BEIC - Creation of the Biology Educator/Researcher Cross-Segment Collective (RCN-UBE Introduction)
Author(s): Brian Sato1, Kristine Callis-Duehl2, Stanley Lo3, Tara Giblin4
1. University of California, Irvine 2. East Carolina university 3. University of California San Diego 4. Orange Coast College
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2022 AACU STEM slides.pdfDescription
The statistics regarding bachelor’s degree attainment for community college students are discouraging. While 81% of community college students would like to earn bachelor’s degrees, only 33% transfer to four-year institutions. Of these students, only 42% complete their degrees within six years of entering higher education. And transfer students leave STEM majors at a higher rate than students who begin their post-secondary degree directly at the university. Improving outcomes for community college and transfer students requires a joint effort between participants at both two- and four-year institutions to ensure that expertise possessed by instructors and administrators at both systems is adequately shared and that programs developed through these efforts are collaboratively implemented to maximize potential improvements in student outcomes.
To this end, the Biology Education Intersegmental Collaborative (BEIC) facilitates the formation of faculty learning communities (FLCs) consisting of 2-year and 4-year partners. BEIC aims to (1) increase implementation of evidence-based practices in Biology courses or programs to improve student outcomes across multiple-segments of higher education institutions (community colleges, master’s granting institutions, research-intensive universities), (2) form faculty learning communities comprised of educators representing a variety of institution types to develop the previously mentioned practices, and (3) assess the implementation of these first two goals.
We are entering the fourth year of the program, having supported ten multi-institutional teams across the country, representing over forty participating faculty and ten team mentors. Teams have presented their work at the Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research (SABER) annual and SABER West meetings and published their work in the Journal of Microbiology and Biology Education and CourseSource. And the BEIC model has been presented at the Association of American Colleges & Universities’ Transforming STEM Higher Education Conference.
Ways to learn more:
- Check out a presentation on Intersegmental Model to Improve Transfer Student Success from the 2022 AACU STEM Conference.
- Parsell JA, Blystone A, Williams AE. 2022. Transitioning Two-Stage Exams to an Online Class. CourseSource 9. https://doi.org/10.24918/cs.2022.29
- Rollwagen-Bollens, G., Kibota, T., & Crosby, C. (2022). Relative Impact of Values-Oriented and Mindset-Oriented Interventions on Academic Success of Introductory Biology Students Attending 2-Year or 4-Year Institutions. Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education, 23(3), e00102-22.
Ways to get involved:
- BEIC has recently completed its recruitment for Year 4 teams. We plan to have at least one more call which will open in Jan/Feb 2024. If you or your colleagues are interested in collaborating with a local two- or four-year institution and would like to discuss a potential proposal, please feel free to reach out!
If you are interested in learning more, please email Brian Sato.
RCN-UBE #1920315Cite this work
Researchers should cite this work as follows:
- Sato, B., Callis-Duehl, K., Lo, S., Giblin, T. (2023). BEIC - Creation of the Biology Educator/Researcher Cross-Segment Collective (RCN-UBE Introduction). RCN-UBE Community, QUBES Educational Resources. doi:10.25334/89X3-S119