Collections Education: The Extended Specimen and Data Acumen

Biodiversity scientists must be fluent across disciplines; they must possess the quantitative, computational, and data skills necessary for working with large, complex data sets, and they must have foundational skills and content knowledge from ecology, evolution, taxonomy, and systematics. To effectively train the emerging workforce, we must teach science as we conduct science and embrace emerging concepts of data acumen alongside the knowledge, tools, and techniques foundational to organismal biology. We present an open education resource that updates the traditional plant collection exercise to incorporate best practices in twenty-first century collecting and to contextualize the activities that build data acumen. Students exposed to this resource gained skills and content knowledge in plant taxonomy and systematics, as well as a nuanced understanding of collections-based data resources. We discuss the importance of the extended specimen in fostering scientific discovery and reinforcing foundational concepts in biodiversity science, taxonomy, and systematics

Article Identifying Key Features of Effective Active Learning: The Effects of Writing and Peer Discussion

We investigated some of the key features of effective active learning by comparing the outcomes of three different methods of implementing active-learning exercises in a majors introductory biology course. Students completed activities in one of three treatments: discussion, writing, and discussion + writing. Treatments were rotated weekly between three sections taught by three different instructors in a full factorial design. The data set was analyzed by generalized linear mixed-effect models with three independent variables: student aptitude, treatment, and instructor, and three dependent (assessment) variables: change in score on pre-and postactivity clicker questions, and coding scores on in-class writing and exam essays. All independent variables had significant effects on student performance for at least one of the dependent variables. Students with higher aptitude scored higher on all assessments. Student scores were higher on exam essay questions when the activity was implemented with a writing component compared with peer discussion only. There was a significant effect of instructor, with instructors showing different degrees of effectiveness with active-learning techniques. We suggest that individual writing should be implemented as part of active learning whenever possible and that instructors may need training and practice to become effective with active learning

CollectionsEducation.org: Connecting Students to Citizen Science and Curated Collections

College-level plant diversity courses often involve a collection project, which is designed to help students learn to correctly identify, document, and preserve specimens for scientific study. While these projects are invaluable teaching tools, the specimens and associated data are often not incorporated into herbaria or online biodiversity data aggregators due to lack of quality, herbarium backlog, or both. Furthermore, students are not exposed to the emerging online citizen science initiatives and herbarium databases of our information-rich digital age. Here we present a new project and associated website (http://collectionseducation.org) designed to enhance traditional collection projects that can easily be incorporated into any plant diversity course. The project integrates traditional taxonomic practices, ongoing citizen science initiatives, and digital-age curatorial skills, with the final goal of producing archival-quality, research-ready plant observations and collections that will become part of our national biodiversity archive. Due to the importance of collections in hand and online, this project emphasizes the skills and best practices required to facilitate downstream applications of student collections and documentation of plant biodiversity. Over the past two years, we have implemented this project in 11 courses taught at four American universities. This poster will present preliminary data analysis from pre- and post-course student responses, which provides an assessment of the project’s value not only to the biodiversity collections community, but to the students’ learning.https://encompass.eku.edu/swps_facultygallery/1009/thumbnail.jp

CollectionsEducation.org: Connecting Students to Citizen Science and Curated Collections

College-level plant diversity courses often involve a collection project, which is designed to help students learn to correctly identify, document, and preserve specimens for scientific study. While these projects are invaluable teaching tools, the specimens and associated data are often not incorporated into herbaria or online biodiversity data aggregators due to lack of quality, herbarium backlog, or both. Furthermore, students are not exposed to the emerging online citizen science initiatives and herbarium databases of our information-rich digital age. Here we present a new project and associated website (http://collectionseducation.org) designed to enhance traditional collection projects that can easily be incorporated into any plant diversity course. The project integrates traditional taxonomic practices, ongoing citizen science initiatives, and digital-age curatorial skills, with the final goal of producing archival-quality, research-ready plant observations and collections that will become part of our national biodiversity archive. Due to the importance of collections in hand and online, this project emphasizes the skills and best practices required to facilitate downstream applications of student collections and documentation of plant biodiversity. Over the past two years, we have implemented this project in 11 courses taught at four American universities. This poster will present preliminary data analysis from pre- and post-course student responses, which provides an assessment of the project’s value not only to the biodiversity collections community, but to the students’ learning