This workshop will assist participants in contributing to meaningful efforts to foster evidence-based curricular change around improving quantitative reasoning in biology. Vision & Change highlighted the importance of quantitative reasoning for 21st-century biologists. As biology departments work to implement curricular changes there are natural questions that arise about the impact of these changes on student learning. Yet, too often questions of assessment begin and end with individual students. Also, several instruments have been developed to assess students’ quantitative skills and reasoning. While each of these tools may provide useful data, they are all slightly different in nature. Departments are left confronted with the challenges of figuring out which assessments are useful for their purposes and how to use assessment data to promote larger-scale, enduring change in departments.

Unlike a traditional workshop, the facilitators see themselves as involved in an ongoing quest to address these issues. While participants will leave with additional skills, we also seek to develop a stronger, more cohesive community of people who will work together to advance our knowledge about assessing quantitative thinking skills in the context of biology and using such assessment data to foster curricular improvement.

This workshop is a part of the 2019 Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research (SABER) National Meeting.

SABER Meeting Info

1. biology education
2. Quantitative reasoning