2018 ESA Annual Meeting (August 5 -- 10)

COS 82-5 - From cells to ecosystems: Integrating calculus and statistics throughout the biology major’s curriculum

Wednesday, August 8, 2018: 2:50 PM
245, New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center
Kathy Williams1, Janet S. Bowers2, Antoni Luque2 and Matt Anderson3, (1)Biology, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, (2)Mathematics and Statistics, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, (3)Physics, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA
Background/Question/Methods

Faculty across US campuses recognize how quantitative courses are oftentimes hurdles to undergraduate student progress in STEM majors. In a national research project, "Collaborative Research: A National Consortium for Synergistic Undergraduate Mathematics via Multi-institutional Interdisciplinary Teaching Partnerships (SUMMIT-P),” students and faculty at a major public university are exploring ways to improve pedagogical approaches and sequencing of math courses to enhance learning and application of quantitative thinking for biology majors. In particular, calculus, statistical, and other quantitative reasoning skills are recognized as essential for applying ecological principles to make decisions and solve problems.

This reports how faculty and undergraduate biology students are collecting and analyzing information to support data-driven curriculum redesign, especially in core ecology and math/statistics courses. Math and Biology faculty and students together are critically evaluating the alignment of quantitative reasoning outcomes within and among courses and programs/majors. Students are comparing course and program-level learning outcomes across math and biology programs. Course assessments (homework, quizzes, exams) are examined to identify what quantitative reasoning is expected of learners. Student surveys are assessing recall of how math was applied in ecology and organismal courses, and those results are compared to faculty responses.

Results/Conclusions

As might be expected, students recall using more lower level math/stats in introductory courses, and more higher level math/stats in upper division courses, like ecology. However, while results indicate that ecology courses frequently use quantitative reasoning, faculty report poor preparation for ecology. Additionally, faculty report how learning expectations in their courses might change if students entered their courses with deeper quantitative reasoning capacities. Findings from examining outcomes and assessments (quizzes, exams) also uncovered redundancies and misalignments between what is expected of students and practiced in prerequisites leading to upper division ecology courses, supporting student and faculty perceptions.

By mapping the curriculum and challenging faculty to clearly describe learning expectations, we are gathering data to help faculty adjust outcomes within and among courses and better scaffold learning throughout the major’s curriculum. The ultimate aim is to build quantitative reasoning skills early that can be integrated throughout the curriculum. Together, math and biology faculty, with the valuable assistance of students, are working to identify ways to add biological relevance to math courses, and vice versa, and improve course sequencing. Too often we see majors leave ecology due to issues with quantitative courses, so by strengthening core competencies we hope to increase retention and success of ecology and other biology majors.