Rockville Science Cafe

"Discipline-Based Education Research in STEM"

with Claire Meaders, Ph.D.

 Tuesday, January 16th

 7:00 - 8:00 PM on Zoom

REGISTER FOR ZOOM

Introductory biology is a gateway undergraduate course for majors and other STEM disciplines, taken by students with varying prior chemistry preparation and experiences. If equity gaps exist in understanding of chemistry and chemistry experiences affect student sense of belonging in biology, these gaps may affect student biology knowledge, grades, and persistence in STEM. In this seminar, I will share recent results and implications from a collaborative project focused on supporting student learning of chemistry in biology as an example of how discipline-based education research (DBER) is a field that applies the science of teaching and learning to disciplinary science content. In addition to the study findings I will share background about general education research and my path from bench science to DBER work.

Our Speaker: Claire Meaders is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Cell and Developmental Biology department at the University of California, San Diego. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Cell and Molecular Biology from Brown University and a Ph.D. in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology from Harvard University. During her postdoctoral work she switched from bench science to discipline-based education research, and she now studies how faculty teach in higher education and student experiences in biology.