The Scientific Teaching Practices Survey for Undergraduate STEM Courses

The National Academies Summer Institutes on Undergraduate Education (SI) is a faculty development workshop in which STEM instructors are trained in the Scientific Teaching (ST) pedagogy and encouraged to implement its practices at their home institutions. While participants generally report positive experiences at the SI, it remains unclear how these experiences affect instructors’ teaching practices and associated student outcomes. As part of a larger effort to evaluate the SI, we developed a survey to gauge the frequencies of ST practices that could occur in undergraduate STEM courses. The ST Practices Survey is derived from the observable teaching practices described in the Scientific Teaching taxonomy (Couch et al., 2015). During survey development, we conducted interviews with a panel of experts, instructors, and students, and this input was used to make iterative revisions to the survey. After finalizing the survey, we administered the survey at 9 institutions with 62 instructors and 64 courses, with both instructors and students completing the survey for a given course. In this seminar, we will discuss the development, validity, reliability, factor structure, and implementation of the ST Practices Survey. (abstract only

The Scientific Teaching Practices Survey for Undergraduate STEM Courses

The National Academies Summer Institutes on Undergraduate Education (SI) is a faculty development workshop in which STEM instructors are trained in the Scientific Teaching (ST) pedagogy and encouraged to implement its practices at their home institutions. While participants generally report positive experiences at the SI, it remains unclear how these experiences affect instructors’ teaching practices and associated student outcomes. As part of a larger effort to evaluate the SI, we developed a survey to gauge the frequencies of ST practices that could occur in undergraduate STEM courses. The ST Practices Survey is derived from the observable teaching practices described in the Scientific Teaching taxonomy (Couch et al., 2015). During survey development, we conducted interviews with a panel of experts, instructors, and students, and this input was used to make iterative revisions to the survey. After finalizing the survey, we administered the survey at 9 institutions with 62 instructors and 64 courses, with both instructors and students completing the survey for a given course. In this seminar, we will discuss the development, validity, reliability, factor structure, and implementation of the ST Practices Survey. (abstract only

Student, instructor, and observer agreement regarding frequencies of scientific teaching practices using the Measurement Instrument for Scientific Teaching-Observable (MISTO)

Background: The Scientific Teaching (ST) pedagogical framework encompasses many of the best practices recommended in the literature and highlighted in national reports. Understanding the growth and impact of ST requires instruments to accurately measure the extent to which practitioners implement ST in their courses. Researchers have typically relied on students, instructors, or observers to document course teaching practices, but it remains unclear whether and how these perspectives differ from each other. To address this issue, we modified our previously published instrument to generate the Measurement Instrument for Scientific Teaching-Observable (MISTO), which can be completed by students, instructors, and observers, and we investigated the degree of similarity between these three perspectives across 70 undergraduate science courses at seven different institutions in the USA. Results: We found that the full MISTO and Active Learning subcategory scores showed the highest correlations among the three perspectives, but the degree of correlation between perspectives varied for the other subcategories. Match scores between students and instructors were significantly higher than observer matches for the full MISTO and for the Active Learning, Inclusivity, and Responsiveness subcategories. Conclusions: We find that the level and type of agreement between perspectives varies across MISTO subcategories and that this variation likely stems from intrinsic differences in the course access and scoring decisions of the three perspectives. Building on this data, we recommend MISTO users consider their research goals, available resources, and potential artifacts that may arise when deciding which perspective best fits their needs in measuring classroom teaching practices

Benefits of a College STEM Faculty Development Initiative: Instructors Report Increased and Sustained Implementation of Research-Based Instructional Strategies

The Summer Institutes on Scientific Teaching (SI) is a faculty development workshop in which science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) instructors, particularly from biology, are trained in the Scientific Teaching (ST) pedagogy. While participants have generally reported positive experiences, we aimed to assess how the SI affected participants’ teaching practices. Building on a previously developed taxonomy of ST practices, we surveyed SI participants from the 2004–2014 SI classes regarding specific ST practices. Participants’ self-reported use and implementation of ST practices increased immediately after SI attendance as well as over a longer time frame, suggesting that implementation persisted and even increased with time. However, instructors reported implementation gains for some practices more than others. The practices with the highest gains were engaging students in their own learning, using learning goals in course design, employing formative assessment, developing overarching course learning goals, representing science as a process, and facilitating group discussion activities. We propose that the ST practices showing the greatest gains may serve as beneficial focal points for professional development programs, while practices with smaller gains may require modified dissemination approaches or support structures

The Influence of Mammographic Technologists on Radiologists' Ability to Interpret Screening Mammograms in Community Practice

To determine whether the mammographic technologist has an effect on the radiologists’ interpretative performance of screening mammography in community practice

Do Mammographic Technologists Affect Radiologists’ Diagnostic Mammography Interpretative Performance?

The purpose of this study was to determine whether the technologist has an effect on the radiologists’ interpretative performance of diagnostic mammography

Mitochondrial physiology

As the knowledge base and importance of mitochondrial physiology to evolution, health and disease expands, the necessity for harmonizing the terminology concerning mitochondrial respiratory states and rates has become increasingly apparent. The chemiosmotic theory establishes the mechanism of energy transformation and coupling in oxidative phosphorylation. The unifying concept of the protonmotive force provides the framework for developing a consistent theoretical foundation of mitochondrial physiology and bioenergetics. We follow the latest SI guidelines and those of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) on terminology in physical chemistry, extended by considerations of open systems and thermodynamics of irreversible processes. The concept-driven constructive terminology incorporates the meaning of each quantity and aligns concepts and symbols with the nomenclature of classical bioenergetics. We endeavour to provide a balanced view of mitochondrial respiratory control and a critical discussion on reporting data of mitochondrial respiration in terms of metabolic flows and fluxes. Uniform standards for evaluation of respiratory states and rates will ultimately contribute to reproducibility between laboratories and thus support the development of data repositories of mitochondrial respiratory function in species, tissues, and cells. Clarity of concept and consistency of nomenclature facilitate effective transdisciplinary communication, education, and ultimately further discovery

Mitochondrial physiology

As the knowledge base and importance of mitochondrial physiology to evolution, health and disease expands, the necessity for harmonizing the terminology concerning mitochondrial respiratory states and rates has become increasingly apparent. The chemiosmotic theory establishes the mechanism of energy transformation and coupling in oxidative phosphorylation. The unifying concept of the protonmotive force provides the framework for developing a consistent theoretical foundation of mitochondrial physiology and bioenergetics. We follow the latest SI guidelines and those of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) on terminology in physical chemistry, extended by considerations of open systems and thermodynamics of irreversible processes. The concept-driven constructive terminology incorporates the meaning of each quantity and aligns concepts and symbols with the nomenclature of classical bioenergetics. We endeavour to provide a balanced view of mitochondrial respiratory control and a critical discussion on reporting data of mitochondrial respiration in terms of metabolic flows and fluxes. Uniform standards for evaluation of respiratory states and rates will ultimately contribute to reproducibility between laboratories and thus support the development of data repositories of mitochondrial respiratory function in species, tissues, and cells. Clarity of concept and consistency of nomenclature facilitate effective transdisciplinary communication, education, and ultimately further discovery

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead