Recent ucm_chem_cvriser items

Aligning course materials to improve student learning in an introductory physics laboratory

Fri, 3 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In an undergraduate introductory physics lab course, it is crucial that students receive an opportunity to acquire laboratory and research skills that they will take with them as they move through academia to the workplace. Lab questions are addressed in each student’s lab notebook. The goals, assignment questions and rubric criteria for a class can be assigned levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy, a hierarchical model that describes learning into distinct categories. In this study when the components of the class, lab objectives, questions, and rubric criteria, were not on the same level of Bloom’s this was considered as misalignment. This was done for four different labs from the Fall 2021 semester at UC Merced, two of which were based on app-based data collection and two that were hands on data collection using circuits available to or made by students. For the three components, two were compared at a time for alignment giving three total analyses, objectives to questions, objectives...

Shifting to a checklist rubric increased alignment between assignment learning objectives, assignment prompts, and the rubric criteria in a 2^nd semester introductory physics lab

Fri, 3 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Investigating alignment between learning objectives, question prompts, and rubric criteria in a second-semester introductory physics lab. We investigated alignment between course learning objectives, learning objectives for specific labs, prompts within those labs, and rubric criteria for a second-semester introductory physics lab course at UC Merced. Starting in spring 2020, the first- and second-semester labs were redesigned based on the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) recommendations for instructional labs. The course learning objectives align with the AAPT recommendations and learning objectives for the physics major and campus’ general education program. However, an explicit check for alignment between the course learning objectives, objectives for specific labs, lab prompts, and rubric criteria was left undone due to the shift to emergency remote instruction. Returning to in-person labs, Jarrod investigated alignment between lab objectives, prompts, and...

Efficacy of CALM Application for Improving High School Students' Subjective Wellbeing

Fri, 3 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The purpose of this quasi-experimental, single-group, pretest-posttest study is to share the difference that existed in the subjective wellbeing of high school students before and after listening to a guided mindfulness meditation from an online application. The theoretical foundation was positive psychology and the PERMA model. The sample consisted of 83 students (67 females, 15 males, one unidentified). Students participated via ZOOM and completed the EPOCH Measure on days one and five. A repeated measures MANOVA was used to address the research question. The overall MANOVA was statistically significant, Roy's Largest Root = 1.07, F (5, 78) = 16.64, p < .001, partial ƞ2 = .52. Therefore, a series of repeated measures ANOVAs were conducted to examine each dimension of the EPOCH Measure of Adolescent Wellbeing (engagement, perseverance, optimism, connectedness, and happiness). There was a significant difference in each dimension, so the null hypothesis was rejected.

Ana...

Morning, midday, or night: Learning time-of-day affects student expereience- but not performance- in upper division genetics course

Fri, 3 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Research on K-12th grade students shows reduced performance in classes scheduled early in the morning if the student prefers to learn and work later in the day. Not much research has been done on undergraduate learners in the morning, nor research at either level on learning in the late evening-- like the Spring 2022 UC Merced Genetics course where some sections were scheduled to end as late as 9:20 pm. To understand the experiences and effects on performance for students in these courses, we compiled 143 survey responses querying student time-of-day learning preference, including free response questions about student experience at different times of day and with different course modalities (in-person vs remote instruction), from the 167-student Genetics course. We found that although students do have different time-of-day learning preferences, their overall exam grades were not affected by whether these preferences aligned with scheduled class time. However, asking open ended...

Are all labs equal? An investigation of student self-efficacy and its relation to different lab types.

Fri, 3 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Whether or not a student believes they can perform well in STEM is their self-efficacy, and self-efficacy can impact student success in STEM. It has been shown that student self-efficacy can be positively impacted by hands on experience with the scientific method, and this experience can be provided by lab classes. However, lab classes can take many different forms, with different types of activities sometimes within one course, for example: wet labs, discussion sections, and field labs. Whether or not different types of lab classes differentially affects student self-efficacy. To address this question, I sent out surveys to students of an upper-level biology lab class after different lab activities to assess self-efficacy. I found that the wet lab had slightly more positive impact on self-efficacy than the field or discussion labs, but none had a negative impact. Further, I analyzed what students felt were barriers to their success in STEM and found students feel that they...

Metacognitive Strategies for Gateway STEM Courses

Fri, 3 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Metacognition refers to the awareness of one’s own thinking processes. The benefits of metacognition on student performance are well documented and a recent study suggests that the infusion of metacognitive instruction with active learning in General Chemistry has a significant effect on student performance. General Chemistry is required as a prerequisite for STEM majors at UCM and poor performance in these gateway courses is one reason students leave STEM programs. Accurate and efficient metacognitive monitoring is critical to performance because it encourages people to reflect on their abilities relative to the demands of a task. Thus, implementing effective metacognitive strategies in gateway courses at UCM may enhance student performance and increase the retention of STEM majors. The proposed project analyzes two existing metacognitive strategies through the framework of cue-utilization. Two new potential strategies are explored: in one, metacognitive prompts are interspersed...

Inclusive teaching practices and culturally responsive science teaching in graduate teaching assistants: A qualitative analysis

Fri, 3 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

One way to mitigate the effect of sociostructural disparity and systemic oppression on historically marginalized students in science classrooms is through culturally responsive science teaching (CRST; Barron et al., 2021), a pedagogical approach based on student empowerment, cultural competence, and sociopolitical consciousness (Ladson-Billings, 1995). Although CRST and other culturally-centered pedagogies have been linked with improved student outcomes as measured through student empowerment, self-efficacy, and ethnic and academic identity (Aronson & Laughter, 2016), more research assessing whether graduate teaching assistants (TAs) in college science are familiar with and prepared to engage in CRST is needed. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we conducted two training sessions for inclusive teaching practices and CRST adapted from Barron and colleagues (2021) during a graduate course focused on teaching and learning in the sciences at UC Merced, a large, research-intensive...

Power of Guidance: Mentorship Need and Viability for Undocumented Student Populations

Fri, 3 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

There are more than two million undocumented individuals living within the state of California (Hayes & Hill, 2017). When attempting to transition to higher education, many undocumented students encounter barriers that inhibit their passage. Undocumented young adults between the ages of 18-24 attend higher education at lower rates than their documented peers (Passel & Cohn, 2008). In order to evaluate the educational resources available to undocumented high school students and their impact on their access to higher education, 3 undocumented college students were interviewed by undocumented college researchers. Interviews lasted between 40 minutes - 60 minutes and were recorded via Zoom. To protect the anonymity and confidentiality of the participants, pseudonyms were used. Questions were about the resources available to them as undocumented students. What we found was that all participants mentioned that having a supportive figure such as a mentor/counselor, was imperative...

The Gene Editing Research Lab — a new classroom-based research experience at UC Merced

Fri, 3 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The ability to directly edit genetic sequences with technology like CRISPR/Cas has revolutionized the biological sciences. We have developed a Course-based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) that will give students hands-on experience with gene editing techniques that, in a short time, have become standard in biology and biomedical research. Our course introduces students to discovery-based research. Students will learn how to design, execute, and assess gene editing strategies and create unique, user-defined changes in target genes. We recruited 6 undergraduate students for our research team for a trial run in the fall semester of 2021. Each student was assigned one gene and designed and executed a CRISPR-based knock-in strategy for each gene. To accommodate their experience level, we held lectures covering fundamental concepts related to the project such as CRISPR/Cas9, DNA repair, and recombinant DNA technology. We also held structured training demonstrations of the...

Utilizing COPUS Data to Advance Student Engagement

Fri, 3 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The Center for Engaged Teaching and Learning at UC Merced offers the Students Assessing Teaching and Learning (SATAL) Program as a mechanism to support the community of instructors working to enhance teaching and learning on campus. SATAL involves trained undergraduates in the data collection, analysis, and reporting. Instructors can partner with SATAL to assess the teaching and learning experiences of students in their classes by implementing different protocols such as Classroom Observation Protocol for Undergraduate STEM (COPUS). The purpose of this poster is to share the rich information instructors can derive from the COPUS implementation to advance student engagement. The SATAL staff share COPUS results as a fruitful mechanism to document active learning practices complemented with guidelines and suggestion notes. Also, SATAL showcases actions taken based on the COPUS data received and impact on the instructors’ experiences as a responsive approach to advance student...

Student-Centered Learning Characteristic and Perception During Emergency Remote Teaching in a Minority-Serving Institution

Thu, 2 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many universities moved to emergency remote teaching (ERT). This allowed institutions to continue their instruction despite not being in person, yet inevitably created subsequent impact impeding the student learning. Instructors in UC Merced as a research-intensive and minority-serving institution (MSI) have adopted various pedagogical changes compared with in-person instructions to adapt the ERT. We conducted interviews after ERT to collect such data and anticipated an interesting trend of them becoming more student-centered throughout the period. We aim to analyze the data to study and prove the existence and extent of such perception about the more emerging student-centered learning (SCL) characteristic. We conducted qualitative inductive coding on the interview transcripts then adopted a theoretical framework to build the codes into the constructs. From the constructs, we are able to formulate and quantify the extent of the SCL characteristic...

"Academic Language is No One's Mother Tongue": Teaching to the Audience Before Us

Thu, 2 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Understanding the role of language communities is essential to any liberatory pedagogy as students learn to present their professional selves. As they enter college, students must make a difficult and necessary shift from the language of the community to the language of the academy. Therefore, to support authentic learning, effective pedagogies must consider their emotional as well as academic issues. They must recognize the value of the students' "mother tongue" and offer academic and emotional support based on learning theory.

Shirley Kahlert, Professor, Merced College

Bumping into each other online- The gradual process of building meaningful connections in online contexts for underrepresented groups in STEM

Thu, 2 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Building meaningful connections in online contexts became a necessity in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic forced people to rely on virtual means for their interactions. As Zoom Meetings became the common method of participating in work and school, institutions scrambled to create an enriching and meaningful environment for their members. This transition has been challenging, and work organizations have reported increased conflict and ‘zoom-fatigue’ whereas educational institutions have experienced increased disconnectedness and attrition (e.g. Leal Filho 2021 et al; Galanti et al. 2021). In this study, we ask: How can individuals form meaningful connections in the context of fully remote professional environments? In particular, we focus on the processes with which gradual familiarity is created in online contexts. In the physical domain, we take the gradual nature of friendship building for granted; people run into one another in the midst of their daily activities and through...

Diverse STEM Voices, the Role of Conceptual Metaphors in Introductory Biology Courses

Thu, 2 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

To retain diverse students in STEM fields, we need to engage interests and motivations in introductory science courses (Tanner, 2013; Dewsbury and Brame, 2019). For diverse students, the strongest motivators to pursue STEM degrees are tied to prosocial values and cultural connections to their families (Jackson et al., 2016). A strategy called “values affirmation” can harness these motivators and support students who may experience negative stereotypes in academic settings (Jordt et al, 2017); however, the reasoning process and what students have to say about learning in these affirmations has not had a systematic framework for teaching and learning purposes. To that end, this study is interested in why metaphor matters and how Biology classrooms could be transformed by engaging student voices. We employed this value affirmation exercise in three introductory Biology classes as an intervention to obtain a better understanding of student’s self-efficacy and attitudes to help...

What's Next? Action Research for Continous Program Improvement and Positive Social Outcomes

Thu, 2 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Today’s elementary school students face myriad traumatic issues including poverty, violence, physical and emotional abuse, homelessness, and parental substance abuse. These adverse childhood experiences are responsible for an increased risk of academic failure and behavioral problems in childhood, adolescence, and into adulthood. Social-emotional learning (SEL) programs, provided through school and community partnerships, attempt to address these needs in both school-based and out-of-school-time (OST) learning settings. The purpose of this action research study was to examine one northern California-based nonprofit organization’s OST SEL program for elementary students and determine actions and interventions for greater program effectiveness. Students, parent/guardians, site administrators, school-staff, and community members engaged in focus groups, completed surveys, participated in validation groups, and acted as research associates throughout the iterative plan, act, observe,...

COVID-19 Imposed Digital Learning Environment: The Relationship Between Perceived Edcuator Attitude and Student Acceptance

Fri, 27 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Poster:

"Past research makes frequent note of educator and faculty resistance or concerns regarding online education platforms. However, because of the pandemic, both educators who champion new learning technologies and those with concerns about the efficacy and value of online learning were suddenly teaching remotely. This provided an opportunity to ask if students' perceptions of educator attitudes toward digital learning environments influence the student’s acceptance of these platforms. This question was addressed via a quantitative correlational survey design to measure the strength of association between educator attitude and student acceptance as a mean across the scale measuring confidence in the platform effectiveness as implemented in two specific instances - their best and worst mandatory online-course experiences. This score was used to compare to the Test of e-Learning Related Attitudes (TeLRA) scale to measure teacher attitudes towards e-learning. The Pearson’s...

Breaking Barriers: Transformative Practices that Empower Students

Thu, 26 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Talk 11, Session 4: Breaking Barriers: Transformative Practices that Empower Students

Mentoring & Empowering Graduate students

"In this presentation I will discuss a graduate mentoring approach and specific strategies that can help empower doctoral students, particularly in the field of educational leadership. I use critical self-reflection, analysis of previous mentoring sessions, mentoring materials that I have created, and students’ reflective essays about their mentoring process with me. I will talk about four relational conditions that need to be constructed in the mentor-mentee to foster graduate student empowerment. Additionally, I will describe and analyze four instructional practices through which these four relational foundations can be constructed as part of the mentor-mentee relationship and the writing of the dissertation. Finally, I will discuss four developmental outcomes that graduates of a doctoral program in educational leadership identify...

Disrupting SLOs with DEI and Paradigm Shifts

Thu, 26 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Session 4: Breaking Barriers: Transformative Practices that Empower Students

Disrupting SLOs with DEI and Paradigm Shifts

"Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) are paramount for the enhancement of student success. SLOs assessment give the needed feedback to improve the teaching-learning framework. With that in mind, there are some initiatives pushing for a change in the educational model through SLOs with the objective to close equity gaps among traditionally underrepresented groups. This session will introduce a novel multidimensional DEI student-success framework."

Carlos Perez, Ph.D., Fresno City College

Questing for Relevance: Exploring Student Outcomes from Creative Assessment "Quests" in a General Education Biology Course

Thu, 26 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Talk 7, Session 3: Inquiry-Based Teaching and Learning in STEM

Questing for Relevance: Exploring Student Outcomes from Creative Assessment "Quests" in a General Education Biology Course

"Creativity, critical thinking, questioning, problem solving, and collaboration skills are critical 21st century skills. Contrary to these goals, students often perceive STEM as boring, lacking relevance, and full of memorizing facts. Students in turn leave STEM degrees or never select them to begin with. It is on these premises that we assert that assessments in STEM need to reflect real-world tasks and engage students’ interests and skills. In this study, we used a mixed methods approach to explore participant outcomes after they completed creative assignments in a general biology course in Spring and Fall2021. In this course, student choose to do three assignment “quests” from a list of over 20 options. The pedagogical goal of the quests was to use science in everyday life, explore...

Development and Implementation of a Guided-Inquiry Laboratory Structure for an Introductory Chemistry Course

Thu, 26 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Talk 8, Session 3: Inquiry-Based Teaching and Learning in STEM

Development and Implementation of a Guided-Inquiry Laboratory Structure for an Introductory Chemistry Course

"Laboratory courses are often critiqued for being fragmented from week-to-week, having little application to everyday life, and failing to reflect authentic science practices. This presentation will detail the development a guided-inquiry laboratory structure for an Introductory Chemistry course involving a zoo narrative. The guided inquiry structure was compared with a conventional 'cookbook' laboratory structure for two semesters based on conceptual and motivational measures (n = 662). Findings illustrate similar student conceptual gains for both structures, but the two conditions varied by motivational factors influencing students. This presentation considers the implications of these findings for undergraduate laboratory science courses."

Dermot Donnelly-Hermosillo and Eric Person,...

Brain-Targeted Teaching: A Tool for College Faculty?

Wed, 25 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Talk 6, Session 2: Frameworks for Assessing and Responding to Student Expectations and Needs

Brain-Targeted Teaching: A Tool for College Faculty?

"Although Mind Brain and Education Science (MBES) offers robust research informed practices for educators there is limited awareness and integration of MBES principles in community college teaching. Brain-Targeted Teaching (BTT) is a framework designed by Dr. Mariale Hardiman to help teachers implement neuroscience and related fields in their work. This qualitative study examined community college faculty’s perception of BTT as a tool to support implementation of MBES in their teaching. Participants engaged in a professional development experience that explored and modeled BTT and reported. The study found that participants made immediate change and planned to make change to their teaching as a result of their experience and perceived BTT to be a valuable tool. In this interactive session we’ll learn more about the BTT...

Physics Students' Epistemologies in the Age of the Pandemic

Wed, 25 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Talk 5 of Session 2: Frameworks for Assessing and Responding to Student Expectations and Needs

Physics Students’ Epistemologies in the Age of the Pandemic

"Physics students’ epistemologies are expectations, attitudes, and beliefs that physics students hold about what is necessary to be successful in their study of this science. These epistemologies can play a critical role in how students respond to the course and how they process information to construct their knowledge. They can influence what classroom activities and skills students think are important; what information they think is useful and what information they think is irrelevant. Often these epistemologies differ dramatically from “expert” epistemologies, or what instructors expect students to do. The Maryland Physics Expectations Survey (MPEX) is a survey instrument that measures student views at the beginning and end of a first semester physics class to help determine how student epistemologies may change...

California's Community College Closet: LGBTQ+ Voices

Tue, 24 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Talk 3 of Session 1: Mapping Central Valley Student Narratives: Access, Identity, and Validation

"LGBTQ+ individuals face numerous challenges while attending college, including bullying and harassment, a curriculum that does not reflect their identity, and faculty or peers who do not use their correct pronouns or preferred names. Furthermore, LGBTQ+ students often face significant marginalization that leads to some of the highest suicide rates among any student population (Trevor Project, 2020; di Giacomo et al., 2018). This study is framed according to Vincent Tinto’s 1975 Model of Student Integration and 1993Interactionalist Theory of College Student Departure infused with Rendon’s (1994) Validation Theory to explore more fully why these students persist and succeed given the experiences related to their identities. The 7 participants in this study are a diverse group with many facets in their student identity including: gender, sexual orientation, race/ethnicity/culture,...

SATAL's Classroom Assessment and Educational Development Integrated Together

Tue, 24 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Talk 1 of Session 2:Frameworks for Assessing and Responding to Expectations and Needs

"The purpose of this presentation is to share SATAL's classroom assessment tools and the rich information instructors can derive from their implementation to respond to students' needs and for their own professional development. The SATAL program, a UCM campus assessment support involving undergraduates will share Classroom Observation Protocol for Undergraduate STEM (COPUS) results paired with mid-semester feedback findings as a fruitful mechanism to document active learning practices together with the student perspective on their learning to respond to the students' immediate needs. The SATAL staff will present sample reports, action taken, and impact on the student population as a responsive approach to teaching and learning. Also, we will address how the presented assessment practices can be utilized for different purposes such as classroom assessment, research, and tenure and promotion....

The Small-Town Dilemma: Understanding the Spatial Imagination of Rural California and the Implications of Physical Place in Access to Higher Education for Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC)

Fri, 13 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

CV-RISER 2022, Talk 1 of Session 1: Mapping Central Valley Student Narratives: Access, Identity, and Validation

"Popular perceptions of rural California as “conservative, old-fashioned, and overwhelmingly white” excludes diverse populations and systemic couplings of power embedded in the state, especially the California Central Valley. Between the prison system on the CA-99 feeding into dual ends of gentrification from the Bay Area and I-5 as a center of supply chain logistics and an economic takeover of minority small towns, the economic landscape of the Central Valley is changing. Black, Indigenous, and Students of Color in the Central Valley are facing a proximity problem: college is far away and money is necessary, the prison system alongside corporations like Amazon is closer and pays off faster than college campuses. While the influx of industry creates an illusion of choice, it is limiting the perceived landscapes of hope for young people. In my research, I am...

Male Narratives in the Midst of Intersectionality: Cultural Practices for the Negotiation, Preservation, and Betterment of the Multiply Marginalized Self

Fri, 13 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

CV-RISER 2022: Talk 2 of Session 1: Mapping Central Valley Student Narratives: Access, Identity, and Validation

"This study employed a narrative methodology to increase an understanding of how Mexican American males utilized their agency as they constructed their identities while negotiating competing hegemonic discourses in multiple socio-cultural contexts. The study used the theoretical lens of cultural production to honor the personal journeys of six Mexican American males as they negotiated the space between agency and structure. Findings describe how each of these men exhibited their intersectionality and multiple positionalities as they responded to the distinct expectations of hegemonic masculinities in both the Anglo American and Mexican American cultures. Participants’ narratives highlighted the role and influences of distinct and competing communities of practice that reflected different hegemonic discourses of masculinity on equally distinct and fluid gendered...

CV-RISER 2022 Report

Tue, 10 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

CV-RISER 2022 Report

Recent ucm_chem_cvriser items

Aligning course materials to improve student learning in an introductory physics laboratory

Shifting to a checklist rubric increased alignment between assignment learning objectives, assignment prompts, and the rubric criteria in a 2nd semester introductory physics lab

Efficacy of CALM Application for Improving High School Students' Subjective Wellbeing

Morning, midday, or night: Learning time-of-day affects student expereience- but not performance- in upper division genetics course

Are all labs equal? An investigation of student self-efficacy and its relation to different lab types.

Metacognitive Strategies for Gateway STEM Courses

Inclusive teaching practices and culturally responsive science teaching in graduate teaching assistants: A qualitative analysis

Power of Guidance: Mentorship Need and Viability for Undocumented Student Populations

The Gene Editing Research Lab — a new classroom-based research experience at UC Merced

Utilizing COPUS Data to Advance Student Engagement

Student-Centered Learning Characteristic and Perception During Emergency Remote Teaching in a Minority-Serving Institution

"Academic Language is No One's Mother Tongue": Teaching to the Audience Before Us

Bumping into each other online- The gradual process of building meaningful connections in online contexts for underrepresented groups in STEM

Diverse STEM Voices, the Role of Conceptual Metaphors in Introductory Biology Courses

What's Next? Action Research for Continous Program Improvement and Positive Social Outcomes

COVID-19 Imposed Digital Learning Environment: The Relationship Between Perceived Edcuator Attitude and Student Acceptance

Breaking Barriers: Transformative Practices that Empower Students

Disrupting SLOs with DEI and Paradigm Shifts

Questing for Relevance: Exploring Student Outcomes from Creative Assessment "Quests" in a General Education Biology Course

Development and Implementation of a Guided-Inquiry Laboratory Structure for an Introductory Chemistry Course

Brain-Targeted Teaching: A Tool for College Faculty?

Physics Students' Epistemologies in the Age of the Pandemic

California's Community College Closet: LGBTQ+ Voices

SATAL's Classroom Assessment and Educational Development Integrated Together

The Small-Town Dilemma: Understanding the Spatial Imagination of Rural California and the Implications of Physical Place in Access to Higher Education for Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC)

Male Narratives in the Midst of Intersectionality: Cultural Practices for the Negotiation, Preservation, and Betterment of the Multiply Marginalized Self

CV-RISER 2022 Report

Shifting to a checklist rubric increased alignment between assignment learning objectives, assignment prompts, and the rubric criteria in a 2^nd semester introductory physics lab