Announcing TUnE-Bio (Transforming Undergraduate Biology Education) - and also Cavanagh Ink Studio
Newsletter #5
Welcome to Week Five of Once More, With Feeling.
BE THE SPARK - Thoughts on Teaching and Learning
After spending three winter breaks in a row on unsuccessful grant applications (not that I’m bitter), I am beyond thrilled to announce that co-PI Michele Lemons and I have been awarded a National Science Foundation Incubator grant to form a Research Coordination Network in Undergraduate Biology Education (NSF RCN-UBE, if you like acronyms).
The network’s title is Transforming Assessment, Feedback, and Grading in Undergraduate Biology Education (TUnE-Bio - follow our new Twitter here!).
We are joined by a stellar Steering Committee of Bryan Dewsbury, Josh Eyler, Linda Fergusson-Kolmes, Jim Lang, Heather Urry, and Lindsay Wheeler, and a similarly brilliant set of confirmed participants.
Our ultimate goal is to combat attrition and weed-out culture (and associated inequities) in undergraduate biology education by transforming current methods of assessment, feedback, and grading. Leaders in the field of the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) have proposed innovative new approaches to assessment and grading, but these innovations are often more suited for humanities classrooms than STEM ones. Biology instructors report multiple constraints to innovation, such as pressure to cover a high degree of content before students move on to other courses, and the specific demands of articulation agreements moving from two- to four-year programs.
Our TUnE-Bio Network intentionally combines the expertise of scholars in undergraduate biology education, the scholarship of teaching and learning, and research design in order to brainstorm and test paths to progress. The incubator year will involve national surveys and focus groups aimed at understanding the current state of play in UBE—practices, challenges, and barriers to innovation. The full proposal will devise and test new solutions.
Follow along, let us know what you think!
HIVEMIND - On Social Neuroscience & Our Synchronous Selves
MONSTERS - Thoughts on Uncertainty, Anxiety, and Mental Health
The grant and textbook has been distracting me from my other book project, but I have pinned this Atlantic piece to read as soon as I can - because of the topic, because of my respect for the work of the authors, and because I think I also saw it cause a bit of a kerfuffle on Twitter.
EMOTION & MOTIVATION - Feeling and Striving
For the textbook I’ve been writing about the history of human understanding of motivation. Again and again I’ve been bumping up against the old hedonic / eudaemonic dichotomy (which probably isn’t even a dichotomy) and wondering if we’ve had any new ideas in the last three thousand years when voila! into my Twitter feed slides Erin Westgate with a fresh idea (and even better, supportive evidence).
The whole thread is fascinating:
INCIDENTALLY - Cavanagh Ink Studio
I’ve written before about coming from a long line of writers and artists. After a lifetime of painting and writing poetry, my aunt Deirdre has opened her first studio. It is in Bethel, Maine and opens August 1st. If you find yourself by Sunday River on a Thursday-Sunday, stop by!
You can also like her page on the dreaded Book of Faces here.