Clifton L. Kussmaul - US grants

The Muhlenberg College Departments of Biology, Chemistry, and Mathematics and Computer Science are jointly integrating bioinformatics into multiple biology and biochemistry courses at three levels: introductory, intermediate, and advanced. There are two major educational goals for this project: 1) to improve undergraduate sophistication about bioinformatics, and 2) to increase the mathematical content in the biology and biochemistry curricula. The project is serving approximately 200 biology, biochemistry and neuroscience majors each year. One introductory biology course, three intermediate level biology laboratory courses, and three advanced courses in biology and biochemistry are introducing new bioinformatics components or are expanding and improving existing components. Laboratory curricula feature multiple-week investigative experiences that build on existing experimental schemes. The curricular goals are being supported by a new genomics and proteomics core laboratory facility that features real-time PCR and 2-D gel electrophoresis. In addition, multiple laptop computers are enabling students in introductory and upper-level courses to work on challenging problems in smaller discussion sections and laboratories. The new computers allow instructors to explore computational applications, and the underlying mathematics, more effectively in the classroom. Faculty development, in the form of a one-time week-long inter-disciplinary on-site bioinformatics course, is supporting the curricular goals, inspiring faculty in the use of the new technology, and encouraging collaboration among biologists, biochemists, and computational scientists. The increased faculty expertise and interdisciplinary collaboration is also resulting in undergraduate research projects in bioinformatics or projects that rely on bioinformatics as an integral tool within the research design.

Intellectual Merit: The project adapts and implements published curricular suggestions for improving undergraduate education in biology and bioinformatics. The over-arching mission is to educate more quantitatively-literate biology students. Faculty development, the potential for new collaborations in courses and student research, and the new laboratory core facility itself are having a significant impact on the local science environment. The value of bioinformatics as a tool for improving quantitative instruction and the specific instructional schemes themselves are being assessed through student surveys and other instruments as appropriate.

Broader Impact: Familiarity with basic bioinformatics and computational approaches is increasingly a necessity for professionals in a range of areas related to the life sciences. The assessment of curricular outcomes from the project is being disseminated broadly to provide a reference point for the development of similar strategies and projects at other undergraduate institutions.

Faculty are developing Process-Oriented Guided-Inquiry Learning materials (POGIL) to teach computer science topics: software engineering and data structures & algorithms. POGIL is based on the biology of learning and has been developed and validated for over fifteen years. Teams of learners work on scripted inquiry activities to help them construct their own knowledge. The instructor serves as facilitator, not lecturer. Ten student activities are being developed for software engineering topics including project management and the Unified Modeling Language. Ten activities are being developed to support data structures & algorithms topics including basic data structures, searching and sorting. Materials include facilitator instructions, activity descriptions and supplemental information.

Four collaborators are developing and assessing materials at a variety of institutions including selective liberal arts colleges, a public university and an institute of technology. The project leverages and extends the successful inquiry-based approach to a new subject and explores the use of computer tablets and web-based tools that could benefit the POGIL movement in general. Faculty workshops during the third year are designed to raise awareness and adoption in the computer science education community.

The OpenPath project will improve undergraduate computing education by developing a learning pathway through the computing curriculum that will help address key challenges of computing education via student exposure to and participation in Humanitarian Free and Open Source Software (HFOSS) projects. HFOSS is open source software that improves the human condition, addressing needs in areas such as health care, disaster management, education, economic development, and accessibility. Students will be provided with opportunities to positively impact their communities or others, which will engage and motivate traditionally underrepresented minorities and women to pursue careers in computing. As a result, the OpenPath project will improve student learning and content retention, and will help students to develop professional skills and personal attributes.

OpenPath will integrate two existing research initiatives: participation in HFOSS, and Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning in Computer Science (CS-POGIL). In CS-POGIL, students work in small self-managed teams using specifically designed materials to construct their own knowledge. In this project CS-POGIL will be used to scaffold early learning and help students develop team and process skills. This early learning will support a transition to more independent learning in HFOSS environments. Working in an HFOSS project provides students with the skills and professional experience needed to ensure a smooth pathway to the computing professions. Multiple types of evaluations will enable the research team to track the progress of the project, to determine the legitimacy of the model created and its mapping to the curriculum, to understand the impact of the faculty and student activities, and to identify the student learning that occurs through participation in an HFOSS project.

The significance of the proposed project is that it will establish the value of Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL) as an approach to teaching computer science. The POGIL approach has been shown in other STEM disciplines to increase student learning and retention, particularly for students from underrepresented populations, including females and minorities. There has not yet been a concerted effort to teach computer science using the POGIL approach. The creation of a computer science POGIL community, which is a fundamental aspect of this proposal, is a necessary step to providing an evaluation of the effectiveness of POGIL in computer science education. Broader and more effective use of strategies such as POGIL will improve the quality, quantity, and diversity of students who complete STEM programs.

The main goal of this project is to study factors that most influence faculty to adopt POGIL in introductory computer science courses and how the degree of POGIL implementation impacts student learning and engagement. A secondary goal is to make it significantly easier for computer science faculty to adopt POGIL, by disseminating high quality instructional resources and enhancing current professional development practices. The project theory of action is that enhanced instructor support will improve faculty adoption of and persistence with POGIL, which in turn will improve student outcomes. To assess the impact of these and other factors, the project will collect and analyze multi-institutional data including surveys, interviews, and student learning outcomes.