Partner News and Opportunities
Spring FMN Opportunities
Quantitative Biology at Community Colleges Mid-Cycle Network Meeting
February 23-25, 2023
Offered by BioQUEST and Montgomery College at Howard Hughes Medical Institute, MD
Quantitative Biology at Community Colleges (QB@CC) is a 5-Year NSF supported project designed to bring together life sciences and mathematics faculty from community colleges to integrate more quantitative concepts and skills in life science courses and biological applications in math courses. We launched this community in February 2020 and continue to grow by recruiting faculty to develop educational materials appropriate for a wide range of quantitative biology skills from basic dilutions to working with big data. Following an in person meeting, participants will form teams of 3-5 that include both life sciences and mathematics faculty. Groups will work together virtually for twelve to sixteen weeks to identify and adapt existing OERs on topics in any life science course where quantitative biology could be more effectively integrated. If this sounds exciting to you, apply to join QB@CC for a semester of community-driven development of quantitative biology OERs.
Who should apply? Full and part time life science and mathematics faculty at community colleges. Interdisciplinary institutional teams are encouraged to apply. Learn more and apply here. Applications are due by December 19, 2022.
OCELOTS FMN: Implementing a module in tropical biology
Are you interested in adopting online modules that internationalize your curriculum by focusing on authentic research in tropical biology? Apply now to join us for the OCELOTS Spring 2023 Faculty Mentoring Network (FMN), run with the OCELOTS Network (for facilitating Online Content for Experiential Learning of Tropical Systems) and BioQUEST/QUBES. Participants in this FMN will focus on adopting OCELOTS modules in undergraduate biology courses. Accepted applicants will customize and implement newly designed online educational modules in tropical biology, many of which incorporate interactive data tools. While doing this, they will participate in virtual sessions every other week to collaborate with and support others in the network and receive mentoring from our team of tropical researchers and specialists in active learning methods, the 4DEE (Four Dimensional Ecology Education), media, and interactive data tools.
Please visit the OCELOTS group page for additional information and instructions on how to apply. Applications are due December 1, 2022.
BioGraphI FMN
The BioGraphI (Biologists and Graph Interpretation) project is now accepting applications from interested faculty to participate in our Spring 2023 Faculty Mentoring Network (FMN). During this semester-long professional development opportunity, participants will learn how to prepare and implement their own BioGraphI modules into their courses. BioGraphI modules are designed to address data literacy skills while fostering diversity in undergraduate biology classrooms. These modules are lessons about graph and data interpretation that feature the scientific contributions of counterstereotypical biologists who are members of underrepresented groups. BioGraphI lessons include video interviews with these biologists, allowing students to hear directly from counterstereotypical scientists about their discoveries.
Please visit the BioGraphI Group Page for more details and to apply. Applications are due on December 2, 2022.
ESA FMN: Teaching Figure Sets in Ecology
The Ecological Society of America’s (ESA) Transforming Ecology Education to 4D is teaming up with ecology education journal, Teaching Issues and Experiments in Ecology (TIEE), to host a Faculty Mentoring Network (FMN) in Spring 2023. Collaborate with your peers on ways to incorporate multidimensional learning into popular TIEE modules on Figure Sets.
Benefits of Participating include:
-
Receive a stipend of $1,000 for full participation.
-
Receive an ESA Education Scholar Certificate in recognition of your work for your professional portfolio.
-
Be eligible for additional travel support of up to $2,200 to share modules at selected conferences in the next year.
-
And much more!
Learn more and apply here. Applications are due November 27, 2022.
Project EDDIE Faculty Mentoring Network Spring 2023: Now Accepting Applications
Teaching Scientific Concepts and Quantitative Reasoning with Large-Datasets and Inquiry-Driven Learning
Are you looking to teach scientific concepts using data exploration and open inquiry? Are you interested in teaching quantitative reasoning in your classroom? Project EDDIE is excited to offer a suite teaching Modules to use in your biology, geology, climatology, oceanography, and sustainability courses. This spring we will be supporting faculty who would like to teach with modules featuring climate change and sustainability topics. We encourage you to apply individually or with colleagues that you know share your interests, so please spread the word!
Apply Now to join the Spring 2023 Project EDDIE Faculty Mentoring Network (FMN). Applications are due December 16, 2022.
Other ESA Opportunities
ESA’s Teaching of Undergraduate Ecology Survey
ESA invites all faculty who have been teaching ecology to any degree at the undergraduate level within the last three years to take our first of-its-kind survey including those teaching:
-
Introductory biology
-
Environmental science, and
-
Other courses for STEM majors or non-majors or
-
Ecology-embedded in courses in other disciplines e.g. sustainability, wildlife management etc.
Find the survey here.
Now Accepting Proposals for the Education Share Fair!
We are especially interested in ideas around:
-
Adapting to and teaching disease ecology
-
Fake news, Real Science, or somewhere in between
-
Research innovation and careers
Submit a proposal here.
CourseSource Announcement
Since its inception, publishing in CourseSource has been free! We regret that the time has come to charge for publications; CourseSource is supported by grants and donations, and our budget no longer allows us to take on the full burden of publication charges. We will be implementing a flat fee of $400 per article beginning in January 2023. We have budgeted some funds to assist authors with costs—both a reduced fee of $250 or a complete waiver, depending on circumstances. We also will implement a group discount program in which an institution or a group from a collaborative grant can pay $1000 per year and publish as many articles as they would like. Thank you for your continued support.
Find the original announcement here.
NIMBioS is Seeking Stories
Did a project you are proud of get started at a NIMBioS activity? Are you working on a current project through NIMBioS? Did you start a new math bio collaboration because of a NIMBioS activity? We would love to help promote your work! Submit stories to Lfarabau AT utk DOT edu.
NSF Introduces a ExLENT, a New Workforce Development Program
The U.S. National Science Foundation today launches a new $30 million workforce development program, Experiential Learning for Emerging and Novel Technologies, or ExLENT. The program will expand practical learning opportunities for individuals interested in entering or gaining more experience in emerging and novel technology areas such as advanced manufacturing, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, quantum information science, and semiconductors and microelectronics. With awards of up to $1 million over three years, the program will promote partnerships between organizations in emerging technology fields and those with expertise in workforce development. Read more about the ExLENT program here.
Visit the new Understanding Science
If you haven’t yet checked it out, be sure to visit the website, Understanding Science. It’s packed with content and resources for teaching the nature and process of science. Do your students need to know why evolution isn’t “just” a theory, how we test hypotheses about ancient history, or why our changing ideas about relationships on the Tree of Life don’t mean that science is untrustworthy? Understanding Science has answers!
AAAS: Leveraging Institutional Data to Advance Equity in STEM Courses
How do faculty learn about the historical equity landscape in their courses when they have neither the time nor the data access to perform analyses themselves? Many institutions face this challenge which is not easy to address. If instructors and administrators are to understand where their efforts to advance student learning and equity in their courses are succeeding, they need to measure it. That approach needs to be adaptable to specific questions, and also scalable to cover different types of courses at the university.
This problem turned into the underlying motivation for creating what we call course equity reports. Building on our expertise as researchers and instructors, we’ve developed a standardized set of analyses to help instructors understand what is happening in their courses for different groups of students and reflect on whether the outcomes are aligned with their equity goals. By developing these reports centrally rather than requiring each instructor to obtain data access and conduct the analysis independently, we have lowered the barriers to engaging with this information. Read the full article here.
Dear BQ/QUBES Community,
