Education Subcommittee Report

Fall 2020

Subcommittee members:

  • Alison Hill (Senior lecturer)
  • Jill Foster (Staff)
  • Danae Diaz (Graduate student)
  • Shannon Fang (Undergraduate student)
  • Clarice Hu (Undergraduate student)
  • François Lutzoni (Professor)
  • Steve Nowicki (Professor)

The overall task of the AJED education subcommittee is to evaluate the introductory biology curriculum (i.e. the gateway courses) to determine whether we are providing an inclusive experience for all incoming students regardless of their high school preparation. The ongoing focus and discussion of the AJED education subcommittee is centered on the following questions: 

  • What would an inclusive biology curriculum look like?
  • What is the evidence that either supports or refutes that our current curriculum is inclusive or not?
  • If the current curriculum is not inclusive, what do we need to change about our gateway structure to give an equal opportunity to all incoming students?
  • What is the best way for our committee to learn about undergraduate perceptions of the inclusiveness of the biology curriculum?
Some of the highlights of our fall semester meetings have included discussions on: 
  1. the pros and cons of the introductory biology curriculum over the last 20 years
  2. how the integration of structure into our molecular biology gateway led to a reduction in the achievement gap for URMs (based on a comparison of the achievement gap in Bio118 versus Bio201L.

Proposals and ideas for an alternative intro biology curriculum which might include:

  1. Bio101: an introductory level biology course with integrative biology content that emphasizes the skills that biology students will need as they progress through the major
  2. A placement exam for all incoming Biology majors as a way to alleviate some of the inequities for students without access to AP exams.
  3. Different acceleration pathways through the curriculum that would be either slow, medium or fast acceleration depending upon prior AP biology exposure or score on a placement exam. Slow acceleration would be : Bio101; Bio201L and Bio202L. Medium acceleration would be Bio101 and Bio203 or Bio 201L and Bio202L. Fast acceleration would be Bio203L.

Our committee recognizes the need to gather additional information to help us better understand and define what the overall needs of our introductory curriculum are in terms of both academic and cultural inclusion. Some of the near-term (Spring, 2021) action items are:

  • Action item: Determine whether our education subcommittee can gain access to the Biology Department’s end of semester course evaluations to ascertain how our students respond to this statement: The course had a welcoming and inclusive classroom environment.  This information could be used to determine whether specific biology courses can improve in this.
  • Action item: Suggest that our departmental Chair Emily Bernhardt request course data analysis from the Office of Student Assessment, Office of the Provost or from the Dean of Natural Sciences, Mohamed Noor, to ascertain whether there is a demographic bias in students’ performance in our gateway courses (Molecular Biology Gateway Bio201L and  Genetics and Evolution Gateway Bio202L).
  • Action item: Analyze some of the responses to the Bio201L and Bio202L end of semester internal survey questions to determine whether there is a demographic bias to answers to questions such as: “My experience in Bio201L/Bio202L increased my overall interest in biology.”
  • Action item: Identify guidance on how to design a successful focus group with undergraduates. Our medium-term goal is to ensure that, before graduating in May 2021, Shannon Fang and Clarice Hu are able to facilitate a focus group with biology undergraduates to discuss student perspectives on our introductory biology curriculum.