Active learning has been recommended as a more effective way to teach when compared to traditional lecturing, yet active learning can be implemented in many different ways. One common approach in active learning is to ask students to share out their thoughts either with other students or in front of the whole class. These social interactions can be fruitful for hearing different perspectives and building classroom community, but they also can present challenges because they create a larger number of opportunities for a student to feel judged based on their answers. This worry of being judged, or fear of negative evaluation, has been shown to be a problem in active learning, particularly for students with anxiety . Implementation of Active Learning In two interview studies, one with students from a research institution and a second with community college students , students reported that how active learning is implemented matters. Answering a question that is timed based on accuracy...

Do you feel frustrated when assignments are submitted that are lacking important criteria? Do you have several people grading and want to maintain consistency and fairness? Are you wishing to provide more feedback to students, to help them improve their skills? Answers to these questions can be targeted by building effective analytic rubrics.  In a recent webinar, I shared how to build effective analytic rubrics, including what they are and why you should use them. Understanding the what, why, and how will help you to determine where to start when creating effective rubrics for your course. Let's begin! What is a rubric? A rubric is “...a document that articulates the expectations for an assignment by listing the criteria or what counts, and describing levels of quality from excellent to poor" ( Reddy and Andrade, 2010 ). Typically comprised of rows and columns, where the rows are used to define the various criteria being used to assess an assignment. And the columns are used ...

Although Christians are overrepresented in American society, they are underrepresented in biology careers. What is the reason for this under-representation? Prior research has indicated that Christians feel as though they don’t belong in biology , that some biology instructors make Christians feel as though they have to choose between their faith and biology, and many people incorrectly assume that one has to be an atheist to accept evolution . When biology faculty members were asked whether they would take on a graduate student who was an evangelical Christian, they were less likely to want to hire this person than someone who did not reveal an evangelical Christian identity. These studies indicate that the Christian identity may be stigmatized in the context of academic biology. Because Christianity is an identity that can be hidden or invisible, it could be considered a concealable stigmatized identity (CSI) in the biology community. Concealable Identities Concealable stigmati...

Many STEM students are seeking the opportunity to conduct undergraduate research at some point in their academic career due to its many benefits. However, finding and securing a research position can be challenging, and may be more difficult for some students than others. In a recent publication in the International Journal of STEM Education, researchers interviewed undergraduates who were involved in undergraduate research and students who were not involved but interested in participating in research in order to compare their knowledge on finding and securing research positions at a research-intensive institution ( Cooper et al., 2021 ). How can students find research? Students who were interviewed said that they found research opportunities by talking with instructors, academic advisors, peers, or teaching assistants or by using online university resources. The study found that there were no differences between students who did research and students who wanted to do research in the ...

The opportunity to attend a university online is an attractive option for many students because of the flexibility in scheduling, the lack of commuting, and the ability to work from wherever. This is a particularly enticing option for individuals working full-time in any capacity such as a 9-5 office job or for taking care of children or other family members. So, as universities begin to develop more of these programs, these online programs open access to college degrees for a larger slice of society. However, who is enrolling in these programs, and are there grade differences for different groups of students in online courses? We know that, on average, students from backgrounds that are historically underrepresented in STEM tend to do worse in the classroom compared to their overrepresented counterparts. This group broadly includes BLNP (Black, Latinx, Native American, and Pacific Islander) people, women, people of lower socioeconomic status, and first-generation to college students. ...

People of color are underrepresented in many STEM fields, and this underrepresentation is especially prevalent for Black individuals in evolutionary biology. Although there are many potential reasons why, a new study focuses on a factor that is often missing from these discussions: religious beliefs. It has been well established that Black individuals are more likely to be Christian compared to white individuals. Previous studies have also reported that Black individuals are less likely to accept evolution. However, no prior study has explored the relationships between race/ethnicity, religious beliefs, and evolution acceptance. Because there is often a perceived conflict between Christianity and evolution, a recent study set out to examine if there may be a connection between people of color’s religious affiliation and their acceptance of evolution. People of color are more religious and less accepting of evolution Collecting data from almost 10,000 students in 77 undergraduate biolo...

How do you know if your assessments are inclusive? How can you reconsider your assessments to make them more inclusive? Last week, we learned from K. Supriya, Ph.D. , Postdoctoral Researcher in the ASU School of Life Sciences , on ways we can assess our assessments for inclusiveness.  During the webinar we discussed the purpose of assessments in class, examined the various assessment practices we have experienced as students or teachers in various STEM courses with a critical lens, and then came up with an assessment plan for a course we will/might teach in the future.  Watch the discussion here . Purpose of Assessment Let's consider the differences between assessment and evaluation. The purpose of assessment is to increase quality, as seen in formative quizzes, building upon each other. The purpose of evaluation is to judge quality, which is seen more as summative or at the end of the unit or course.  Define Inclusive Assessment Two definitions that Dr. K. Supriya shared...