Workshop, On-Demand Workshop

Embracing and Implementing Innovative Teaching Concepts

Event Date: October 23, 2025 2:00pm-3:30pm

Speaker(s):
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Kaitlyn Casimo, Ph.D.
Education and Engagement Manager
Allen Institute
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Steven Neshyba, Ph.D.
Professor
University of Puget Sound and NorthWest Research Association
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Tessa Andrews, Ph.D.
Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor
University of Georgia

Touching many STEM disciplines, this workshop highlights three individuals exploring the effectiveness of various teaching concepts and methods across their respective disciplines.

Dr. Kaitlyn Casimo will open by discussing the resources constructed from her team’s ongoing IUSE:ESL project “Evaluating the Impact of an Open-Data-Based Lessons and Course-Based Research Experiences on Student Knowledge, Skills, and Attitudes.” These resources include a new concept inventory and current research findings of the impact on student knowledge and attitudes following teaching mitosis and cell structures using evidence-based active learning activities and CUREs that employ open science.

Dr. Steven Neshyba will follow by outlining how students can learn both computing and subject content through the use of an interactive, fast-feedback Jupyter Notebook platform, in which students write Python-language code to analyze and model phenomena of interest. Examples will include course units in climate modeling, statistics, ordinary differential equations, and Physical Chemistry. Participants will walk away with a lowered barrier to the use of that technology and pedagogical approach in their own classrooms.

To conclude, Dr. Tessa Andrews will share relevant findings from a longitudinal investigation of teaching expertise development among early-career life sciences faculty. These findings will highlight a handful of key takeaways for participants about the specialized knowledge—beyond disciplinary knowledge—that facilitates evidence-based teaching and how instructors can develop their own teaching expertise. 

Speaker(s)

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Kaitlyn Casimo, Ph.D.
Education and Engagement Manager
Allen Institute
Kaitlyn Casimo created and leads the Education & Engagement Program at the Allen Institute. The program uses the Allen Institute’s open science resources and cutting-edge research to engage with educational, scientific, and public communities. As part of this work, she is the PI on an NSF Improving Undergraduate STEM Education award (#2236366) and an NIH/NINDS U24 dissemination award (1U24NS133077). She also co-founded and co-leads the Allen Institute’s science communication training program for staff. She received her BA in neuroscience with minors in psychology and theater from Pomona College; PhD in neuroscience from the University of Washington, where she also received certificates in neural computation and engineering, and in science, technology, and society studies; and MEd in instructional design from Western Governors University. Outside of her work, she plays tennis and lives for all things theater.
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Steven Neshyba, Ph.D.
Professor
University of Puget Sound and NorthWest Research Association
Steven Neshyba’s research interests are in the area of physical atmospheric science, with a focus on ice in the climate system. With undergraduates as co-investigators, his research projects have spanned a broad range of scales, from molecular-level simulations of ice surface dynamics, to scanning electron microscopy studies of ice roughness, to remote sensing of clouds in the Arctic and Antarctic. Neshyba points out that, while scientists know that clouds play a key role in regulating the current climate, big challenges remain before we can predict cloud properties in future climate scenarios. Among Neshyba’s published articles are “Mechanism of Anisotropic Surface Self-Diffusivity at the Prismatic Ice-Vapor Interface,” in Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics (2015); and “Roughness metrics of prismatic facets of ice,” in the Journal of Geophysical Research - Atmospheres (2013), both of which were co-authored by Puget Sound undergraduate researchers. Neshyba teaches courses in Fundamental Chemistry and Physical Chemistry, and has written about his experience of “flipping” these classes in the Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Education. He spent his 2016 sabbatical as a Fulbright scholar in Chile, where he examined the soot content in snow and led workshops on college-level class flipping.
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Tessa Andrews, Ph.D.
Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor
University of Georgia
Tessa Andrews, PhD, is a Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor of Genetics at the University of Georgia and the Director of the Scientists Engaged in Education Research. She earned a PhD in Biological Sciences at Montana State University, with a focus on conservation genetics and education research. Her lab specializes in biology education research. They study inclusive and evidence-based teaching, how faculty can be better supported to adopt and effectively use these practices, and how departments and institutions can change to incentivize, recognize and reward effective teaching. Dr. Andrews’ work has been funded by multiple grants from the National Science Foundation, including a CAREER award. She is a Monitoring Editor for CBE-Life Sciences Education and a Working Group Leader for the Accelerating Systemic Change Network.