Welcome to ASMCUE in Seattle, Washington! Registered attendees are able to download the mobile app onto their phone, create a log-in, and make a personalized schedule and chat with attendees. Questions? Email [email protected]
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Our current biology curriculum includes a three-course introductory series where the first course (BIO160) results in a bimodal distribution of grades. The group of students with the lower grades are roughly the same cohort of underprepared students that place into and take the remedial chemistry course. The biology introductory series is transitioning from three to only two courses and BIO160 will no longer be offered. Therefore, we designed a new course that allows these underprepared students to learn basic chemical and biological concepts in a single course and prime them to take General Chemistry I and General Biology I. Thus, this new interdisciplinary course becomes an essential experience that prepares students for studying STEM in college, and reduces barriers to STEM disciplines. To that end, we have developed a fully integrated introduction to scientific measurements, aiming to help students understand concepts, procedures and data analysis through the disciplinary lenses of both biology and chemistry. This course develops problem solving skills for students to be successful in STEM fields while also contributing to the science requirement of the general education curriculum for those students who ultimately decide to pursue a major outside of the sciences. Some of the challenges we encountered in the development of the course include significant alignment of schedules between the two instructors. In addition, the selection of topics required consultation with both departments, as well as negotiation of the lecture and lab times across disciplines. Furthermore, the instructors, a biologist and chemist, need to stretch across disciplines, which require extra preparation and consultation with each other. We seek inclusive pedagogies, aiming to reduce barriers for entry into STEM majors and ASMCUE serves as a great platform to gather feedback.
