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Introducing PHAGES Students to Primary Literature

The ‘Introducing PHAGES Students to Primary Literature’ set of teaching resources offers faculty 2 distinct sets of teaching resources for introducing students to scientific literature in the classroom.

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Julie Merkle onto SEA-PHAGES

Giant tortoise found in Galápagos a species considered extinct a century ago

"Ecuador has confirmed that a giant tortoise found in 2019 in the Galápagos Islands is a species considered extinct a century ago.

The Galápagos national park is preparing an expedition to search for more of the giant tortoises in an attempt to save the species."

 source: Giant tortoise found in Galápagos a species considered extinct a century ago | Galápagos Islands | The Guardian

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Sam S Donovan onto Galapagos Biology

Macromolecular math

This worksheet was developed for use in an introductory biology course to review the chemical bonds and structure of biological macromolecules. A nutritional label is provided to illustrate that we consume macromolecules in our foods.

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Keith A. Johnson onto Introductory biology

Exploring Health Inequities and Redlining

For this assignment, students will investigate relationships between historic redlining data and modern statistics of human health.

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Structure Matters: Twenty-One Teaching Strategies to Promote Student Engagement and Cultivate Classroom Equity

Below are 21 simple teaching strategies that biology instructors can use to promote student engagement and cultivate classroom equity. To provide a framework for how these teaching strate- gies might be most useful to instructors, I have organized them into five sections, representing overarching goals instructors may have for their classrooms, including:

  • Giving students opportunities to think and talk about biology

  • Encouraging, demanding, and actively managing the participation of all students

  • Buildinganinclusiveandfairclassroomcommunityforall students

  • Monitoring behavior to cultivate divergent biological thinking  

  • Teaching all of the students in your biology classroom

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A Summary of Inclusive Pedagogies for Science Education

In this paper, we offer a brief review of six pedagogical and theoretical approaches used in education and science education that we grouped as inclusive pedagogies. Though not an exhaustive list, these pedagogies are more commonly used in educational research and have commonalities yet are distinctive in some ways. They collectively contribute to making science teaching and learning more inclusive to a broader population of learners, such as students from diverse cultural, linguistic, and social backgrounds and students with physical and learning differences who have traditionally been marginalized in learning science. Furthermore, these inclusive pedagogies aim to decrease educational inequities and raise the level of academic rigor and access for all students. Finally, we discuss ways these inclusive pedagogies can be extended to address reform efforts in science education.

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Signaling Inclusivity in Undergraduate Biology Courses through Deliberate Framing of Genetics Topics Relevant to Gender Identity, Disability, and Race

The study of genetics centers on how encoded information in DNA underlies similarities and differences between individuals and how traits are inherited. Genetics topics covered in a wide variety of undergraduate biology classrooms can relate to various identities held by students such as gender identity, disability, and race/ethnicity, among others. An in- structor’s sensitive approaches and deliberate language choices regarding these topics has the potential to make the critical difference between welcoming or alienating students and can set a tone that communicates to all students the importance of diversity. Separating the sperm/egg binary from gendered terms in coverage of inheritance patterns, along with inclusion of transgender people in pedigree charts, may make the classroom more wel- coming for students of diverse gender identities. Choosing nonstigmatizing language and acknowledging disability identities in discussions of genetic conditions may help students with visible and invisible disabilities feel validated. Counteracting genetics-based pseudo- scientific racism and the stereotype threat to which it contributes may be facilitated by more thorough integration of quantitative and population genetics topics. Instructors may thus potentially enhance retention of students of diverse backgrounds in biology through careful consideration and crafting of how human differences are described and connected with principles of genetics.

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Understanding what STEM mentoring ecosystems need to thrive: A STEM-ME framework

Abstract: 

Racial and gender disparities persist in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) despite decades of mentoring interventions to improve recruitment and retention. We offer a STEM Mentoring Ecosystems (STEM-ME) framework to better situate, understand, and advance the mentoring systems that are needed to bring about change. We outline a STEM-ME framework, which we argue require shifts in perspective, expanding beyond individual mentees and mentors, as well as specialized mentoring programs, to analyze the mentoring ecosystems within which STEM mentoring operates. Next, we use this framework to examine and critique current mentoring infrastructure and mentor preparation; this includes an inventory of assets and gaps as pertaining to faculty, students, and administrators as mentors. Then, we examine how silos could be more synergistic, which new structures are needed, who and where the ecological stewards are, and implications for systems change. How the STEM-ME framework informs future empirical research and practice is discussed.

 

Reflection: This resource poses specific questions regarding what we should consider as we look to re-envisioning mentoring for Black STEM students at the national, institutional, and local mentoring networks 

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Teacher Leadership - Focusing on Personal and Collective Action Through Book Clubs

This is a curated list of reading materials by Dr. Felicia Mensah that can help foster interpersonal growth and development as a teacher looking to engage in advocacy and activism for racially minoritzed students. 

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SYLLABUS REVIEW GUIDE FOR EQUITY-MINDED PRACTICE

The Syllabus Review Guide is comprised of six parts that provide the conceptual knowledge and practical know-how to conduct equity-minded self-reflection on an essential document in academic life: the syllabus. Throughout the Guide are examples that illustrate the ideas motivating syllabus review, as well opportunities to practice inquiry and to reflect on how to change your syllabi—and your teaching more generally—so are more equity-minded.

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2021 EDSIN February Community Call

Drs. Nate Emery, Drew Hasley, and Ellen Bledsoe presented and led a conversation on their recent publication: Cultivating inclusive instructional and research environments in ecology and evolutionary science. Specifically, they focused on the following:

  • The motivation for and development of the publication
  • Overarching themes of: Empathy, Flexibility, and Growth Mindset
  • Inclusive teaching practices (e.g. group learning, names/pronouns, syllabi and norms, and increased representation)
  • Inclusive lab culture (e.g. recruitment practices, interpersonal interactions, and cultural norms)
  • Inclusive fieldwork (e.g. advance prep, code of conduct, cost barriers, and accessibility)

Recorded on February 4, 2021. 

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Alycia Crall onto Community Calls

2021 EDSIN April Community Call

The Academic Data Science Alliance, an EDSIN network contributor, joined us to present on the work of ADSA's Ethics Working Group. They have been re-imagining the Data Science Lifecycle to incorporate ethical considerations into each stage of the data science workflow. Presentation was recorded on April 1, 2021. 

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Alycia Crall onto Community Calls

Understanding COVID-19 Biology to Design a Vaccine

This multi-part case study introduces the reader to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, replication, and treatment. Additional worksheets introduce students to bioinformatics tools of 3-D protein visualization and BLAST searches.

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Keith A. Johnson onto Genetics

Some questions to ask the featured scientists

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Pratima Jindal onto Resources

Dei statments examples for syllabi and tenure and promotion links

Contains a few examples from web search

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Pat Marsteller onto DEI statements resource

Professor Asmeret Berhe

Professor Asmeret Berhe at the University of California, Merced, 

Professor Berhe works at the intersection of soil, climate change, and political ecology.  

 

Dr. Berhe is an advocate for women in science and renowned in addressing racism in the field of earth science, geoscience, and soil science, etc. Here are a few examples of her advocacy and global impact work: Race and Racism in Soil Science, Women in Soil Science, and Ten Simple Rules to build an antiracist lab. Dr. Berhe received multiple prestigious awards and honors including Joanne Simpson Medal from the American Geophysical Union., 2020; Great Immigrants Award, Carnegie Corporation of New York, 2020; Randolph W. “Bill” and Cecile T. Bromery Award, Geological Society of America, 2019; and New Voices in Science, Engineering, and Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, 2018. Her TED Talk (A climate change solution that is right under our feet) has been viewed over 1.9 million times

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Examples of LO before and after

This is a file from a site previously mentioned but clearly illusstrates examples

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Pat Marsteller onto Writing good Learning Objectives

Bloom's and LO

Great short article on tips for writing LO and examples

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Pat Marsteller onto Writing good Learning Objectives

Towards a clearer understanding of student disadvantage in higher education: problematising deficit thinking

Abstract: The increased diversity in the student body resulting from massification poses particular challenges to higher education. This article engages the uncritical use of the ‘disadvantage’ discourse and its effect on pedagogy. It explores some of the challenges of coping with student diversity, with particular reference to the South African context. Students enter higher education institutions with a variety of educational backgrounds, not all of which are considered to be sufficient preparation for the demands of higher education. The dominant thinking in higher education attempts to understand student difficulty by framing students and their families of origin as lacking some of the academic and cultural resources necessary to succeed in what is presumed to be a fair and open society. This constitutes a deficit thinking model: it focuses on inadequacies of students and aims to ‘fix’ this problem. In the process the impact of structural issues is often ignored or minimised. Employing a deficit mindset to frame student difficulties perpetuates stereotypes, alienates students from higher education and disregards the role of higher education in perpetuating the barriers to student success. In the process, universities replicate the educational stratification of societies. This article suggests that we need to find more suitable responses to diversity in the student body. These require a change in our way of thinking: we need thoughtfully to consider the readiness of higher education institutions to respond to students and to cultivate the will to learn in students. We need to find ways to research the full texture of the student experience and to value the pre-higher education contexts from which students come. In addition, the notion of ‘at risk’ students

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From Deficiency to Strength: Shifting the Mindset about Education Inequality

Abstract:

The “achievement gap” as a symptom of persistent social inequity has plagued American education and society for decades. The vast chasm in academic achievement has long existed along racial and poverty lines. Children of color and from low-income families have, on average, performed worse on virtually all indicators of academic success: standardized test scores, high school graduation rates, and college matriculation rates. This gap perpetuates the existing inequalities in society. Efforts to close the achievement gap have had little effect. The gap remains and has actually widened. This article argues the gap is symptomatic of the deficit-driven education paradigm. Fixing the traditional paradigm is unlikely to close the gap because the paradigm reinforce and reproduces educational and social inequity by design. To work toward more educational and social equity, we need to adopt a different paradigm of education. The new paradigm should work on cultivating strengths of individual students instead of fixing their deficits.

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Mentoring Through the Transitions: Voices on the Verge

Descriptions of how to support students through critical transitions in which culture changes (e.g., high school to college, community college to four-year institution). Collection of case studies and perspectives:

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED592380.pdf

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