Quantitative Biology at Community Colleges, a Network of Biology and Mathematics Faculty Focused on Improving Numerical and Quantitative Skills of Students

Abstract

Mastery of quantitative skills is increasingly critical for student success in life sciences, but few curricula adequately incorporate quantitative skills. Quantitative Biology at Community Colleges (QB@CC) is designed to address this need by building a grassroots consortium of community college faculty to 1) engage in interdisciplinary partnerships that increase participant confidence in life science, mathematics, and statistics domains; 2) generate and publish a collection of quantitative skills-focused open education resources (OER); and 3) disseminate these OER and pedagogical practices widely, in turn expanding the network. Currently in its third year, QB@CC has recruited 70 faculty into the network and created 20 modules. Modules can be accessed by interested biology and mathematics educators in high school, 2-year, and 4-year institutions. Here, we use survey responses, focus group interviews, and document analyses (principles-focused evaluation) to evaluate the progress in accomplishing these goals midway through the QB@CC program. The QB@CC network provides a model for developing and sustaining an interdisciplinary community that benefits participants and generates valuable resources for the broader community. Similar network-building programs may wish to adopt some of the effective aspects of the QB@CC network model to meet their objectives.

FIGURE 1.

A description of the structure and critical components of the QB@CC network. (A) A Gantt chart indicating the original grant timeline for the network activities, excepting the movement of the second in-person cohort meeting to year 4 due to the pandemic. The steering committee meets through the academic year, with 3- to 4-week breaks in Summer and Winter. The hatched and solid gray arrows indicate in-person and virtual meetings, respectively. An asterisk (*) indicates biweekly virtual meetings of the steering committee and the FMNs, and a double asterisk (**) indicates weekly virtual meetings of teams until the publication of the Incubator modules. (B) Flowchart of the components of QB@CC network that represent communities of practice addressing barriers to CC faculty engaging in professional and scholarship activities. The leadership team recruits the network members (CC faculty) to participate in professional development opportunities (Incubators and FMNs) as communities of practice that result in development and dissemination of OER. The network members are supported throughout the process, i.e., the facilitators and mentors provide support during the development and implementation of OER, the QUBESHub platform supports the development and publication of the OER, and the grant funds support dissemination of the published OER at workshops and conferences. Incubator participants have also transitioned to leadership roles in the Incubators and by joining the leadership team.

FIGURE 2.

Geographic representation of QB@CC network members as of June 2022. The network is currently represented by members from 24 states in the United States and a province in Canada. The network includes participants, SC members, and the advisory board. Data were generated and imported from MapChart.net.

FIGURE 3.

Retrospective survey data from participants. (A) Participants’ level of agreement with statements about QB@CC professional development training (n = 28). Twenty respondents were from Incubator Cohort 1, four from Incubator Cohort 2, and four from the Spring 2021 FMN. (B) Participants’ discipline-specific planned use of their modules in instruction (biology faculty n = 15; math faculty n = 12). (C) Participants’ gains in knowledge of teaching resources for quantitative skills and their ability to teach quantitative biology (n = 28). (D) Participants’ (Cohort 1, n = 24) ranked perception of the culture of willingness to use and disseminate quantitative skills–based teaching modules as OER before and after the in-person workshop. The gray circles indicate the average ranking in the pre-workshop survey, and the dark green circles indicate the average ranking in the post-workshop survey. The percent improvement, termed “growth,” is shown in light green diamonds.

FIGURE 4.

The timeline shows the module completion span for each Incubator team and FMN participant (listed as number followed by an alphabet, 1a, 2b, 3c, etc.) from Fall 2019 to Spring 2022. Each arrow represents the length of time from start to completion. Completion is defined by the publication of the module (Incubator) or an adapted version (FMN) as an OER in the QUBES OER Library. p., published module; i.p., module work is in progress; x., the group disbanded without completing a module.