Departments of Botany, Microbiology & Immunology, and Zoology
People
CWSEI Department Director: Patricia Schulte, George Spiegelman
STLFs: Jaclyn Dee, Natalie Schimpf, Tammy Rodela, Megan Barker, Lisa McDonnell, Martha Mullally, Malin Hansen, Laura Weir, Amanda Banet, Bridgette Clarkston, Tamara Kelly, Jared Taylor, Harald Yurk
Faculty (instructors teaching targeted courses): K. Smith, G. Spiegelman, G. Bradfield, W. Goodey, R. Turkington, M. O’Connor, E. Hammill, P. Kalas, S. Chowrira, P. Schulte, J. Klenz, G. Haughn, D. Altshuler, D. Moerman, C. Berezowsky, A. O’Neill, W. Tetzlaff, S. Ellis, S. Graham, M. Berbee, G. Bole, J. Whitton, D. Srivastava, P. Tortell. M. Hawkes, C. Douglas, E. Hinze, M. Graves, J. Brodie, R. Young
Faculty (others involved in working groups, committees, or ad-hoc support): G. Bole, C. Pollack, A. O’Neal, K. Nomme, B. Couch
Skylight Affiliate: Gulnur Birol
Students and Postdocs: T. Deane, E. Jeffrey, R. Oh, M. Tseng, N. Wang, P. van Stolk
Activity
Activity summary report for the Life Sciences CWSEI group (course and curriculum projects, research, development of assessment tools) - PDF download
Newsletter 2008-2009 archive - zip file
Overview
The Life Sciences Program (Depts. of Zoology, Botany, and Microbiology & Immunology) received its first funding from CWSEI in 2007. The funding was renewed and extended in 2011 with four new STLFs starting in late 2011 and early 2012. The new funding allows STLFs to work with all second year core courses in the newly designed and implemented Biology Program at UBC. Two additional STLFs were hired in 2013, in conjunction with the Flexible Learning Initiative project for two first-year core courses, and one more was hired in January 2015. We implemented interactive activities and peer discussion in core courses in the Biology program from first to third year, including clicker questions with peer discussion, worksheets, case studies, learning activities, and invention activities. We also assisted with the implementation of learning goals and pre-reading assignments in most of these core courses. In addition, conceptual inventories in information transfer and community and population ecology were developed and used to evaluate the effectiveness of various class activities. On a larger scale, we carried out a department-wide characterization of the impact of various classroom practices (COPUS observations) on student learning (concept inventory data).
