Exploring Cyberlearning

in Biology EducationASMCUE

San Diego, CAMay 20, 2010

The C3 Project

Professional development workshops and online collaborative activities for community college biology faculty.

C3 Partners

Teaching the Natural Sciences

Challenges we are all faced with today

Explosive growth of information

Expanding role of technology

Changes in the nature of the discipline

Growing schism between learning and schooling

Is Cyberlearning Part of the Solution?

Borgman, C. (2008), Fostering Learning in the Networked World: The Cyberlearning Opportunity and Challenge. Report of the NSF Taskforce on Cyberlearning. NSF, Arlington, VA.

What is Cyberlearning?

Cyberlearning: 4 Themes

In the C3 Cyberlearning Project we are focusing on

Integrating media literacy and disciplinary literacy

Making teaching and learning processes visible

Leveraging existing tools and data to support rich learning experiences

Supporting student centered learning

from Learning, Working & Playing in the Digital Age by John Seely Brownhttp://serendip.brynmawr.edu/sci_edu/seelybrown/seelybrown4.html

Cyberlearners use technology to seek answers, but frequently find new questions.

Nature of science in policy documents

… undergraduates need to understand the process of science, the interdisciplinary nature of the new biology, and how science is closely integrated within society. Students also should be competent in communication and collaboration, as well as have a certain level of quantitative competency, and a basic ability to understand and interpret data. Vision and Change:

A Call to Action (2009)

BioQUEST & 3P’s

Problem Posing

Problem Solving

Peer Persuasion

British paper

from Developing Undergraduate Research and Inquiry by Healey and Jenkins (2009).

http://undsci.berkeley.edu/

Visual Literacy and Animations

http://www.johnkyrk.com/photosynthesis.htmlhttp://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/http://www.cnr.vt.edu/dendro/forestbiology/photosynthesis.swf

Collecting Data from Images

Visualizing Data

http://www.swivel.com/http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/http://www.gapminder.org/

RSS Feeds: Staying Current

Fall 2009 Student Survey:

• 30,616 respondents• 104 colleges and universities• 12 two-year institutions• 81.7% under 25 years old• 87.4% enrolled full time

The Educause Center for Applied Research Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2009.

http://www.educause.edu/Resources/TheECARStudyofUndergraduateStu/187215

Fall 2009 Student Survey:

• 98% own computers• 79% of freshman own computers less than one year old

ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2009.

http://www.educause.edu/Resources/TheECARStudyofUndergraduateStu/187215

ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2009.

http://www.educause.edu/Resources/TheECARStudyofUndergraduateStu/187215

ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2009.

http://www.educause.edu/Resources/TheECARStudyofUndergraduateStu/187215

“Young people’s unfettered access to information (of both dubious and stellar quality) places greater demands on the university as an institution to be as flexible as Google in how we organize knowledge and information.”

http://contexts.org/thickculture/2009/04/30/graduate-school-fail/

Our web-savvy students see their curricula as old-fashioned - “an arbitrary set of hoops to jump rather than a carefully considered set of courses.”

Undergraduate curricula “looks like Yahoo circa 1996 (i.e. knowledge organized in pre-selected categories).”

http://contexts.org/thickculture/2009/04/30/graduate-school-fail/

“In contrast to biological research, undergraduate biology education has changed relatively little during the past two decades. The ways in which most future research biologists are educated are geared to the biology of the past, rather than to the biology of the present or future.”

National Research Council (2003). Bio2010: Transforming Undergraduate Education for Future Research Biologists,

Washington, DC, National Academies Press. http://www.nap.edu/books/0309085357/html/.

Cyberlearning impacts funding opportunities:

“Projects that explore cyberlearning, specifically learning with cyberinfrastructure tools such as networked computing and communications technologies, are of special interest.”

National Science Foundation. 2010. Transforming Undergraduate Education in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics

(TUES). 

Kristin Jenkins Ethel Stanley

Sue Risseeuw John Jungck

Spring 2010C3 Group

Justin PruneskiBob Charland Hedy ChoiElia CrisucciKeith GarmireNeha GuptaAb MittalGrace NobelKelly PeriniJessica SteinerTori Wytiaz

Questions and comments?

Image: Panther