RCN-UBE Award – 1919613: Quantitative Biology at Community Colleges (QB@CC)
As biology becomes an increasingly quantitative and computational discipline, biology educators are tasked with supporting student development of these skills. Biology faculty are adept at applying quantitative practices relevant in their own work, and are eager to enhance their teaching practices to teach these skills effectively, however faculty and students are faced with a wide array of quantitative skills particularly in survey courses such as introductory biology. Mathematical faculty, who are comfortable with an extensive array of quantitative practices, are often looking for ways to connect quantitative materials with real-life examples and relevance for their students.
Quantitative Biology at Community College (QB@CC)
QB@CC is a growing community of life science, mathematics, and statistics faculty from two-year colleges across the country. In 2020, the network launched with 15 mathematics faculty and 14 biology faculty from 14 community colleges, subsequently expanding to 48 members, representing 23 community colleges from 16 states and one Canadian province.
The QB@CC network brings together teams of both biology and mathematics faculty, who work together to develop interdisciplinary modules appropriate for mathematics and biology courses, called Incubators. Each Incubator is facilitated by a QB@CC community member. The materials are then paired with pedagogical activities and discussions and shared during professional development opportunities, called Faculty Mentoring Networks (FMNs). FMNs provide a structured, sustained, online peer community to support faculty as participants implement QB@CC modules in their classrooms. QB@CC project is coordinated by BioQUEST, using the QUBES platform, to offer technical and pedagogical support for running these effective professional development experiences.
Learn more about QB@CC
Visit QB@CC to learn more about this initiative, access modules, and join the network: https://qubeshub.org/community/groups/qbcc
By joining this group, you will receive information about opportunities to participate in Incubators and FMNs, tap into the resources developed by the QB@CC participants, and learn about QB@CC activities and workshops near you.
BioQUEST
BioQUEST is a transformative, collaborative community empowering educators to drive innovation in STEM education for all students. We provide unique professional development opportunities for faculty and future faculty, extensive support for a wide range of joint projects, and a community that has the broad aim of student success in STEM. We work together to foster the continued development of each member of the community and to promote their success.
The QUBES platform, a BioQUEST project, is a social cyberinfrastructure that provides an open and inclusive virtual space for sharing STEM classroom activities and resources, discussing teaching and the adaptation of educational materials to specific institutional contexts, and working together to develop new ideas and insights that contribute to STEM education reform.
QUBES
The Quantitative Undergraduate Biology Education (QUBES – NSF award #: 1446258, 1446269, 1446284) project is an NSF IUSE award launched in 2014 to support a community of biology and mathematics educators by providing professional development activities and increasing access to, and adoption of, good quantitative biology education resources. QUBES has collaborated with over 100 partners to provide resources and professional development to a community of over 9000 biology and mathematics faculty.
