Increasing Science Literacy in Microbiology through the Use of Open Education Resources

About This Grant

This project aims to serve the national interest by engaging students in a novel way to improve their understanding of microbiology concepts. Understanding the scientific process and developing critical thinking are important skills for everyone, but especially for college students pursuing careers in STEM fields. However, students frequently struggle with learning how to effectively read, analyze, and write about science. Moreover, many students leave science because they feel unconnected and uninspired by traditional teaching methods. At the same time, teachers struggle to find teaching resources that are effective and innovative to engage their students in the scientific process. This project aims to address these issues using successful innovative methods such as having students practice science while working in teams on real problems and generating readily available teaching materials. Teams of teachers and students will create accessible and free learning materials based on popular science podcasts. The project is novel because it will use modern communication tools to engage students and teachers. The impact of these training and learning materials on student science literacy, identity, and motivation will be investigated. The project will also be evaluated to determine best practices for training faculty to implement these materials in the classroom. A guiding imperative of this project is to support the training of a diverse STEM workforce using active methods and accessible materials that build science literacy and critical thinking. Through the creation of open education resources, which are free, adaptable, of high quality, and accessible, this project is focused on enhancing science literacy and critical thinking. Moreover, this project strives to increase inclusivity in STEM education given that publicly and widely available resources usually engage larger, more diverse populations by removing accessibility barriers. With these goals in mind, this project aims to expand a successful digital initiative that uses "This Week in Microbiology (TWiM)," a podcast that i) features professional scientists discussing current papers, ii) is licensed under Creative Commons, and iii) is supported by the American Society for Microbiology. Under this initiative students annotate the TWiM podcasts with materials they think other undergraduates would connect with (cultural relevancy, current events, etc.) and tie these back to a course’s learning objectives. Critically, the project uses methods known to increase long term retention in STEM, including building a collaborative faculty learning community, student participation in the practice of science, building student science identity, and working on relevant, real-world scientific problems. There are three main components to this project. First, it aims to train teachers and students using an established collaborative workflow. Key features of this workflow are the use of learning methods and materials that are accessible, inclusive of underrepresented groups, and known to increase science literacy and promote the formation of science identity. Second, the project aims to produce a free electronic book called Podcast Annotation Resources: Microbiology. Third, the project aims to use validated methods to assess the effect of these active learning materials on metrics known to promote long-term STEM success: student content understanding, STEM motivation, science literacy, and science identity. By identifying benefits and barriers to adoption of this type of active learning and collaboration, the project will enhance the learning experiences of all participants as they work on complex and relevant topics in diverse collaborative teams. By training additional faculty, using a professional society’s podcast with a global reach, and disseminating research findings through meeting attendance and publication, the availability of learning materials and methods will enable teachers across the nation to easily find and adopt active learning materials. The NSF IUSE: EDU Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through its Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.