Place-based climate change: lowering students' psychological distance through a classroom activity.

Psychological distance (PD) can be a barrier to how students perceive climate change impacts and severity. Localizing climate change using place-based approaches is one way instructors can structure their curricula to help combat students' PD, especially from a spatial and social viewpoint. We created a novel classroom intervention that incorporated elements of place-based education and the Teaching for Transformative Experiences in Science model that was designed to lower undergraduate biology students' spatial and social distance of climate change. Our research questions sought to determine whether students' PD changed following our intervention and whether variables beyond our intervention might have contributed to changes we identified. To measure the efficacy of our intervention, we administered a survey that contained several instruments to measure students' recognition and psychological distance of climate change pre- and post-intervention. We found that students' psychological distance to climate change decreased after participating in our classroom intervention. Additionally, course level was the only outside variable we identified as a predictor of students' post-activity scores. Participation in our activity lowered our students' spatial and social psychological distance, which could have impacts beyond the classroom as these students become the next generation of scientists and voters.

Host Genetic Variation Has a Profound Impact on Immune Responses Mediating Control of Viral Load in Chronic Gammaherpesvirus Infection.

Chronic infection with the gammaherpesvirus EBV is a risk factor for several autoimmune diseases, and poor control of EBV viral load and enhanced anti-EBV responses elevate this risk further. However, the role of host genetic variation in the regulation of immune responses to chronic gammaherpesvirus infection and control of viral replication remains unclear. To address this question, we infected C57BL/6J (B6) and genetically divergent wild-derived inbred PWD/PhJ (PWD) mice with murine gammaherpesvirus-68 (MHV-68), a gammaherpesvirus similar to EBV, and determined the effect of latent gammaherpesvirus infection on the CD4 T cell transcriptome. Chronic MHV-68 infection of B6 mice resulted in a dramatic upregulation of genes characteristic of a cytotoxic Th cell phenotype, including Gzmb, Cx3cr1, Klrg1, and Nkg7, a response that was highly muted in PWD mice. Flow cytometric analyses revealed an expansion of CX3CR1+KLRG1+ cytotoxic Th cell-like cells in B6 but not PWD mice. Analysis of MHV-68 replication demonstrated that in spite of muted adaptive responses, PWD mice had superior control of viral load in lymphoid tissue, despite an absence of a defect in MHV-68 in vitro replication in PWD macrophages. Depletion of NK cells in PWD mice, but not B6 mice, resulted in elevated viral load, suggesting genotype-dependent NK cell involvement in MHV-68 control. Taken together, our findings demonstrate that host genetic variation can regulate control of gammaherpesvirus replication through disparate immunological mechanisms, resulting in divergent long-term immunological sequelae during chronic infection.

Design, Discover, and Decipher: Student-Developed Escape Rooms in the Virtual Ecology Classroom.

There has always been a need for engaging assessments in online learning environments, though the COVID-19 pandemic further emphasized this need. Instructors across science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines have begun to implement escape room activities as effective and engaging learning tools in their classrooms. For our virtual introductory ecology course in spring 2021, we developed a student-designed escape room assessment which aligned with several course goals and covered a broad range of ecology concepts. The learning objectives of this assignment asked students to (i) create a themed "room" filled with ecology-based riddles and puzzles that represented a novel virtual escape room for their peers based on an important ecological topic, (ii) summarize and synthesize primary literature into clues and locks to educate their peers about an ecological topic, and (iii) use critical thinking and discussion of ecological topics with peers to solve their peers' escape rooms. We found that while students generated distinct escape room activities and focused on various ecological topics, student scores on this assessment, as well as student feedback, indicated that the escape rooms were conducive to learning, novel, and accessible in the virtual learning environment. We suggest that student-designed escape room assessments are an effective way for students to learn course material in a fun, engaging, and creative manner, and our spring 2021 implementation suggests that this activity may be an effective assessment for online settings.

Instructional Communities of Practice during COVID-19: Social Networks and Their Implications for Resilience.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, most spring 2020 university courses were abruptly transitioned mid-semester to remote learning. The current study was an exploratory investigation into the interactions among individuals within a single biology department during this transition. Our goal was to describe the patterns of interactions among members of this community, including with whom they gave advice on instruction, shared materials, co-constructed materials, and shared emotions, during the rapid online transition. We explored how instructional teams (i.e., the instructor of record and graduate teaching assistants, or GTAs, assigned to a single course) organized themselves, and what interactions exist outside of these instructional teams. Using social network analysis, we found that the flow of resources and support among instructional staff within this department suggest a collaborative and resilient community of practice. Most interactions took place between instructional staff teaching in the same course. While faculty members tended to have more connections than GTAs, GTAs remained highly interactive in this community. We consider how the observed networks might reflect a mobilization of social resources that are important for individual and departmental resilience in a time of crisis. Actively promoting supportive networks and network structures may be important as higher education continues to cope and adapt to the changing landscape brought on by COVID-19.

From Bored Games to Board Games: Student-Driven Game Design in the Virtual Classroom.

Classroom assessments needed to be rapidly modified at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, as instruction transitioned from an in-person to virtual format. Yet, a significant obstacle among instructors during this time was developing online assessments that were useful, engaging, and accessible for students. We implemented a game design project in our introductory ecology course in spring 2020, in which students were required to develop a novel game based on ecology topics discussed in class. The learning objectives of this assignment asked students to (i) design a game for their peers based on an important ecological topic or concept from a specific unit or lesson in a creative manner; (ii) encourage critical thinking and discussion of ecological topics and concepts in the game; and (iii) judge their peers on the quality and enjoyment of their games. We found that while students developed various game formats and focused on different unit learning objectives, including nutrient cycling, climate change, and community dynamics, instructor and peer review indicated that the games created for this assignment were both conducive to learning and highly accessible. We suggest that a student-developed instructional games project is an effective way to engage students in an assessment that is enjoyable, collaborative, and requires creative application of the course content, in many possible biology courses and in-person and online learning environments.

Thanks for inviting me to the party: Virtual poster sessions as a way to connect in a time of disconnection.

COVID-19 presented the world with trauma and isolation, but many people, including educators, have offered bright spots of creativity and engagement. As we confronted these issues in our own ecology classroom, we sought solutions to carry-forward the learning objectives we set for our students in January 2020, yet encourage interaction with the sensitivity that a pandemic requires. In the rapid transition to online course delivery, we opted to retain the original end-of-semester poster project in our introductory ecology course. However, we experimented with a new virtual platform where students could disseminate their work and communicate with the community. In this paper, we discuss the Mozilla Hubs virtual reality platform that we used for our event. We also collected qualitative data to share the benefits and challenges of this experience felt by the students, the instructors, and external observers.

Benefits and Challenges of Instructing Introductory Biology Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) as Perceived by Graduate Teaching Assistants.

Graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) are often the primary instructors for undergraduate biology laboratories and serve as research mentors in course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs). While several studies have explored undergraduate perceptions of CUREs, no previous study has qualitatively described GTAs' perceptions about teaching CUREs, despite the essential instructional role GTAs play. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to describe and ascribe meaning to the perceptions that GTAs have regarding benefits and challenges with instructional experiences in introductory biology CUREs. We conducted semistructured interviews with 11 GTAs instructing an introductory biology CURE at a 4-year public university. We found that, while GTAs perceived professional benefits such as experience in research mentoring and postsecondary teaching, they also described challenges, including the time required to instruct a CURE, motivating students to take ownership, and a lack of expertise in mentoring undergraduates about a copepod-based CURE. Feelings of inadequacy in serving as a research mentor and high levels of critical thinking were also cited as perceived issues. We recommend that the greater responsibility and increased time commitment perceived by GTAs in the current study warrants reconsideration by lab coordinators and administrators as to what content and practices should be included in pedagogical training specifically designed for CURE GTAs and how departmental and institutional policies may need to be adapted to better implement CUREs.

Comparing student, instructor, and expert perceptions of learner-centeredness in post-secondary biology classrooms.

Learner-centered classrooms encourage critical thinking and communication among students and between students and their instructor, and engage students as active learners rather than passive participants. However, students, faculty, and experts often have distinct definitions of learner-centeredness, and the paucity of research comparing perspectives of these different groups must be resolved. In the current study, our central research question was how do student, faculty, and expert observer perceptions of learner-centeredness within biology classrooms compare to one another? We sampled 1114 students from fifteen sections of a general biology course for non-majors, and complete responses from 490 students were analyzed. Five valid and reliable tools (two faculty; two student; and one expert observer) evaluated the learner-centeredness of each participating section. Perceptions of learner-centered instructors often aligned with those of expert observers, while student perceptions tended not to align with either group. Interestingly, students perceived learner-centered instructors as less learner-centered if they taught at non-traditional times and/or in large-enrollment sections, despite their focus on student learning. Perceptions of learner-centeredness in the biology classroom are complex and may be best captured with more than one instrument. Our findings encourage instructors to be cognizant that the approaches they employ in the classroom may not be interpreted as learner-centered, in the same manner, by students and external observers, particularly when additional course factors such as enrollment and scheduling may encourage negative perceptions of learner-centered practices.

The Greatest Learning Return on Your Pedagogical Investment: Alignment, Assessment or In-Class Instruction?

Critical thinking is often considered an essential learning outcome of institutions in higher education. Previous work has proposed three pedagogical strategies to address this goal: more active, student-centered in-class instruction, assessments which contain higher-order cognitive questions, and greater alignment within a classroom (i.e., high agreement of the cognitive level of learning objectives, assessments, and in-class instruction). Our goals were to determine which of these factors, individually or the interactions therein, contributed most to improvements in university students' critical thinking. We assessed students' higher-order cognitive skills in introductory non-majors biology courses the first and last week of instruction. For each of the fifteen sections observed, we also measured the cognitive level of assessments and learning objectives, evaluated the learner-centeredness of each classroom, and calculated an alignment score for each class. The best model to explain improvements in students' high-order cognitive skills contained the measure of learner-centeredness of the class and pre-quiz scores as a covariate. The cognitive level of assessments, learning objectives, nor alignment explained improvements in students' critical thinking. In accordance with much of the current literature, our findings support that more student-centered classes had greater improvements in student learning. However, more research is needed to clarify the role of assessment and alignment in student learning.

Online plagiarism training falls short in biology classrooms.

Online plagiarism tutorials are increasingly popular in higher education, as faculty and staff try to curb the plagiarism epidemic. Yet no research has validated the efficacy of such tools in minimizing plagiarism in the sciences. Our study compared three plagiarism-avoidance training regimens (i.e., no training, online tutorial, or homework assignment) and their impacts on students' ability to accurately discriminate plagiarism from text that is properly quoted, paraphrased, and attributed. Using pre- and postsurveys of 173 undergraduate students in three general ecology courses, we found that students given the homework assignment had far greater success in identifying plagiarism or the lack thereof compared with students given no training. In general, students trained with the homework assignment more successfully identified plagiarism than did students trained with the online tutorial. We also found that the summative assessment associated with the plagiarism-avoidance training formats (i.e., homework grade and online tutorial assessment score) did not correlate with student improvement on surveys through time.