Our research seeks to develop and validate assessment tools to evaluate neuroscience learning of core concepts, to identify best practices for effective instructor feedback, and to evaluate the effectiveness of curriculum in teaching current laboratory technology. Research projects in the lab examine the student, the teaching content and the teacher to identify best practices in biology and neuroscience pedagogy.
Teaching Core Concepts
Given the growing body of knowledge in neuroscience, educators need to be selective in what knowledge to impart to students. Core concepts are useful in curriculum development and assessment, because they are overarching principles that organize knowledge and can be applied to all sub-disciplines in neuroscience. Although other disciplines have identified core concepts for their respective fields, neuroscience has yet to construct such a list. In collaboration with Kimberley Phillips (Trinity University), Jennifer Schaefer (College of St. Benedict/St. John’s University), and Patrick Sonner (Wright State University), I identified eight core concepts using an inductive, data-driven, independent coding approach, where the core concepts were further refined in an iterative process. Please contact me if you would like a copy of the core concepts, examples of how core concepts fit in typical topics taught in undergraduate neuroscience courses, or would just like to chat about this work.
Effectiveness of Instructor Feedback
A substantive part of teaching is providing written feedback to students. A teaching professional development program needs to train novice instructors to provide effective feedback in addition to the typical training on best in-classroom teaching practices. We are evaluating instructor feedback from two different perspectives: quality of feedback and student retention of feedback. We are investigating criteria used to evaluate instructor feedback on biology lab reports and what constitutes naïve, novice, apprentice, and master instructor feedback on a lab report. We are also interested in testing the relative timing of evaluative and descriptive feedback in aiding feedback retention and student ability to successfully use feedback.
We also have ongoing projects or completed projects which chart the development of biology education research, evaluate student study strategies, innovate laboratory curriculum, examine teaching assistant teaching professional development, and test new solutions to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion.