News
Get the latest updates on events, member news, and social media outreach!
August 2020: A Call to Action: Striving for Racial Justice in Academic Biology. This initiative is sponsored by the Society for the Advancement in Biology Education Research (SABER) and is focused on promoting awareness, understanding and commitment to change academic biology environments to be more inclusive and strive for racial justice in STEM Education. This 7-part series includes four discussions and three research seminars with the intended audience of biologists and biology education researchers. All sessions will be virtual and administered through Zoom; sessions will be recorded and posted on the SABER website for viewing. We are excited that speakers will be compensated for their time. This event is co-sponsored by Arizona State University’s HHMI Inclusive Excellence Project, the SEISMIC Collaboration, and University of California Santa Barbara. Find out more here: http://saberbio.wildapricot.org/Diversity_Inclusion
May 2020: Colleges and Universities are scrambling to adapt to teaching remotely. There is a great need for high quality, vetted life science instructional materials that can be taught in an online format. CourseSource is eager to help fill this pressing need (https://www.coursesource.org/news/please-share-your-innovative-online-lessons). If you have developed materials for online or remote instruction, we encourage you to submit them to CourseSource (https://www.coursesource.org/for-authors). Due to the pressing need, CourseSource will expedite the review and revision processes for such submissions.
April 2020: Our wonderful colleague and network leader, Jeff Schinske, has been elected co-Editor in Chief of Life Sciences Education (https://www.ascb.org/society-news/co-editors-chosen-for-cbe-life-sciences-education-journal/) to begin this fall. He will be stepping in with Kimberly Tanner, who has worked with Jeff for many years on projects such as CCB Fest (https://www.sfsusepal.org/programs/ccb-fest/) among others. Jeff and Kimberly will surely continue to bring community college BER to the forefront of the Journal. In addition, each of us at CC Bio INSITES can now pick Jeff's brain if we have interest in submitting to LSE!
March 2020: National Science Foundation’s Division of Undergraduate Education (DUE) is interested in research on the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on undergraduate education. The outbreak has altered undergraduate education in unforeseen ways, including forcing temporary closures and unplanned switches to online classes. DUE thinks that research about the impacts of such responses on students and educators could provide important new knowledge about STEM learning, virtual learning environments, the impact of stress on learning, and many other important topics.
If you are engaged in such research or would like to do so, we encourage you to consider submitting a proposal to any of our relevant funding programs including the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE): EHR program, the IUSE:HSI program, the S-STEM program, the ATE program, the Noyce Program, and the ECR Core research program. (See https://www.nsf.gov/funding/programs.jsp?org=DUE)
Alternatively (or in addition), if you have an urgent research need or opportunity, you may consider submitting proposals via the following funding mechanisms:
1. Submit a Rapid Response Research (RAPID) proposal. See Chapter II.E.1 of the NSF Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide
2. Request supplemental support for your existing award. See Chapter VI.E.4 of the NSF Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide
3. Organize a conference or workshop. See Chapter II.E.7 of the NSF Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide
Possible topics of interest for these funding mechanisms include, but are not limited to, research on the effectiveness of switching from an in-person to a completely online educational format and research on how the outbreak affects student attitudes, interests, and performance in STEM.
Important: You should contact a program officer to explore whether your needs might be appropriate for funding via the RAPID, Supplemental Support, or Conference mechanisms. A list of DUE staff is available at https://www.nsf.gov/staff/staff_list.jsp?org=DUE&from_org=DUE.
March 2020: A note from Sumali Pandey at Minnesota State University Moorhead: My colleagues and I wrote fundamental concepts and example learning outcomes in Immunology that are critical for undergraduate students to comprehend. We are also aligning these statements with core concepts listed in Vision and Change. We would appreciate feedback on these guidelines in Undergraduate Immunology through this survey. The survey consists of 17 questions and takes about 30 minutes to complete. Please use the following link to take the survey: https://mnstate.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_5pD0dPE5fV1QZyB
Events
None at this time
Member News
Sep. 2020. A research article by members Sheela Vemu, Matthew Fisher, and Deb Cole, titled "Identifying Differences in Learning Strategies by Demographics and Course Grade in a Community College Context" was published in the Journal for College Science Teaching.
Feb. 2020. A research article by members Lisa Corwin and Stacey Kiser, titled "Community College Instructors’ Perceptions of Constraints and Affordances Related to Teaching Quantitative Biology Skills and Concepts" was published in CBE—Life Sciences Education.
Oct. 2019: An article by member Mays Imad titled, "Reimagining STEM Education: Beauty, Wonder, and Connection" was published in Liberal Education.
Sept. 2019: A research article by member Kristyn VanderWaal Mills titled "Implementation of Open Textbooks in Community and Technical College Biology Courses: The Good, the Bad, and the Data," was published in CBE - Life Sciences Education.
Sept. 2019: A research article by members Colin Harrison, Shannon Seidel, Sara Cooper, and Jeff Schinske titled "Investigating Instructor Talk in Novel Contexts: Widespread Use, Unexpected Categories, and an Emergent Sampling" was published in CBE - Life Sciences Education.
Aug. 2019: A manuscript Sheela Vemu and Deb Cole titled, "Histology Personal Trainer: Identifying Tissue Types Using Critical Thinking and Metacognition Prompts" was published in Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education.
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We Want to Hear from You!
Do you have news to share? Did you publish a paper, have a picture of you presenting a poster or giving a talk? We want to share with the network! Email your news to Matt Fisher, CC Bio INSITES member and website/social media manager, at matthew.fisher@oregoncoastcc.org.