behavioral Thermoregulation And Thermal Mismatches Influence Disease Dynamics In Amphibians, Erin Louise Sauer

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Amphibians are currently the most threatened vertebra taxa on the planet. Hundreds of species are thought to have gone extinct while thousands more have been listed as threatened or endangered over the past few decades. Habitat loss, invasive species, climate change, and disease are all thought to have partially contributed to these declines. Two pathogens in particular, infectious viruses in the genus Ranavirus (simply referred to as ranavirus) and the fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), have been associated with global mass mortality events of amphibians. Virulent pathogens such as these tend to impose strong selective pressures on their hosts driving the …

Environmental Impact- Using Digital Media To Focus Student Learning, Crystal Randall, Sowmya Anjur, Donald Dosch

Faculty Publications & Research

Environmental issues are global challenges that our students will have to address in their future. Addressing these issues through curriculum helps bring purpose to students’ learning. We have developed a capstone project in our introductory biology class that allows students to engage in these issues in a creative and personalized manner, and which asks students to not only address the biology at the core of these issues but also suggest possible solutions to the problem. In this session, we will share how we scaffold our curriculum to prepare students for this experience, as well as show examples of student work.

Engaging Students In Fundamental Biological Concepts Through Un Sustainability Goals, Sowmya Anjur, Donald Dosch

Faculty Publications & Research

Advanced Biological Systems is year-long introductory biology course for Juniors at IMSA. It is aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development goals, the use of which has been identified as an initiative for curriculum development. These goals help to bring purpose to students’ learning. We have identified three of the seventeen goals as guideposts for our curriculum. These are clean water and sanitation, sustainable cities and communities, and good health and well-being. In this presentation, we will share our curriculum development process and examples of instruction linked to these UN goals.

Engage A Voice, Repress Fatigue; The Coincident Evolution Of Hominin Vocalization And A Metabolic Threshold, Galen A. Morton 9935238, Martin L. Morton

Shared Knowledge Conference

Physiologically self-protective mechanisms borne from hominin evolutionary history that increase survivability are not unknown to science. In reviewing exercise science literature regarding testing and assessment measures of subjects talking while exercising, a logical question has materialized: To what degree has evolution facilitated synchronization of comfortable oral communication with sustainable exercise intensity? An individual able to engage a voice, represses fatigue. The Talk Test, is a practical strategy whereby a subject deliberately speaks during an exercise protocol. It is a common tool in both kinesiology and clinical fields because it inherently identifies a pivotal metabolic threshold. The coincidence of comfortable ability …

Developing A Backup Plan: Implementing A Career-Planning Course For Undergraduate Biology Majors., Julianne M. Winters, Haizhi Wang, Laura E. Duwel, Elizabeth A. Spudich, Jennifer S. Stanford

Department of Pathology, Anatomy, and Cell Biology Faculty Papers

Career-planning courses are known to be effective career interventions for undergraduates, but their effect on developing alternate career plans was previously unknown. Forming alternate career plans increases the likelihood that students have viable career options available to them upon graduation because it encourages students to realistically consider multiple possibilities. Here we describe a one-term career-planning course developed in the context of an undergraduate biology curriculum. We assessed whether this course promoted development of primary and alternate career plans using a pre/post survey. We saw a significant increase in the percentage of students indicating they had plans aimed at achieving primary …

A Cohort-Based Program To Help Students Prepare A Conference Research Presentation, Alanna Lecher

Florida Statewide Symposium: Best Practices in Undergraduate Research

Students move through many first time experiences when navigating their undergraduate and graduate education. Such experiences include the first time students submit an article to a peer-reviewed scientific journal, attend a conference, and conduct fieldwork. The cohort model has been shown to be effective in increasing success in undergraduate education, and it can be adapted to helping students succeed in these novel experiences as well. This presentation will explore one program where the cohort model was implemented to aid undergraduate students preparing their first conference presentation on a scientific research project. Program structure and implementation will be described.

Student Research In Algebraic And Combinatorial Mathematical Biology, Raina Robeva

Annual Symposium on Biomathematics and Ecology Education and Research

No abstract provided.

Tech And Anxiety: How Can Technology Be Used As A Tool In Teaching Quantitative Biology And Impact Teaching Anxieties?, Miranda Chen

Annual Symposium on Biomathematics and Ecology Education and Research

No abstract provided.

Assessment Of Modeling Skills, Robert L. Mayes Dr.

Annual Symposium on Biomathematics and Ecology Education and Research

No abstract provided.

Biomaap: Tackling Biology Students' Math Attitudes And Anxiety With Easily-Adoptable Materials, Arietta E. Fleming-Davies, Jeremy M. Wojdak

Annual Symposium on Biomathematics and Ecology Education and Research

No abstract provided.

Nebraska’S Wildlife Club; Nebraska Honors Program Clc Expanded Learning Opportunity Clubs, Alexandrea E. Otto

Honors Program: Expanded Learning Clubs

The goal of the club is to educate and explore with students the wildlife and nature that surrounds them every day. The main focus was to educate students on wildlife native to Nebraska; ranging all the way from West Nebraska to the wildlife found in cities such as Lincoln.

The Learning Loss Effect In Genetics: What Ideas Do Students Retain Or Lose After Instruction?, Amber Todd, William L. Romine

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Modern genetics is a relatively new domain, but it is increasingly important for students to have a firm grasp on the content, because genetic technologies are becoming more commonplace. In a previous study, we used the Learning Progression-based Assessment of Modern Genetics to assess high school students’ knowledge of genetics concepts after an intensive inquiry-based genetics instructional period. Given that this type of intensive inquiry-based instruction is unique, we are now investigating how students’ knowledge of genetics changes after instruction (i.e., learning loss effect). Using a six-measure longitudinal design, we found that students retained significant gains in five of the …

Set It And Forget It! A Self-Sustaining Semester-Long Literature Assignment For An Undergraduate Genetics Class. Now With A Bonus Reference Game To Emphasize Boolean Operators!, Brian Odom

Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy

Biology is the largest undergraduate major at Wingate University and Molecular Genetics is a required course for all biology majors. Some of the goals of this course are to provide technical training in skills required to function in the modern workforce. In addition to the gaining of molecular laboratory techniques, training in the use of library resources is also included in the laboratory curriculum. This training, taught by the course instructor, is a follow-up to an intensive library introduction provided by reference and instruction Librarians as part of the foundational molecular biology course taken during the freshman year.

This additional …

The Effect Of An Historical Geology Course On Students’ Attitudes Towards Science And Their Knowledge Of Deep Time As A Threshold To Their Knowledge Of Evolution, Allan Nolan

Dissertations

In America there exists a conflict between a small group of its citizens and the concept of evolution. Researchers have studied this conflict and the ways in which teachers might approach educational methodologies that not only address evolution in a sensitive manner, but also remain legally acceptable.

This research was designed to address teaching evolution in the context of deep time – the concept that time is vast and that geology and biology operate in a timescale of hundreds of millions to billions of years. In previous peer-reviewed works, it has been stated that deep time acts as a threshold …

Yeast: The Gateway To Redefining And Improving Biology Labs, Connor Loomis

Biology Summer Fellows

Building off of collegiate research performed during the summer of 2018, this lesson plan outlines a lab for secondary students using yeast. Yeast is an affordable and convenient organism to introduce to secondary education, and students can learn a lot about biology through it. Essentially, the goal of the lab is for students to explore the effects of certain substances on the growth of yeast. While content is emphasized, this lesson plan also looks to build students’ understanding of science in general as well as proper laboratory skills and technique. In addition, it pushes students in their thinking as they …

Rwu Microbiologist Publishes Book On Cell-To-Cell Communication, Jill Rodrigues

Featured News Story

Avelina Espinosa co-authors work on kin discrimination and recognition in unicellular organisms.

Multiple True–False Questions Reveal The Limits Of The Multiple-Choice Format For Detecting Students With Incomplete Understandings, Brian A. Couch, Joanna K. Hubbard, Chad E. Brassil

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

By having students select one answer among several plausible options, multiple-choice (MC) questions capture a student’s preferred answer but provide little information regarding a student’s thinking on the remaining options. We conducted a crossover design experiment in which similar groups of introductory biology students were assigned verbatim questions in the MC format or multiple true–false (MTF) format, which requires students to separately evaluate each option as either true or false. Our data reveal that nearly half of the students who select the correct MC answer likely hold incorrect understandings of the other options and that the selection rates for individual …

Radical Social Ecology As Deep Pragmatism: A Call To The Abolition Of Systemic Dissonance And The Minimization Of Entropic Chaos, Arielle Brender

Student Theses 2015-Present

This paper aims to shed light on the dissonance caused by the superimposition of Dominant Human Systems on Natural Systems. I highlight the synthetic nature of Dominant Human Systems as egoic and linguistic phenomenon manufactured by a mere portion of the human population, which renders them inherently oppressive unto peoples and landscapes whose wisdom were barred from the design process. In pursuing a radical pragmatic approach to mending the simultaneous oppression and destruction of the human being and the earth, I highlight the necessity of minimizing entropic chaos caused by excess energy expenditure, an essential feature of systems that aim …

An Evaluation Of The Bgsu Herpetarium As An Educational Tool, Katherine Herzog

Honors Projects

The goal of this research was to evaluate the impact of the BGSU Herpetarium on students, both as a means of academic success and preparation for the workforce. The Herpetarium offers undergraduate students the chance to volunteer, serve in leadership positions, conduct research, and develop a network of like-minded peers and faculty. Because of the great opportunities for student involvement, we hypothesized that the Herpetarium would prove successful in positively impacting students’ college experiences and leave them better prepared to graduate and take their next steps. To assess these impacts, a variety of qualitative and quantitative data was collected. Six …

Breaking Out From Tradition: Redesign Of Large Physiology Lecture Increases Engagement, Inclusion, And Student Outcomes, Jordyn Dickey, John Redden, Kristen Kimball

Honors Scholar Theses

The human digestive system is a diverse network of cells, tissues, and organs that is regulated by intrinsic (e.g. nervous and endocrine systems) and extrinsic factors (e.g. secretions, pH, and the microbiome). Given the volume of content and the dense physiology involved, this system is difficult for instructors to teach and equally challenging for students to understand. This is especially true in our two-semester Human Anatomy and Physiology course for pre-health students at the University of Connecticut. In the Spring 2017 semester, we developed and implemented an active learning based approach when teaching the histology and regulation of gastric secretions …

Investigating Caffeine Levels In Water Sources In Morehead, Kentucky, Sarah Little, Brandon G. Van Ness

Celebration of Student Scholarship Poster Sessions Archive

No abstract provided.

A Potential New Way To Reduce Bed Bug Infestations: Arthroshield 880, Kristian Sills, Anne Park, Sean O'Keefe

Celebration of Student Scholarship Poster Sessions Archive

No abstract provided.

Enantioselective Cross Aldol Reactions Of Aldehydes, Chase C. Slone, Brandon G. Van Ness

Celebration of Student Scholarship Poster Sessions Archive

No abstract provided.

Potential Celecoxib Analogue Precursors Derived Via Aldol Condensation, Danny J, Stanley, Faith M. Peters, Mark T. Blankenbuehler

Celebration of Student Scholarship Poster Sessions Archive

No abstract provided.

The Effect Of Undergraduate Biology Research Experiences And Mentoring Structures On Student Self-Efficacy, Kyle Harris

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Collaborative inquiry within undergraduate research experiences (UREs) is an effective curriculum tool to support student growth. This study seeks to understand how collaborative inquiry within undergraduate biology student experiences are affected within faculty mentored experiences and non-mentored experiences at a large private southeastern university. Undergraduate biology students engaged in UREs (faculty as mentor and non-mentor experiences) were examined for statistically significant differences in student self-efficacy. Self-efficacy was measured in three subcomponents (thinking and working like a scientist, scientific self-efficacy, and scientific identity) from student responses obtained in an online survey. Responses were analyzed using a nonparametric equivalent of a t …

Biology News, Spring 2018, University Of Northern Iowa. Department Of Biology.

Biology News

Contents:

-- Greetings from Biology
-- Biology Alumni
-- Department News
-- You Can Make a Difference
-- Support for Students