New Paper Alert!
CBE - Life Sciences Education published our most recent work: “It's been a process”: A multiple case study of biology instructor efforts to reform their sex and gender curriculum to be more inclusive of trans-spectrum and intersex students. This piece is part of a special issue focused on “Equity, inclusion, access and justice in biology education. Our hope is this article will inspire other post-secondary biology instructors to reflect on the practices they currently use to teach sex topics (e.g., sexual dimorphism, sexual reproduction, human anatomy). Check out the article here:
https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.24-01-0035
https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.24-01-0035
“It let me merge my love of teaching with research”: A qualitative investigation of the career pathways of biology education researchers
PLOS One published a passion project of mine focused on a sample of biology education researchers, exploring their career path and motivations for pursuing a career in biology education research. Check out the article here: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0312243
The Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research (SABER) Conference 2024
This year, the annual conference for SABER was especially exciting. I had the chance to present the first project I worked on as a postdoctoral researcher, "It's been a process": Biology instructor efforts to reform their sex and gender curriculum to be more inclusive of Trans, Nonbinary, and Gender Nonconforming (TNG) and Intersex students. I can't believe this project is complete, and I'm already more than a year into my postdoc. Time flies! During my presentation, I enjoyed sharing some strategies that four undergraduate biology instructors are using to reform their teaching to be more inclusive TNG and intersex students. After my presentation (see picture of me presenting below), I chatted with members of the SABER community about their questions and attended presentations from other biology education researchers. It was a blast!
I was additionally VERY, and I do mean very, excited to support two undergraduates that I work with and mentor on two projects related to the talk I gave. Emma Hammerstrom (pictured below on the left) and Abbi Kivett (pictured below on the right) presented for their first time at SABER. After their poster presentations, they both commented on how lovely and kind the SABER community is. #Fantastic.
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Group work enhances student performance in biology: A meta-analysis
Today, BioScience published a meta-analysis I conducted with Alan E. Wilson, Ian Hall, Peyton Brewer, Sara Odom, Sara Beth Ramsey, Sara Wood, and Cissy J. Ballen. This meta-analysis tested the impacts of one teaching strategy, group work, on student performance, calculating estimates across 91 studies from 53 articles. Our overall estimate indicated that the implementation of group work in biology classrooms increased student performance by 1.00 standard deviation (Hedges' g), which we contextualized as a change greater than one letter grade (Figure 1). Moderator analyses revealed this increase in performance held across all group sizes, class sizes, lower- and upper-level courses, majors and nonmajors courses, and instructor assigned and unassigned groups. However, we did not observe increased performance in graduate level courses, in cases where group work was incorporated for only part of the course term (e.g., less than a semester or quarter), or when group work was not graded (Figure 2). These results demonstrate group work leads to impressive boosts in student performance and underscores the value of studying specific active learning strategies. Appropriately published on Valentine's Day (2/14), I can now proclaim I heart group work.
Check out the pub here: https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/biosci/biae001/7606559?utm_source=advanceaccess&utm_campaign=bioscience&utm_medium=email
Check out the pub here: https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/biosci/biae001/7606559?utm_source=advanceaccess&utm_campaign=bioscience&utm_medium=email
Fig. 1. Caterpillar and Orchard Plots depicting the effect of group work on student performance. The overall effect of group work on student performance, using Hedges’ g as the effect size. A positive value indicates increased student performance in the intervention group (i.e., group work) compared to the comparison group (i.e., no group work), while a negative value indicates increased student performance in the comparison group (i.e., no group work) compared to the intervention group (i.e., group work). A) A caterpillar plot is a forest plot organized by estimate size. Each dot in the caterpillar plot represents one estimate in our meta-analysis, and the lines extending from each estimate represent the 95% confidence intervals. The diamond at the bottom of the plot shows the overall estimate (white circle) and its 95% confidence intervals (black bars). If the overall estimate plus the 95% confidence intervals lies to the right of the null (i.e., is a positive value) and does not cross the null, then the effect of group work on student performance is positive and statistically significant. B) The orchard plot represents each estimate (one comparison of the effect of group work on student performance versus the effect of no group work on student performance) as an individual circle, and the size of each of these comparisons is inversely proportional to its standard error. The overall estimate is represented by the small circle outlined in black, and the black horizontal lines extending from either side of the circle represent the 95% confidence intervals. If the estimate, including the 95% confidence intervals, lies to the right of the null (i.e., is a positive value) and does not cross the null (i.e., zero), then the effect of group work is positive and statistically significantly different from the effect of no group work on student performance.
Figure 2. Mean estimates with 95% confidence intervals for the levels within each moderator: group size, class size, class level, majors versus nonmajors, duration of group work, whether the group work was graded or not, and whether the groups were assigned or not. If the estimate and the confidence intervals lie to the right of the dotted line (i.e., x = 0), then the effect of group work for that level within that moderator has a positive and statistically significant effect on student performance in post-secondary biology courses. If the confidence interval crosses the dotted line, then the effect of group work on student performance for that level within that moderator is not statistically significant.
Postdoc Life: I Joined the Lane Lab at the University of Minnesota!
This academic year, I joined Dr. A. Kelly Lane's research group as a postdoc in the Department of Teaching and Learning (BTL) at the University of Minnesota. Pictured, are members of the Lane lab at the Annual conference for the Society for the Advancement for Biology Education Research (SABER), including Dr. Ariel Steele (front left), Lydia Swanson (front middle), Me (Dr. Emily Driessen; front right), Dr. Joel Schneider (back left), Grace-Divine Boutouli (back left middle), Dr. A. Kelly Lane (back right middle, and Alyssa Olson (back right). In Dr. Lane's research group, I work to deconstruct binary sex and gender narratives in biology courses with the end goal of creating more inclusive spaces for transgender, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming students.
DataVersify Collaboration: Results Coming Soon!
For the last three years, I have enjoyed collaborating with the DataVersify project. This project combined DataNuggets (quantitative biology activities that use authentic data from real researchers in K-16 classrooms, co-designed by Dr. Elizabeth Schultheis and Dr. Melissa Kjelvik, https://datanuggets.org/) and Project Biodiversify Scientist Profiles (researcher profiles of counter-stereotypical scientists for easy use in classrooms, co-designed by authors Dr. Ash Zemenick and Dr. Marjorie Weber, www.projectbiodiversify.org). We finally have all of our data analyzed and met for a writing retreat, so we can get our findings to the public! See below for a fun picture of part of the team who was able to write in person (left to right: Elizabeth Schultheis, me, Robin Costello, Melissa Kjelvik)! After our writing retreat, Robin presented some preliminary results at the Society for the Advancement for Biology Education Research annual conference in Minneapolis, MN.
Undergraduate Biology Education Research (UBER) Gordon Research Seminar and Conference 2023
It was a pleasure to present research and learn from others at the 2023 Undergraduate Biology Education Research Gordon Research Seminar and Conference this year held at Bates College. It was amazing to see just how many scholars are dedicated to making college biology education more just and equitable. While there, I presented work relating science to society in a a non-majors college biology course, demonstrating an ability to connect biology topics to current and historical events impacting society. To learn more about that work, see the publication here. For a charming photo of all of the lovely emerging scholars at the Gordon Research Seminar, and me with my eyes closed in the front row, see the photo below.
It's Official: Dr. Emily Driessen!
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I defended my dissertation "Characterizing and Changing Course Elements in Undergraduate Biology Education" (see bottom right photo). My parents (Michelle and Jerry, pictured on the left with me and my dog, Lou) came to support me. My brother Aaron (pictured in the top right photo with me and David Boa, the Boa constrictor) came to support me as well. My advisor, Dr. Cissy Ballen, threw me a party at her house and knighted me in her back yard (see top middle photo). It's officially, Dr. Driessen now!
2023 College of Science and Mathematics Dean's Research Award Winners!
Pictured (from left to right): Dr. Cissy Ballen, me (Emily Driessen), Peyton Brewer, and Dr. Robin Costello.
I accepted the 2023 Dean's Research Award for PhD students in COSAM for my PhD research on active learning strategies and diversity, equity, and inclusion in post-secondary biology education. Something especially cool about the event was that two of my friends and co-workers also won awards! Specifically, Peyton Brewer, a fantastic undergraduate student I work with, won the 2023 Dean's research award for undergraduate students, and Dr. Robin Costello, a post-doc I have the honor to work with, won the 2023 Dean's research award for post-docs! It was a very exciting day for all of us, including our fantastic PI and friend, Cissy Ballen!
I accepted the 2023 Dean's Research Award for PhD students in COSAM for my PhD research on active learning strategies and diversity, equity, and inclusion in post-secondary biology education. Something especially cool about the event was that two of my friends and co-workers also won awards! Specifically, Peyton Brewer, a fantastic undergraduate student I work with, won the 2023 Dean's research award for undergraduate students, and Dr. Robin Costello, a post-doc I have the honor to work with, won the 2023 Dean's research award for post-docs! It was a very exciting day for all of us, including our fantastic PI and friend, Cissy Ballen!
The impacts of two curricula on middle-level students’ engineering understanding
The Journal of Education Research just published some of the work I conducted during my master's degree at the University of Kentucky. This work explores the impact of two different science and engineering curriculum on seventh grade students' engineering understanding. One curricula centers sciences and laces engineering throughout and the other curricula centers engineering and laces science throughout. Findings showed improved but varied understandings of engineers and engineering. For example, students who received the curriculum that centered science and laced engineering throughout (Jasmine) improved their understanding that engineers use science and math. On the other hand, students who received the curriculum that centered engineering and laced science throughout (Cherry) improved their understanding that engineers invent, design and create, improve things, fix, and solve problems.
To check out the full paper, see https://doi.org/10.1080/00220671.2022.2158156. If you are unable to access the full text, feel free to reach out to me, and I can provide you with a copy.
To check out the full paper, see https://doi.org/10.1080/00220671.2022.2158156. If you are unable to access the full text, feel free to reach out to me, and I can provide you with a copy.
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Hot Off the Presses: A publication evaluating open note exams in a biology class.
- Cissy Ballen and I used open-note exams in an online Organismal Biology class we co-taught in Spring 2021. We collected information on our students' study habits and perceptions for those exams. Our findings were published today with PLOS ONE. Check out Evaluating open-note exams: Student perceptions and preparation methods in an undergraduate biology class here.
The Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research (SABER) Conference 2022
This year at the SABER conference (July 2022), I presented research exploring how to connect science and society in an introductory non-majors biology course. Additionally, I presented a talk on how lower-level biology students study for open-note exams. I really enjoyed discussing my research at both the poster and short talk sessions I was involved with.
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Teaching the Tough Topics: Fostering Ideological Awareness through the Inclusion of Societally Impactful Topics in Introductory Biology
I had the opportunity to collaborate on a really important project exploring the implementation of biologically relevant materials, focusing on the intersection between science and society. For a brief overview of the work, see the abstract below.
While science has profound social impacts, we often teach biology as removed from societally debated issues. Here, we address this gap in biology education through the implementation of novel materials that promote ideological awareness (IA). Using mixed-method analyses, we explore students’ perceptions of the relationship between science and society, as well as their attitudes toward and knowledge of IA in biology. We found students that received the IA curriculum reported relationships between science and society that aligned with the IA activities, such as providing solutions to societal problems and combating misinformation. Additionally, we discovered a preference for IA materials over a traditional curriculum, with persons excluded because of their ethnicity and race (PEERs) reporting greater approval than non-PEERs. Although we found that the IA curriculum did not result in significant gains in science identity, engagement in biology, or science community values, we did find that students gained awareness of IA topics through a task in which they named as many scientists as possible. Specifically, IA students displayed a 300% increase in the frequency of named scientists from minoritized backgrounds compared with the traditionally taught students. We encourage instructors to incorporate IA materials into their curricula as we move toward more diverse, equitable, and inclusive teaching practices.
For the full publication with CBE-LSE, click here.
While science has profound social impacts, we often teach biology as removed from societally debated issues. Here, we address this gap in biology education through the implementation of novel materials that promote ideological awareness (IA). Using mixed-method analyses, we explore students’ perceptions of the relationship between science and society, as well as their attitudes toward and knowledge of IA in biology. We found students that received the IA curriculum reported relationships between science and society that aligned with the IA activities, such as providing solutions to societal problems and combating misinformation. Additionally, we discovered a preference for IA materials over a traditional curriculum, with persons excluded because of their ethnicity and race (PEERs) reporting greater approval than non-PEERs. Although we found that the IA curriculum did not result in significant gains in science identity, engagement in biology, or science community values, we did find that students gained awareness of IA topics through a task in which they named as many scientists as possible. Specifically, IA students displayed a 300% increase in the frequency of named scientists from minoritized backgrounds compared with the traditionally taught students. We encourage instructors to incorporate IA materials into their curricula as we move toward more diverse, equitable, and inclusive teaching practices.
For the full publication with CBE-LSE, click here.
Group Work and Students Performance in Biology: A Meta-Analysis - A presentation given at the 2021 Annual Meeting of The Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research
The Society for the Advancement of Biology Education research (SABER; https://saberbio.wildapricot.org/) is THE conference for biology education researchers like me. I was fortunate enough to present my work on the relationship between implementing group work in post-secondary biology classrooms and student performance at the annual SABER conference for the year 2021. I posted the slides I presented. To summarize the work, I have provided a brief abstract below:
Active learning is hailed as the pinnacle of teaching in STEM classrooms for its ability to maximize learning, lower failure rates, and positively impact students from marginalized groups. While previous work broadly defined active learning as the antithesis of lecture, measuring the effects of all teaching strategies combined, we tested the isolated impacts of group work, using meta-analysis. To test the hypothesis that group work maximizes learning and course performance, we combed 96 years of literature concerning student performance in post-secondary biology courses that incorporated group work. We collected data from 34 articles representing 66 estimates calculated from performance outcomes of 18,494 students. Our overall estimate indicates, on average, the implementation of group work in biology classrooms increased student performance by 0.72 standard deviations. When applied to a grade scale based on real-world data, we show the magnitude of this change is roughly one letter grade. Moderator analyses revealed the increase in performance holds across all class sizes, class levels, and group sizes up to five students. These results demonstrate group work leads to impressive boosts in student performance and reveal the value of studying specific strategies to fully understand the benefits of active learning.
Active learning is hailed as the pinnacle of teaching in STEM classrooms for its ability to maximize learning, lower failure rates, and positively impact students from marginalized groups. While previous work broadly defined active learning as the antithesis of lecture, measuring the effects of all teaching strategies combined, we tested the isolated impacts of group work, using meta-analysis. To test the hypothesis that group work maximizes learning and course performance, we combed 96 years of literature concerning student performance in post-secondary biology courses that incorporated group work. We collected data from 34 articles representing 66 estimates calculated from performance outcomes of 18,494 students. Our overall estimate indicates, on average, the implementation of group work in biology classrooms increased student performance by 0.72 standard deviations. When applied to a grade scale based on real-world data, we show the magnitude of this change is roughly one letter grade. Moderator analyses revealed the increase in performance holds across all class sizes, class levels, and group sizes up to five students. These results demonstrate group work leads to impressive boosts in student performance and reveal the value of studying specific strategies to fully understand the benefits of active learning.
Demystifying Active Learning - A presentation in a format new to me.
I recently presented at the Conference for Teaching and Learning (CoTL) held by the University of South Alabama located in Mobile, Alabama. This presentation was a first for me in two regards: (1) the presentations was online via Zoom due to the COVID-19 pandemic; and (2) the presentation was in pecha kucha style, a presentation with exactly 20 slides that each auto-advance after 20 seconds. The style presented me with the challenge of time, since the material I had planned to present had taken me 20 minutes to present at a previous conference.
To meet this challenge, I wrote a script for each slide for what I would say for each slide, word for word. I then practiced the script diligently on my own. I even presented it to my Advisor for critique and then edited the script and presentation to reflect her comments. I finally felt ready.
The conference allotted 40 minutes of time for four pecha kucha presentations. This allowed for all four of the presenters their time to speak, followed by time for questions from the audience. As I was slated to go third, there were two presentations I watched prior to mine. I quickly realized the pace at which they were talking was very natural and easy to follow. I grew concerned, since my planned script packed a lot of information into a slim amount of time. I began to worry I would sound rushed.
As I started to present, I found I felt rushed. At the end of some slides, I had to catch my breath. I swore other people would be able to hear it. I thought to myself, okay, surely I can get through the next six minutes this way. I did make it through the presentation, and, a few days after the conference, my recorded presentation was posted to the conference website. I gave myself a few days of room before I watched it, so I could truly take it in without hurting my ego.
As I started watching it, I thought about every mistake I thought I had made, and I found that, while the presentation wasn't perfect, it was a good effort. After viewing the presentation, I realized that in the future I should (1) slow down, (2) relax, (3) have fun, and (4) make more eye contact. To help reach those goals in the future, I plan to concentrate more on the main, crucial points of the research I present. Then I can give better, more engaging presentations that allow for any audience members to understand my research more deeply. This was a good lesson to learn, especially early in my career.
For the recorded presentation, please click here. See below for a screenshot of the presentation title slide. To access the published version of the work I presented, click here.
To meet this challenge, I wrote a script for each slide for what I would say for each slide, word for word. I then practiced the script diligently on my own. I even presented it to my Advisor for critique and then edited the script and presentation to reflect her comments. I finally felt ready.
The conference allotted 40 minutes of time for four pecha kucha presentations. This allowed for all four of the presenters their time to speak, followed by time for questions from the audience. As I was slated to go third, there were two presentations I watched prior to mine. I quickly realized the pace at which they were talking was very natural and easy to follow. I grew concerned, since my planned script packed a lot of information into a slim amount of time. I began to worry I would sound rushed.
As I started to present, I found I felt rushed. At the end of some slides, I had to catch my breath. I swore other people would be able to hear it. I thought to myself, okay, surely I can get through the next six minutes this way. I did make it through the presentation, and, a few days after the conference, my recorded presentation was posted to the conference website. I gave myself a few days of room before I watched it, so I could truly take it in without hurting my ego.
As I started watching it, I thought about every mistake I thought I had made, and I found that, while the presentation wasn't perfect, it was a good effort. After viewing the presentation, I realized that in the future I should (1) slow down, (2) relax, (3) have fun, and (4) make more eye contact. To help reach those goals in the future, I plan to concentrate more on the main, crucial points of the research I present. Then I can give better, more engaging presentations that allow for any audience members to understand my research more deeply. This was a good lesson to learn, especially early in my career.
For the recorded presentation, please click here. See below for a screenshot of the presentation title slide. To access the published version of the work I presented, click here.
