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Northwest Biosciences Consortium

Workshop Overview

The issue: Students completing the introductory biology sequence face an array of challenges as they transfer from lower to upper division courses. Many start at one college and move to another (horizontal transfer) and all move from introductory courses to advanced courses (vertical transfer).  Their success is often dependent on obtaining a solid and relevant foundation of skills and knowledge in the intro sequence, but determining what is and should be in these courses is challenging when different faculty from different departments and even different colleges are involved. Indeed, the reality is that faculty teaching intro courses do so for “many masters” whether their students transfer horizontally or vertically.

Objective: We will bring faculty, staff, administrators, and state-wide officers together for a two-day workshop to identify articulation issues and solutions, discuss college and state-wide initiatives relevant to biology articulation and move forward to establish a consensus of foundational skills, knowledge, and abilities for all students moving from intro to upper division biology programs.

Daily Outcomes

Friday

  1. Introduce faculty to the issues and initiatives surrounding articulation both amongst and within institutions
  2. Identify some successful means of addressing articulation issues both amongst and within institutions
  3. Develop ideas to address articulation issues within the region

Saturday

  1. Share learning outcomes from around the state and region.
  2. Develop a set of consensus learning outcomes for the introductory biology sequence
 

Daily Agendas (subject to revision)

Friday

8:00 am Breakfast

9:00 am  Introduction to workshop and case studies about transfer and articulation student success challenges

10:00 am  Panelist introductions

Disaggregated panel: panelists rotate around tables for 10 minute discussions

Panelists:

  • Shaun Pollack and Julia Steinberger from Oregon Higher Education Coordinating Commission (HECC)
  • Brock McLeod (OSU) Lead Academic Advisor, Department of Integrative Biology
  • Carol Pollock (University of British Columbia) NW PULSE leader, professor Dept. of Zoology
  • Alexa Clemens (University of Washington) developer of the new BIOSKILLS Guide for Vision and Change Core Competencies
  • Stacey Kiser – (Lane Community College and National Association of Biology Teachers) Introductory Biology Taskforce
  • Martin Storksdieck (OSU) Director, Center for Research on Lifelong STEM Learning

11:45 am  Full panel Q&A

12:30 pm  Lunch (some panelists available through lunch)

1:30 pm  Teams develop plans for resolving Case Studies, create poster

3:30 pm  Carousel Poster Session of case study solutions (we expect some solutions to emerge and that they can be implemented at their home institutions).

4:15- 4:30 pm   Wrap-up Logistics

Saturday

8:00 am  Breakfast

8:30 am  Introduction and Saturday goals

10:30 am  Biology content subdiscipline groups draft learning outcomes for Introductory Biology sequence

12:00 pm  Lunch

1:00 pm   Jigsaw groups and feedback on content learning outcomes

2:30 pm  Revise learning outcomes based on feedback from jigsaw groups in subdiscipline groups

3:30 pm  Share out

4:15 - 4:30 pm  Wrap-up