Why do I keep seeing people list pronouns on their email signatures? Can I use the word queer? What’s a deadname? As ASU is defined by who we include and how they succeed , we need to make sure that this includes everyone in the classroom, including students with identities that are invisible. Even though society tends to assume that everyone is straight and cis-gender, current estimates of individuals who identify as members of the LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) community range from 10-20% of the population. Specifically in biology classrooms at ASU, about 9-16% of undergraduates report having an LGBTQ+ identity on surveys. What challenges might a biology classroom present for LGBTQ+ students? Instructors and fellow students may inadvertently make incorrect assumptions that may cause some LGBTQ+ students to feel uncomfortable. For example, individuals may mis-gender transgender students and non-gender binary students in class. This could be done by using a...

Depression is a mental health concern for many students and is prevalent among undergraduates at a concerning rate. It has also been shown that underserved and underrepresented individuals in science are disproportionately impacted by depression  ( Turner and Noh, 1988 ,  Eisenberg et al., 2007 ; Jenkins et al., 2013 ; American College Health Association, 2018 ).  If we want to create a more inclusive community in science, we should consider how students’ depressive symptoms interact with their research experiences. However, there is a lack of understanding of the relationship between undergraduate research and students’ depression. A recent study published by the Biology Education Research Lab at ASU begins to explore how depression impacts undergraduate research experiences, as well as how these research experiences affect students’ depression.                      Depressive symptoms affect undergradua...

Today's blog is written by Sara Brownell , PhD, Associate Professor School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University. We all know the reputation of science instructors as unapproachable and boring. Yet they don’t have to be. One easy way for science instructors to connect better to students is to tell a joke – or two- in the classroom! A new study published by our research group in PLOS ONE explored student perceptions of college science instructor’s use of humor by surveying over 1600 students from 25 different college science classes. Overwhelmingly, students appreciated when instructors tried to be funny; in fact, 99% of students appreciated instructor use of humor! However, the type of humor seemed to matter for students. If the instructor told a joke that was perceived as offensive, then students related less to the instructor and felt as though they did not belong as much in class. However, when an instructor tells jokes that students think are funny, they be...

Today's Blog is presented by Katelyn Cooper. Katey is a PhD student in Sara Brownell's Biology Education Research lab studying ways to promote equity in undergraduate biology education. Specifically she is interested in how different social identities impact student experiences in biology. Katey is also an Academic Success Coordinator in the School of Life Sciences. Students who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual (LGBTQIA) face unique challenges in active learning classrooms. Holding a historically – and in some ways currently – stigmatized social identity means that these students have to carefully navigate active learning classrooms. Although very little research has been done on this population thus far, work that I have done in the Biology Education Research Lab begins to explore how LGBTQIA students feel about active learning classrooms. ( http://www.lifescied.org/content/15/3/ar37.full ) In contrast to traditional lect...

Today's Guest Blogger is Katelyn Cooper. Katey is a PhD student in Sara Brownell's Biology Education Research lab studying ways to promote equity in undergraduate biology education. Specifically she is interested in how different social identities impact student experiences in biology. Katey is also an Academic Success Coordinator in the School of Life Sciences National recommendations call for college biology instructors to create active learning environments for all students (AAAS, 2011), but can all students afford to learn this way? Active learning has been shown to increase student learning and decrease the failure rate (Freeman et al., 2014), yet the student economic challenges associated with active learning are often hidden. The economic costs to students of doing active learning While active learning can be done in a low cost way (e.g. students drawing on the whiteboard), several new technologies have been developed to aid instructors in implementing act...