Balser, Teri

Dirks, Clarisa

Miller, Kathryn

Momsen, Jennifer L.

Montplaisir, Lisa

Offerdahl, Erika G.

Osgood, Marcy

Sirum, Karen

English

Bowling Green State University: ScholarWorks@BGSU

Bowling Green State University ScholarWorks@BGSU Biological Sciences Faculty Publications Biological Sciences Spring 2011 Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research (SABER) Karen Sirum Bowling Green State University, ksirum@bgsu.edu Erika G. Offerdahl Teri Balser Clarisa Dirks Kathryn Miller See next page for additional authors Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.bgsu.edu/bio_sci_pub  Part of the Biology Commons Repository Citation Sirum, Karen; Offerdahl, Erika G.; Balser, Teri; Dirks, Clarisa; Miller, Kathryn; Momsen, Jennifer L.; Montplaisir, Lisa; and Osgood, Marcy, "Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research (SABER)" (2011). Biological Sciences Faculty Publications. 20. https://scholarworks.bgsu.edu/bio_sci_pub/20 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Biological Sciences at ScholarWorks@BGSU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Biological Sciences Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@BGSU. Author(s) Karen Sirum, Erika G. Offerdahl, Teri Balser, Clarisa Dirks, Kathryn Miller, Jennifer L. Momsen, Lisa Montplaisir, and Marcy Osgood This article is available at ScholarWorks@BGSU: https://scholarworks.bgsu.edu/bio_sci_pub/20 CBE—Life Sciences EducationVol. 10, 11–13, Spring 2011FeatureMeeting ReportSociety for the Advancement of Biology Education Research(SABER)Erika G. Offerdahl,*†‡ Teri Balser,‡§ Clarissa Dirks,‡|| Kathryn Miller,‡¶Jennifer L. Momsen,‡# Lisa Montplaisir,‡# Marcy Osgood,‡@ Karen Sirum,‡**Mary Pat Wenderoth,‡†† Brian White,‡‡‡ William B. Wood,‡§§ Michelle Withers,|| ||and Robin Wright¶¶*Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND 58108; §Institute forCross-College Biology Education, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI 53706; ||Scientific Inquiry, TheEvergreen State College, Olympia, WA 98505; ¶Department of Biology, Washington University in St. Louis,St. Louis, MO 63130; #Department of Biological Sciences, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND 58108;@Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131;**Department of Biological Sciences, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH 43403; ††Departmentof Biology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195; ‡‡Department of Biology, University of Massachusetts,Boston, Boston, MA 02125; §§Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, University ofColorado, Boulder, CO 80309; || ||Department of Biology, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26505;¶¶Department of Genetic, Cell Biology and Development, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN 55455INTRODUCTIONBiology education research (BER) can be a major contributorto the herculean task of modernizing and transforming biol-ogy education. However, as researchers in a relatively youngand still small field, BER practitioners now find themselvesfragmented across 64 biology-related societies and lackingagreement on a core research agenda, a convenient profes-sional network, and venues of dissemination. To begin ad-dressing these needs, the newly formed Society for the Ad-vancement of Biology Education Research (SABER) held aninaugural meeting in September 2010 at the University ofMinnesota–Twin Cities. The 29 participants (Figure 1) in-cluded faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate studentsengaged in empirical research and professional development,as well as journal editors, textbook writers, and a textbook ed-itor. The diversity of this group contributed to a thoughtful,DOI: 10.1087/cbe.10-11-0135†Senior author.‡These authors contributed equally to the writing.Address correspondence to: Erika Offerdahl (erika.offerdahl@ndsu.edu).c© 2011 E. Offerdahl et al. CBE—Life Sciences Education c© 2011The American Society for Cell Biology. This article is distributedby The American Society for Cell Biology under license fromthe author(s). It is available to the public under an Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike 3.0 Unported Creative CommonsLicense (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0).“ASCB R©” and “The American Society for Cell Biology R©” are regis-tered trademarks of The American Society for Cell Biology.reflective, and productive meeting, whose major goals wereto 1) define BER, 2) identify challenges to its practice, 3) for-mulate overarching research questions, and 4) outline the roleof SABER in supporting the BER community. The consensusviews of the participants on each of these goals are describedin the paragraphs below.The outcomes of this meeting are timely in the context of therecently released summary report Vision and Change in Under-graduate Education, A Call to Action, which charged the biologycommunity with “creating, using, assessing, and disseminat-ing effective practices in teaching and learning” (AmericanAssociation for the Advancement of Science, 2010). By pro-viding the infrastructure needed to create a vibrant networkof practitioners, SABER is well positioned to support biol-ogy education researchers in generating empirical evidencethat can effect meaningful changes in undergraduate biologyeducation.WHAT IS BER?Twenty years ago, in his widely cited work, Scholarship Re-considered (1990), Ernest Boyer argued that scholarly teachingshould receive equal emphasis with disciplinary research atAmerican universities. At about the same time, educationresearchers in science disciplines began to apply empiricalresearch methods to the assessment of teaching and learning,particularly in physics (e.g., Hestenes et al., 1992). Some prac-titioners used assessment results to measure and enhancethe effectiveness of their teaching (sometimes called action11E. Offerdahl et al.Figure 1. SABER Founding Members:Teri Balser, Clarissa Dirks, Mary PatWenderoth, Janet Branchaw, RobBrooker, Peggy Brickman, MalcolmCampbell, Mark Connelly, Erin Dolan,Scott Freeman, Mark Hens, JennyKnight, Kathryn Miller, Jennifer Mom-sen, Lisa Montplaisir, Erika Offerdahl,Marcy Osgood, Nancy Pelaez, BeckyRuden, Jonathon Schramm, MicheleShuster, Karen Sirum, Amber Smith,Michelle Smith, Brian White, DevinWixon, William Wood, Robin Wright.(Photo Credit: Becky Ruden, foundingmember)research), and this tradition came to be known as the schol-arship of teaching and learning (SoTL). Others used assess-ment tools to push beyond immediate practical applicationin their own classrooms and link research on how studentslearn a specific discipline to results from education and cog-nitive sciences on how people learn in general (reviewed inNational Research Council, 1999), giving rise to the field ofdiscipline-based education research (DBER).The relation of SoTL to DBER has been the subject of consid-erable debate (e.g., Kreber, 2002; Boshier, 2009). SABER partic-ipants agreed that BER is separate from, though not exclusiveof, SoTL or scientific teaching (Handelsman et al., 2007). Thegroup adopted the definition that BER is hypothesis-drivenresearch seeking to create new knowledge about the teachingand learning of biology and to disseminate that knowledgeto the broader scientific community.CHALLENGES TO THE PRACTICE OF BERCompared to other areas of DBER, such as chemistry orphysics, BER is an adolescent field, and its practitioners face anumber of challenges both at the career and day-to-day levels.For example, many of those currently engaged in BER havea PhD in a life sciences discipline but have developed exper-tise in BER through informal routes and continue to publishbiology research in addition to BER. Further, although thereare increasing numbers of tenure-track BER faculty membersin biology departments, the evaluation criteria for promotionand tenure decisions are often less well defined than for tra-ditional biology faculty. This situation stems, in part, fromthe fact that the research methods in BER are often distinctfrom those of other biology colleagues, and there is seldommore than one tenure-track BER faculty member in any givenbiology department. Moreover, the multiple entry points intothe field are not well articulated, and pathways for trainingand preparing BER scholars have yet to be established. Par-ticipants in the SABER meeting anticipated that these careerchallenges will lessen as BER matures into an accepted sub-discipline of biology.Biology education researchers also encounter the dailychallenges of keeping abreast of the most current researchdesign and analytical techniques in a field that requires aparticularly broad familiarity with the literature in both ed-ucation and biology. BER is disseminated in a wide rangeof journals, from discipline-specific venues such as Bioscienceand Genetics to educational journals like Journal of Researchin Science Teaching. Furthermore, many educational journalsin which BER results might be disseminated, such as CBE—Life Sciences Education, have yet to acquire the conventionalimpact factors that would allow traditional biologists to eval-uate the impact of BER work.Perhaps the greatest challenge in the practice of BER isthe isolation in which many BER practitioners work. Un-like Physics Education Research or Chemistry Education Re-search, BER does not have a unifying society, entity, or venueto enhance collaboration among practitioners and support thegrowth of BER. Not surprisingly, SABER participants wereinvigorated by the opportunity to interact with other biol-ogy education researchers whom they had not met at othermeetings. In fact, this was a primary benefit noted by theSABER founding members in a meeting follow-up survey.When asked about their sense of connection with colleaguesin BER as a result of the meeting, all 21 respondents said ithad either increased (16%) or significantly increased (84%).OVERARCHING RESEARCH QUESTIONS IN BERThe progressive research agenda envisaged by SABER willfocus on the systematic investigation of questions that areunique to teaching and learning biology, while drawingon foundational and ongoing research from the cognitive12 CBE—Life Sciences EducationSABER Inaugural Meetingsciences and other areas of DBER. Meeting participantsreached consensus on four overarching lines of inquiry:1. How does learning in biology compare to learning in theother STEM disciplines? What aspects of learning biologyare unique to the discipline?2. How does scientific teaching impact 1) students’ long-termconceptual development, 2) ability to think like a scientist,and 3) career path choices in biology?3. What practices, activities, and assessments promote theacquisition and transfer of those science process skills (orcompetencies) that make a biologist?4. What are the most effective pathways for institutionalizingevidence-based teaching?ROLE OF SABERParticipants envisioned the new society as supporting a re-search community dedicated to improving the teaching andlearning of biology, particularly at the undergraduate level.One outcome of the meeting was to articulate the role ofSABER in the following mission statement:SABER is a scientific community whose members de-velop theory and generate evidence with the goal ofimproving biology education. SABER fosters BiologyEducation Research (BER) and its dissemination bydefining the standards for BER practice, supporting theBER community through training and faculty devel-opment programs, and fostering collaborations amongBER investigators.To grow the membership of SABER, the inaugural par-ticipants agreed to invite an initial group of about 100biologists and educators with interests in BER to jointhe society as charter members. Additional members willbe recruited through the SABER website (http://saber-biologyeducationresearch.wikispaces.com), which is nowaccessible although still under development, as describedfurther below.One priority of SABER will be to sponsor an annual na-tional meeting that brings together biology education re-searchers to share their research findings. The first such con-ference will take place in the summer of 2011 at the Universityof Minnesota–Twin Cities, from Friday July 29 through Sun-day July 31. SABER invites all who are interested in BER, in-cluding undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoralresearchers, and administrators, to attend. Chairs and deanswill have the opportunity to take part in a preconference ad-ministrators’ lunch and tour the spectacular new technology-equipped collaborative-learning biology classrooms in theScience Teaching and Student Services building on Friday af-ternoon of the meeting. The meeting will include plenary ses-sions, research talks, poster presentations, networking oppor-tunities, and professional development workshops as well asthe society’s business meeting and a working session of theadvisory board.A call for presentation proposals will be made in January2011, with abstracts due March 15. Authors of abstracts se-lected for presentation will be notified in April 2011. Detailswill be available on the SABER website.The SABER concept that germinated in Minneapolis thisfall must now be transformed into a vibrant and functionalsociety. SABER will provide support and a community ofpractice for biology education researchers across all disci-plines of biology. The society is intended to bring togetherBER practitioners from other biology societies as well as thosefrom traditional education societies and societies that focuson the SoTL. In coming months, the SABER website will ex-pand to include links to relevant meeting announcements,graduate programs, job postings, and funding opportunities.In addition, SABER plans to offer several members-only ser-vices, including access to an expanding and annotated di-rectory of professionals (for students seeking mentors andcommittee members, and for faculty seeking collaboratorsor tenure package reviewers), a current annotated bibliogra-phy of BER-related literature, and professional developmentopportunities. SABER will cultivate high research standards,thereby positioning it to collaborate with other professionalsocieties to support faculty and graduate students who areeither active in BER or seeking to transition to BER, as wellas journals seeking to expand or redefine submission guide-lines to include BER-related articles. SABER will periodicallysurvey its members to ensure a dynamic society, in tune withthe needs of its membership.The inaugural meeting of SABER harnessed the energy andenthusiasm of an emerging field and created the inspirationneeded to guide its future growth. As the BER communitycoalesces, we envision SABER not only as an advocate for theBER community but also as a direct response to national callsfor the transformation of undergraduate biology education.The meeting participants hope that SABER will provide aframework to unite biology education researchers and shapeBER in the 21st century.ACKNOWLEDGMENTSSpecial thanks to Robin Wright for hosting the event at the Universityof Minnesota–Twin Cities. This work was funded by NSF ResearchCoordination Network for Undergraduate Biology Education incu-bator grant 0955572.REFERENCESAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science (2010). Vi-sion and Change: A Call to Action (AAAS Report), Washington, DC.http://visionandchange.org (accessed 20 October 2010).Boshier R (2009). Why is the scholarship of teaching and learningsuch a hard sell? Higher Educ Res Dev 28, 1–15.Boyer E (1990). Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professo-riate, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Handelsman J, Miller S, Pfund C (2007). Scientific Teaching, NewYork: W.H. Freeman.Hestenes D, Wells M, Swackhamer G (1992). Force concept inventory.Phys Teach 30, 141–158.Kreber C (2002). Controversy and consensus on the scholarship ofteaching. Stud Higher Educ 27, 151–167.National Research Council (1999). How People Learn: Brain, Mind,Experience, and School, ed. JD Bransford, A Brown, and RR Cocking,Washington, DC: National Academies Press.Vol. 10, Spring 2011 13

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