A Faculty Development Program for Bridging the Physical and Life Sciences in Undergraduate - PowerPoint Presentation

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A Faculty Development Program for Bridging the Physical and Life Sciences in Undergraduate EducationLeslie A. Gregg-Jolly1*, Clark A. Lindgren1 and Shonda R. Kuiper2

SummaryWith support from HHMI, faculty at Grinnell College have been working to make connections between the physical and life sciences in our undergraduate courses that focus on the process of science. A key feature of this faculty development effort has been support for taking courses on the opposite side of one’s orientation in the biological-physical sciences divide.

ObjectiveWe are working to broaden disciplinary boundaries to enhance undergraduate learning. In addition to increasing interdisciplinary curricula and course offerings, we seek to support faculty development to increase integration of material from the physical sciences into life sciences courses and vice versa.Institutional context and backgroundGrinnell College is a small liberal arts college with approximate 1500 students. The science division houses traditional departments of Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Psychology and Mathematics and Statistics. In addition to departmental majors, we have recently added a major in biological chemistry and a concentration in neuroscience. Development and implementation of the Biological Chemistry Major and the Neuroscience concentration was greatly facilitated by new investigative-based curricula in Biology, Chemistry and Psychology and by faculty sitting in on classes outside of their discipline. StrategyUse support from HHMI to build on and expand prior class visitation activity. Support faculty with course releases to actually take courses outside of their major discipline, ideally across the physical-life science divide.

Synergistic activities to increase interdisciplinarityIn response to strategic planning, the college launched an “Expanding Knowledge Initiative” (EKI) to increase interdisciplinarity campus wide in 2005. EKI supports activities such as luncheons to foster interdisciplinary discussions, appointment of senior EKI Fellows to provide leadership, and faculty positions to support teaching beyond traditional disciplines. The college has a tradition of running faculty development summer workshops during the summer to foster curricular development and good teaching practices. A modest stipend is provided for participants. To encourage interdisciplinarity and diversity in the curriculum, the college’s Instructional Support Committee provides stipends for faculty from different departments to engage in faculty-faculty tutorials.

Bridging Projects Out of 26 bridging projects, eight have included faculty with primary orientation in the biological sciences auditing courses rooted in the physical sciences whereas eighteen have include faculty with primary orientation in the physical sciences auditing courses rooted in the life sciences. Faculty at all ranks have already or will participate.

Preliminary outcomes Participation in this program has been enthusiastic, with 26 projects completed or slated. We cannot yet gauge the overall success of the program since half the projects will be done during the final year of the grant. Nonetheless, we have strong indications that the major objectives are being met. In the design of the program, we hoped that in addition to tangible results such as improved modules to courses there will be intangible but equally important effects of faculty broadening their disciplinary knowledge and perspectives. As demonstrated by the examples below, the completed project reports thus far indicate the projects are deepening our understanding of interdisciplinary work and are spurring on our efforts to change science curricula through extended observation of colleagues’ teaching. An ecologist (Vince Eckhart) writes about learning from the students’ perspective, “I undertook this Bridging Project, first, to learn how Grinnell students are educated in statistics in a course I often recommend they take. Ultimately the tools I gained … will enrich my teaching at all levels of the curriculum.” A molecular biologist (Leslie Gregg-Jolly ) remarks on the problem of discipline-specific vocabulary, “While it may seem trivial to professionals, the first useful observation was that statisticians (and thus students of statistics) use different language than I tend to for identifying independent (observational units) and dependent variables (explanatory variables).” A physicist (Mark Schneider) also notes disciplinary differences, in this case regarding methodology: “…the biologist typically will quantify her result in terms of the likelihood of the null result (i.e. what is the probability that the data represent no correlation), [but] the physicist is instead attempting to fit data to a functional form, and perhaps extract some parameter of that fit and determine the uncertainty of that parameter given the experimental data. This realization dramatically changed the way I described error analysis in my General Physics Laboratory sections last year.” A statistician (Shonda Kuiper) who audited Bio 150 Introduction to Biological Inquiry remarked, “While I did make significant gains in my understanding of current research in ecology, the primary benefit to auditing this course was a better understanding of how to emphasize the process of science in an introductory course.” She has already introduced several new readings and biology lab exercises into two of her courses in statistics.

Spin Out/Future DirectionsIt is unlikely we will permanently adopt bridging projects due to the increased dependence on temporary faculty it creates. By the end of the project, we hope to have created a core group of faculty who have a better appreciation for each other’s disciplines and will be more ambitious and courageous in incorporating applicable techniques and approaches from other disciplines within their disciplinary courses.“Bridging Courses” (proposed in new HHMI grant)“Bioinformatics” taught by a geneticist and computer scientist“PhysicoBiology” taught by a neurophysiologist and a physicist“Food” taught by a biochemist and a psychologist“Statistical Modeling” led by a statistician with visiting scientists from other fields to direct data generating and analyzing modulesAssessment of interdisciplinary science in collaboration with other campuses to examine interdisciplinary science learning outcomes (proposed in new HHMI grant)Development of math modules that explain a variety of commonly used mathematical and statistical techniques that can be incorporated into a mathematics, statistics or biology courseFurther incorporation of biological examples in physical science coursesFurther incorporation of physical science techniques and principles in life science courses

Process of a bridging project

Faculty submit a proposal stating the course they want to take, when they want to take it, and how they expect taking the course will impact their teaching.

A committee with representation from each science department considers the request. Staffing gets worked out in consultation with the dean and the department in which the course release will be granted. Host faculty are consulted. Faculty member takes course.Faculty member writes a brief report describing what was learned and how this will impact his or her teaching.

bridges.osba.org/news/criticalissues/index.htm

Acknowledgements

The generation and success of this project would not be possible without the extremely high level of cooperation, energy and teamwork of the Grinnell College science faculty. We acknowledge the hard work of the faculty including department chairs, executive council and the dean in meeting the staffing needs created by this project. Members of the HHMI committee who conceived of this project, led by pI Clark Lindgren include: Leslie Gregg-Jolly, Shonda Kuiper, Mark Levandoski, David Lopatto, Nancy Rempel-Clower, Mark Schneider, and Elizabeth Trimmer. Members of the HHMI committee who conceived of the future directions of this project, led by pI Mark Levandoski include: Leslie Gregg-Jolly, Shonda Kuiper, Mark Levandoski, David Lopatto, Nancy Rempel-Clower, Chuck Sullivan and Jake Willig Onwauchi.

1

Department of Biology

2

Department of Mathematics and Statistics

Grinnell College, Grinnell, IA 50112

*Corresponding author, greggjol@grinnell.edu