Build-a-brain project: Students design and model the brain of an imaginary animal

Final article publishedJournal Articl

Formal lessons improve informal educational experiences: The influence of prior knowledge on student engagement

Educational experiences can be influenced by novel experiences, yet educators often overlook the influence novelty exerts on students. This quasi-experimental study manipulated prior knowledge before a zoo field trip for 210 urban 7th-grade students from 2 schools, 1 comprised mostly of low-socioeconomic status (SES) families and 1 comprised mostly of middle-SES families. Students participated in 1 of 2 preparatory lessons, only 1 of which previewed field trip-related content, thereby increasing prior knowledge for half the students from each school. Prior knowledge significantly increased learner engagement, measured through attentiveness, from both schools, but in different types of behaviors. Students from the low-SES school demonstrated more attentiveness if their preparatory lesson previewed field trip material than if it was unrelated to the field trip. Students from the middle SES school displayed the same level of attentiveness in both conditions (and overall higher than the low-SES students). This study highlights complexities associated with prior knowledge and reveals strategies to help improve engagement levels for students visiting informal learning environments.Journal Articl

Oceanography for pre-K - third grade

Journal ArticleFinal article publishe

Portraits of science self-efficacy: Four undergraduate women in a summer research experience

To strengthen the US scientific workforce, we aim to recruit and retain talented students in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields, to enhance success among students from groups underrepresented in STEM fields, and to diversify the scientific workforce to mirror the US population. Given that opportunities for authentic research may support STEM advancement, we seek to maximize the number of students involved in research. Our Behavioral Research Advancements in Neuroscience (BRAIN) research program tests the hypothesis that a term-based collaborative-learning model not only provides research opportunities for more students, nut also produces outcomes at least as positive as a traditional one-on-one apprenticeship model. We examined scientific research self-efficacy as a critical construct for measuring student outcomes and predicting student progress toward STEM careers. Here we provide descriptive portraits of four women who participated in BRAIN, integrating quantitative survey data with analysis of pre- and post-semistructured interviews. Although selected for different self-efficacy trajectories in the quantitative surveys, all four women described increased self-efficacy in interviews and emphasized mastery experiences as a source of self-efficacy. Two women illustrate one general outcome from the program: women overcame initially lower scientific research self-efficacy, matching self-efficacy among men by mid-program. The overarching study suggests that both team-based research and apprenticeships can raise scientific research self-efficacy, which predicts STEM career success. Therefore, this collaborative model provides a structure for authentic research at institutions that may lack available mentors, and yet aim to improve opportunities for diverse undergraduate groups to pursue STEM careers.Journal Articl

Routes to Research for Novice Undergraduate Neuroscientists

Undergraduate students may be attracted to science and retained in science by engaging in laboratory research. Experience as an apprentice in a scientist's laboratory can be effective in this regard, but the pool of willing scientists is sometimes limited and sustained contact between students and faculty is sometimes minimal. We report outcomes from two different models of a summer neuroscience research program: an Apprenticeship Model (AM) in which individual students joined established research laboratories, and a Collaborative Learning Model (CLM) in which teams of students worked through a guided curriculum and then conducted independent experimentation. Assessed outcomes included attitudes toward science, attitudes toward neuroscience, confidence with neuroscience concepts, and confidence with science skills, measured via pre-, mid-, and postprogram surveys. Both models elevated attitudes toward neuroscience, confidence with neuroscience concepts, and confidence with science skills, but neither model altered attitudes toward science. Consistent with the CLM design emphasizing independent experimentation, only CLM participants reported elevated ability to design experiments. The present data comprise the first of five yearly analyses on this cohort of participants; long-term follow-up will determine whether the two program models are equally effective routes to research or other science-related careers for novice undergraduate neuroscientists