A scoping review of undergraduate anatomy and physiology education: approaches to evaluating student outcomes in the United States.

Studies document difficulties undergraduate pre-nursing and allied health students face when learning human anatomy and physiology (A&P) course content. A comprehensive synthesis exploring the teaching practices within the course and how those practices are evaluated is warranted. This scoping literature review identified 78 journal articles investigating teaching practices, and we charted their research methods, student outcomes, and institutional contexts.

Probing the basis of disease heterogeneity in multiple sclerosis using genetically diverse mice.

Unlabelled: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a complex disease with significant heterogeneity in disease course and progression. Genetic studies have identified numerous loci associated with MS risk, but the genetic basis of disease progression remains elusive. To address this, we leveraged the Collaborative Cross (CC), a genetically diverse mouse strain panel, and experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE).

Place-based climate change: lowering students' psychological distance through a classroom activity.

Psychological distance (PD) can be a barrier to how students perceive climate change impacts and severity. Localizing climate change using place-based approaches is one way instructors can structure their curricula to help combat students' PD, especially from a spatial and social viewpoint. We created a novel classroom intervention that incorporated elements of place-based education and the Teaching for Transformative Experiences in Science model that was designed to lower undergraduate biology students' spatial and social distance of climate change.

Host Genetic Variation Has a Profound Impact on Immune Responses Mediating Control of Viral Load in Chronic Gammaherpesvirus Infection.

Chronic infection with the gammaherpesvirus EBV is a risk factor for several autoimmune diseases, and poor control of EBV viral load and enhanced anti-EBV responses elevate this risk further. However, the role of host genetic variation in the regulation of immune responses to chronic gammaherpesvirus infection and control of viral replication remains unclear. To address this question, we infected C57BL/6J (B6) and genetically divergent wild-derived inbred PWD/PhJ (PWD) mice with murine gammaherpesvirus-68 (MHV-68), a gammaherpesvirus similar to EBV, and determined the effect of latent gammaherpesvirus infection on the CD4 T cell transcriptome.

Design, Discover, and Decipher: Student-Developed Escape Rooms in the Virtual Ecology Classroom.

There has always been a need for engaging assessments in online learning environments, though the COVID-19 pandemic further emphasized this need. Instructors across science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines have begun to implement escape room activities as effective and engaging learning tools in their classrooms. For our virtual introductory ecology course in spring 2021, we developed a student-designed escape room assessment which aligned with several course goals and covered a broad range of ecology concepts.

From Bored Games to Board Games: Student-Driven Game Design in the Virtual Classroom.

Classroom assessments needed to be rapidly modified at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, as instruction transitioned from an in-person to virtual format. Yet, a significant obstacle among instructors during this time was developing online assessments that were useful, engaging, and accessible for students. We implemented a game design project in our introductory ecology course in spring 2020, in which students were required to develop a novel game based on ecology topics discussed in class.

Instructional Communities of Practice during COVID-19: Social Networks and Their Implications for Resilience.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, most spring 2020 university courses were abruptly transitioned mid-semester to remote learning. The current study was an exploratory investigation into the interactions among individuals within a single biology department during this transition. Our goal was to describe the patterns of interactions among members of this community, including with whom they gave advice on instruction, shared materials, co-constructed materials, and shared emotions, during the rapid online transition.

Thanks for inviting me to the party: Virtual poster sessions as a way to connect in a time of disconnection.

COVID-19 presented the world with trauma and isolation, but many people, including educators, have offered bright spots of creativity and engagement. As we confronted these issues in our own ecology classroom, we sought solutions to carry-forward the learning objectives we set for our students in January 2020, yet encourage interaction with the sensitivity that a pandemic requires. In the rapid transition to online course delivery, we opted to retain the original end-of-semester poster project in our introductory ecology course.

Benefits and Challenges of Instructing Introductory Biology Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) as Perceived by Graduate Teaching Assistants.

Graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) are often the primary instructors for undergraduate biology laboratories and serve as research mentors in course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs). While several studies have explored undergraduate perceptions of CUREs, no previous study has qualitatively described GTAs' perceptions about teaching CUREs, despite the essential instructional role GTAs play. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to describe and ascribe meaning to the perceptions that GTAs have regarding benefits and challenges with instructional experiences in introductory biology CUREs.

Comparing student, instructor, and expert perceptions of learner-centeredness in post-secondary biology classrooms.

Learner-centered classrooms encourage critical thinking and communication among students and between students and their instructor, and engage students as active learners rather than passive participants. However, students, faculty, and experts often have distinct definitions of learner-centeredness, and the paucity of research comparing perspectives of these different groups must be resolved. In the current study, our central research question was how do student, faculty, and expert observer perceptions of learner-centeredness within biology classrooms compare to one another? We sampled 1114 students from fifteen sections of a general biology course for non-majors, and complete responses from 490 students were analyzed.

The Greatest Learning Return on Your Pedagogical Investment: Alignment, Assessment or In-Class Instruction?

Critical thinking is often considered an essential learning outcome of institutions in higher education. Previous work has proposed three pedagogical strategies to address this goal: more active, student-centered in-class instruction, assessments which contain higher-order cognitive questions, and greater alignment within a classroom (i.e.

Online plagiarism training falls short in biology classrooms.

Online plagiarism tutorials are increasingly popular in higher education, as faculty and staff try to curb the plagiarism epidemic. Yet no research has validated the efficacy of such tools in minimizing plagiarism in the sciences. Our study compared three plagiarism-avoidance training regimens (i.