Reaching Rural Students: CARE Principles to Promote Student Engagement in College Biology Courses (original) (raw)
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SPECIAL ISSUE ON COMMUNITY COLLEGE BIOLOGY EDUCATION RESEARCH
CBE—Life Sciences Education, 2022
Nearly half of all college students and the majority of college students of color begin their studies at 2-year colleges. The educational quality that these students experience will affect future success, but little research to date has focused on the professional development (PD) of their instructors. We offer an exploratory study on PD needs and preferences of ten 2-year college biology instructors who have experience with evidence-based instructional practices. Using a literature review and interview data, we address four research questions. We contextualize the interview results by describing interviewee teaching styles and their teaching and inclusion strategies, drawing on categorizations from education research literatures in and beyond biology. We then summarize interviewee experiences, preferences, and recommendations for PD. Most interviewees preferred PD that could be readily applied to their courses and included follow-up community support. While our purposive sample is limited, we note high levels of interest in PD supporting inclusive pedagogy and non-biology learning goals, such as study skills, metacognition, and quantitative skills. We describe implications for inclusive design of biology instructor PD.
2020
Professional development opportunities provide teachers with enhanced learning experiences, deeper subject knowledge, and improvement of their teaching practices, all for the goal of increasing student achievement (Nelson, 2009). Unfortunately, most rural teachers have much less access to professional development opportunities compared to their urban and suburban peers (Hardré, P.L., et al., 2014). A Research Experience for Teachers (RET), which is a National Science Foundation (NSF) funded program, was created for rural high school math and science teachers in collaboration with the University of Oklahoma and the Center for Bioanalysis. As participants, teachers applied and were accepted to participate in a seven-week summer research experience to connect bioanalytical engineering and their research experiences into their classrooms and to stimulate their students’ critical thinking skills. The following narrative and analysis chronicle the teams’ design, development and learning e...
CBE life sciences education, 2017
Nearly half of all undergraduates are enrolled at community colleges (CCs), including the majority of U.S. students who represent groups underserved in the sciences. Yet only a small minority of studies published in discipline-based education research journals address CC biology students, faculty, courses, or authors. This marked underrepresentation of CC biology education research (BER) limits the availability of evidence that could be used to increase CC student success in biology programs. To address this issue, a diverse group of stakeholders convened at the Building Capacity for Biology Education Research at Community Colleges meeting to discuss how to increase the prevalence of CC BER and foster participation of CC faculty as BER collaborators and authors. The group identified characteristics of CCs that make them excellent environments for studying biology teaching and learning, including student diversity and institutional cultures that prioritize teaching, learning, and ass...
2020
Rural education is a short board of China’s education. It is of great significance to strengthen the construction of the teacher team in rural middle schools for Rural Revitalization in the new era. The problem of structural shortage of teachers, reflected by the phenomenon of “what biology teachers teach is not what they learned” in rural middle schools, is a key issue that has been existing for a long time in the development of rural middle school education in our country. It is also a key problem that must be paid attention to and urgently solved in the face of the new situation, new tasks and new requirements. In response to this phenomenon that caused by the decline of students and the loss of biological teachers in rural middle schools, the government needs to play a supporting role and the school leaders of rural middle schools should innovate their systems and concepts. What’s more, biological teachers should reflect on their hearts and have the educational feelings of being...
Rural Student Voices to Improve Educational Attainment Oriented Programs
Journal of behavioral and social sciences (Cedarville, Ohio), 2014
The Health Sciences and Technology Academy (HSTA) strives to increase college-going and completion rates for students in West Virginia (USA), a state with low educational attainment and the second most rural state in the country. The positive impact of HSTA on student academic trajectories has been documented, but student voices have not been represented. This qualitative study using Bronfenbrenner's ecological perspective explores student experiences through HSTA, with an eye toward how similar programs serving rural populations might improve while understanding student participant perspectives. Participants were 706 incoming 9th -12th graders from rural West Virginia who provided survey responses across two years. We address the organizational and individual considerations that were instrumental in creating a supportive learning environment for rural youth.
Collaboration on Campus: Teaching Rural High School Students through College Methods Classes
1998
This paper describes and evaluates a 2-year collaborative project between two rural high schools and a teacher education college in Montana. An introduction covers rural teaching issues, rural school advantages and disadvantages, the demographics of the participating schools, rural collaborative efforts, and the microteaching experience. High school students came to the college once a week for 6 weeks to be taught lessons prepared by preservice teachers in conjunction with their methods course. Over a 2-year period, 170 participating high school students, 10 high school teachers, 3 administrators and 160 preservice teachers were surveyed to ascertain the effectiveness of the program. Evaluation methods included questionnaires, oral and videotaped interviews, debriefing sessions, observational and anecdotal evidence, and journals kept by the preservice teachers. Responses from teachers, administrators, high school students, and preservice teachers are summarized. Analysis highlights collaborative resonance (program enrichment through school-college collaboration), consensus building, collaborative planning of lessons and units, the value of reflection and critique for preservice teachers, positive student attitudes toward social studies and history, and increased college aspirations among students. (Contains 42 references.) (SAS)
Teaching Science In Rural Communities
Though the achievement of pupils in Science is generally poor, pupils in rural communities have relatively poorer achievements in science. Pupils in rural communities do not enjoy the best of facilities and amenities that support the learning of science, relative to their counterpart in urban communities. However, the pupils in rural communities can enjoy science lessons, if in spite of poor infrastructure, shortages of teachers, and inadequate teaching and learning materials, available science teachers depend on pupils’ pre-conceptions, allow pupils to dictate the direction and pace of science lessons, and always engage pupils in activities, such that the learning of science is fun.
2015
To address solutions to environmental degradation in an authentic context, this qualitative research study examines college students' responses to outdoor fieldwork in an agriculture-focused humanities course. Students' responses to fieldwork on organic farms generated three integrated themes. Active care encompasses students' actions of care for plants, people, and animals; intimate connection includes feelings of kinship with people, plants, land, farmer networks, and love of farming. Of particular interest is the third theme of regeneration, related to actions ensuring flourishing of future generations of humans and the natural world. The study raises questions about the need for significant curricular change in higher education to prepare students to respond effectively to climate unpredictabilities and environmental degradation.
AN EVALUATION OF A RURAL SCHOOL'S GRADE 10 STUDENTS' PERFORMANCE IN K-12 BIOLOGY
IOER International Multidisciplinary Research Journal, 2021
Biology is taught in the second year of the old Secondary Science curriculum; however currently, it is taught every year in the Enhanced Basic Education Curriculum in a Spiral progression approach. With this, the researcher determined the performance of Grade 10 students in Biology at a rural school in the K-12 spiral progression. A total of 76 students were given an Achievement Test that covered Biology competencies from Grades 7-9 before the beginning of the third quarter (Biology). Their performance level was determined through a Quarterly Exam and Performance Tasks specified in the learners' modules. The Performance Tasks were assigned during the third quarter (Biology), and the Quarterly Exam was administered at the end of the quarter. The researcher utilized the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) Program to analyze the data. Procedures and techniques of descriptive statistics such as mean and standard deviation were utilized to determine the performance level of the students in the Achievement Test and the Quarterly Exam and Performance Tasks. Inferential statistics such as Pearson r was used to determine the relationship between students' Achievement Test results and their performance level in Quarterly Exam and Performance Tasks. According to the study's findings, students at a rural high school performed poorly on the Achievement Test. Their performance on the Quarterly Exam demonstrated that they did not fulfill their goals in terms of acquiring Biology competencies. They achieved the minimum competencies in completing tasks in Biology based on their performance in the Performance Tasks. The result of the Achievement Test has a significant relationship with the level of performance on the Quarterly Exam and Performance Tasks. Biology is not taught effectively in the Science Spiral Curriculum in K-12 education. The subject's complexities increase with each passing year, but its fundamental foundation has yet to be constructed and comprehended, making it easier for students to understand.
Rural Teachers Learning Bioanalytical Engineering
International Journal of Designs for Learning
Professional development opportunities provide teachers with enhanced learning experiences, deeper subject knowledge, and improvement of their teaching practices, all for the goal of increasing student achievement (Nelson, 2009). Unfortunately, most rural teachers have much less access to professional development opportunities compared to their urban and suburban peers (Hardré, P.L., et al., 2014). A Research Experience for Teachers (RET ), which is a National Science Foundation (NSF) funded program, was created for rural high school math and science teachers in collaboration with the University of Oklahoma and the Center for Bioanalysis. As participants, teachers applied and were accepted to participate in a seven-week summer research experience to connect bioanalytical engineering and their research experiences into their classrooms and to stimulate their students’ critical thinking skills. The following narrative and analysis chronicle the teams’ design, development and learning ...