Inspiring careers in STEM and healthcare fields through medical simulation embedded in high school science education.

The most effective ways to promote learning and inspire careers related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) remain elusive. To address this gap, we reviewed the literature and designed and implemented a high-fidelity, medical simulation-based Harvard Medical School MEDscience course, which was integrated into high school science classes through collaboration between medical school and K-12 faculty. The design was based largely on the literature on concepts and mechanisms of self-efficacy. A structured telephone survey was conducted with 30 program alumni from the inaugural school who were no longer in high school. Near-term effects, enduring effects, contextual considerations, and diffusion and dissemination were queried. Students reported high incoming attitudes toward STEM education and careers, and these attitudes showed before versus after gains (P < .05). Students in this modest sample overwhelmingly attributed elevated and enduring levels of impact on their interest and confidence in pursuing a science or healthcare-related career to the program. Additionally, 63% subsequently took additional science or health courses, 73% participated in a job or educational experience that was science related during high school, and 97% went on to college. Four of every five program graduates cited a health-related college major, and 83% offered their strongest recommendation of the program to others. Further study and evaluation of simulation-based experiences that capitalize on informal, naturalistic learning and promote self-efficacy are warranted.

Linking landscape variables to cold water refugia in rivers.

The protection of coldwater refugia within aquatic systems requires the identification of thermal habitats in rivers. These refugia provide critical thermal habitats for brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) and Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) during periods of thermal stress, for example during summer high temperature events. This study aims to model these refugia using georeferenced thermal infrared images collected during late July 2008 and 2009 for a reach of the Cains River, New Brunswick, Canada. These images were paired with geospatial catchment variables to identify the driving factors for coldwater refugia located within tributaries to the main channel. Using Partial Least Square (PLS) Regression, results suggest that median temperatures of tributary catchments are driven by their position within the landscape including slope in addition to the density of wetlands and mixed forest within the upstream catchment. Similar results are presented when PLS models were developed to predict the magnitude of the cold water refugia (i.e. the difference between the mainstem water temperature and the thermal refugia). These results suggest that thermal infrared images can be used to predict critical summer habitats for coldwater fishes.

Using immersive healthcare simulation for physiology education: initial experience in high school, college, and graduate school curricula.

In the natural world, learning emerges from the joy of play, experimentation, and inquiry as part of everyday life. However, this kind of informal learning is often difficult to integrate within structured educational curricula. This report describes an educational program that embeds naturalistic learning into formal high school, college, and graduate school science class work. Our experience is based on work with hundreds of high school, college, and graduate students enrolled in traditional science classes in which mannequin simulators were used to teach physiological principles. Specific case scenarios were integrated into the curriculum as problem-solving exercises chosen to accentuate the basic science objectives of the course. This report also highlights the historic and theoretical basis for the use of mannequin simulators as an important physiology education tool and outlines how the authors' experience in healthcare education has been effectively translated to nonclinical student populations. Particular areas of focus include critical-thinking and problem-solving behaviors and student reflections on the impact of the teaching approach.

Collaborative Curriculum Design as a Framework for Designing Teacher Professional Development that Produces the Content Knowledge for Teaching the Life Sciences.

Effective science teaching critically requires content focused professional development (PD), particularly in life sciences where content evolves rapidly. How subject matter knowledge related to teaching (SCK) is most effectively incorporated into PD has not been investigated. We studied how a professional learning community of high school teachers and scientists co-designing a bioscience curriculum produced the accompanying SCK-focused PD. SCK was level-specific but teachers could not generate it alone. Co-designing SCK with scientists was valuable to teachers, as evidenced by significant increases in their cognitive and attitudinal attributes toward the PD, in turn promoting change in practice and student learning gains, both within and outside the initial partnership. Surprisingly, social network analysis of how the collaborators interacted revealed that though the network was cognitively and effectively robust, it was behaviorally much sparser than anticipated for such a high functioning partnership, counter to commonly accepted PD best practices. We suggest that the scientist/educator facilitators who intentionally promoted collaboration in the context of distributed leadership were able to eliminate extraneous interactions, optimizing the process. The results are further evidence that developing content-focused PD relevant to 21st century life sciences requires dismantling the institutionalized segregation between practitioners of science and teaching.

Addressing Health Literacy Challenges With a Cutting-Edge Infectious Disease Curriculum for the High School Biology Classroom.

This study reports the secondary analysis of evaluation data from an innovative high school biology curriculum focused on infectious disease (ID) to examine the health literacy implications of teaching claims evaluation, data interpretation, and risk assessment skills in the context of 21st-Century health science. The curriculum was implemented between 2010 and 2013 in Biology II classes held in four public high schools (three in Massachusetts and one in Ohio), plus a private school in Virginia. A quasi-experimental design was used in which student participants (n = 273) were compared to an age-matched, nonparticipant, peer group (N = 125). Participants in each school setting demonstrated increases in conceptual content knowledge (Cohen's d > 1.89) as well as in understanding how to apply scientific principles to health claims evaluation and risk assessment (Cohen's d > 1.76) and in self-efficacy toward learning about ID (Cohen's d > 2.27). Participants also displayed enhanced communication about ID within their social networks relative to the comparison group (p < .05). The data show that integrating the claims evaluation, data interpretation, and risk assessment skills critical for 21st-century health literacy health into high school biology classrooms is effective at fostering both the skills and self-efficacy pertinent to health literacy learning in diverse populations.

Modeling for Fidelity: virtual mentorship by scientists fosters teacher self-efficacy and promotes implementation of novel high school biomedical curricula.

This small-scale comparison case study evaluates the impact of an innovative approach to teacher professional development designed to promote implementation of a novel cutting edge high school neurological disorders curriculum. 'Modeling for Fidelity' (MFF) centers on an extended mentor relationship between teachers and biomedical scientists carried out in a virtual format in conjunction with extensive online educative materials. Four teachers from different diverse high schools in Massachusetts and Ohio who experienced MFF contextualized to a 6-week Neurological Disorders curriculum with the same science mentor were compared to a teacher who had experienced an intensive in-person professional development contextualized to the same curriculum with the same mentor. Fidelity of implementation was measured directly using an established metric and indirectly via student performance. The results show that teachers valued MFF, particularly the mentor relationship and were able to use it effectively to ensure critical components of the learning objectives were preserved. Moreover their students performed equivalently to those whose teacher had experienced intensive in-person professional development. Participants in all school settings demonstrated large (Cohen's d>2.0) and significant (p<0.0001 per-post) changes in conceptual knowledge as well as self-efficacy towards learning about neurological disorders (Cohen's d>1.5, p<0.0001 pre-post). The data demonstrates that the virtual mentorship format in conjunction with extensive online educative materials is an effective method of developing extended interactions between biomedical scientists and teachers that are scalable and not geographically constrained, facilitating teacher implementation of novel cutting-edge curricula.

Building interdisciplinary biomedical research using novel collaboratives.

Traditionally, biomedical research has been carried out mainly within departmental boundaries. However, successful biomedical research increasingly relies on development of methods and concepts crossing these boundaries, requiring expertise in different disciplines. Recently, major research institutes have begun experimenting with ways to foster an interdisciplinary ethos. The Evans Center for Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research ("the Evans Center") at Boston University is a new organizational paradigm to address this challenge. The Evans Center is built around interdisciplinary research groups termed affinity research collaboratives (ARCs). Each ARC consists of investigators from several academic departments and at least two research disciplines, bound by a common goal to investigate biomedical problems concerning human disease. Novel aspects of the Evans Center include a "bottom-up" approach to identifying areas of ARC research (research vision and strategy are typically initiated by a core group of faculty with input from the center director); a pre-ARC period of faculty affiliation/project(s)' self-selection prior to formation of a peer-reviewed ARC; and Evans Center support for innovative ARCs for up to three years pending yearly metric evaluation, followed by continued administrative support as a group matures into an ARC program.Since its inception in early 2009, the Evans Center has documented achievements at discovery/publication, grant award, and educational levels. Enhanced interactions between members of individual ARCs, as assessed by quantitative networking analysis, are discussed in the context of high productivity. As universities seek new approaches to stimulate interdisciplinary research, the Evans Center and its ARCs are offered as a productive model for leveraging discovery.