Data-driven and instructor-engaged: Enhancing equity in Canadian STEM courses

Panelists from the Canadian Consortium of Science Equity Scholars (CCSES)—a group of educators and researchers dedicated to enhancing equity in post-secondary science at the course level—will describe the approach and progress of the CCSES in collecting data and engaging instructors from across Canadian institutions. Small group discussions will allow the audience to engage with questions related to this large, collaborative, equity project and identify the opportunities and challenges of such a project. The CCSES builds on an emerging body of literature demonstrating the need to attend to affective dimensions of the classroom (Trujillo & Tanner, 2014; Eddy & Brownell, 2016) in creating an inclusive and equitable environment (Dewsbury & Brame, 2019; Theobald et al., 2020). The research goals of the CCSES include examining how the instructor-created classroom climate impacts students’ sense of belonging across science courses, institutions, and demographic groups, and identifying the inclusive teaching practices that help address inequities. In our work we seek to apply critical methodologies to reframe “achievement gaps” as “systemic and structural barriers” (Nissen, Her Many Horses, & Van Dusen, 2021). Since 2022, the CCSES has collected over 30,000 data points from tens of university STEM courses across 12 campuses. Each instructor receives a course report with summaries of the demographic makeup of their students and disaggregated information about student experience and outcomes. On the research side, our group is working on validating our measures and statistically modelling relationships. The project also includes qualitative sub-projects to help us understand the breadth of student experience. This research has been approved by ethics boards at all sites. References: Dewsbury, B., & Brame, C. J. (2019). Inclusive Teaching. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 18(2), fe2. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.19-01-0021 Eddy, S. L., & Brownell, S. E. (2016). Beneath the numbers: A review of gender disparities in undergraduate education across science, technology, engineering, and math disciplines. Physical Review Physics Education Research, 12(2), 020106. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.12.020106 Nissen, J. M., Her Many Horses, I., & Dusen, B. Van. (2021). Investigating society ’ s educational debts due to racism and sexism in student attitudes about physics using quantitative critical race theory. Physical Review Physics Education Research, 17(1), 10116. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.17.010116 Theobald, E. J., Hill, M. J., Tran, E., Agrawal, S., Nicole Arroyo, E., Behling, S., Chambwe, N., Cintrón, D. L., Cooper, J. D., Dunster, G., Grummer, J. A., Hennessey, K., Hsiao, J., Iranon, N., Jones, L., Jordt, H., Keller, M., Lacey, M. E., Littlefield, C. E., … Freeman, S. (2020). Active learning narrows achievement gaps for underrepresented students in undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and math. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 117(12), 6476–6483. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1916903117 Trujillo, G., & Tanner, K. D. (2014). Considering the Role of Affect in Learning: Monitoring Students’ Self-Efficacy, Sense of Belonging, and Science Identity. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 13(1), 6–15. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.13-12-024

Beyond Punnett squares: Revising the Canadian genetics curriculum to meaningfully introduce social and ethical perspectives

In 2015, the Genetics Society of America published a learning framework based on Vision and Change. One of many core competencies was that “Students should be able to identify and critique scientific issues relating to society or ethics.” Unfortunately, no links to other core concepts were provided to help instructors integrate this core competency into the genetics curriculum, and no key issues were identified or discussed. Traditional genetics concepts raise many unresolved ethical issues (Gouvea, 2022; Visintainer, 2022) and new genome-editing technologies amplify the need to incorporate social and ethical perspectives in the genetics curriculum. A few exercises that touch on social and ethical perspectives in genetics have been made available through CourseSource, but these are mostly superficial and difficult to integrate into the existing curriculum. Moreover, little work has been published on the curriculum for Canadian introductory genetics courses in higher education. To address this deficiency, we conducted a document analysis of syllabi for introductory genetics courses across all provinces and territories. Only 15% of these syllabi touch on social and ethical perspectives. Through interviews of students and instructors in courses across Canada, we are exploring how these perspectives have been integrated into the curriculum. We will share the themes emerging through our interviews, and invite attendees to consider alignment with their own pedagogical contexts. We will share our work to build a database of strategies to integrate social and ethical perspectives in introductory genetics courses across Canada. This study was performed with ethics approval

Artificial intelligence open education resources for medical and related life sciences programs

Given the widespread availability of generative-AI (Gen-AI) tools, faculty is often faced with a critical question: How can I effectively use AI or artificial intelligence in the classroom? Clearly, educators are challenged with the rapidly evolving AI tools and the extent of AI integration into their teaching and learning. Conversation on various AI tools adopted by educators among various faculties and institutions will be facilitated. In this engaging session, attendees will be encouraged to share their perspectives and experiences with Gen-AI at their institution and from their own educational or program specific contexts. Participants will also explore the developed open education resource (OER) titled “Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education” licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. As part of this resource, the talk will introduce CLEAR framework (Lo L.S., 2023) which stands for Concise, Logical, Explicit, Adaptive, and Reflective and facilitates more effective AI-generated content. Furthermore, the session will showcase examples covering interaction insights of ChatGPT with relevant course contents from life science and/or medical related courses along with the key takeaways