Hello Mesut,

Thanks for your comment. So in relation to student demographics, this study was drawn from the overall population of the SEA-PHAGES program. This is a very large community alliance with over 120 schools and several thousand students. We encompass all school types (cc, R1, 4-year schools...etc) and a wide range of student demographics. For full information on this please check out this paper: 

https://www.pnas.org/content/114/51/13531

For the analysis I randomly extracted and propensity score matched different student demographics (ethnicity and gender) in the COVID-19 Remote and prior year face to face instruction. I did not have time in the 3 minutes allotted to address the comparison. But basically, the outcomes are that for the bioinformatics section there are not differences in the research experiences outcomes for any of the matched subgroups. This suggests a good outcome for online bioinformatics (digitally based science) for all subgroups. There is one caveat though.  I did also check sub-group participation rates and there is a drop in the number of URM male students who participated. So the conclusion is that if you can get them into the online, digital science CRE, you will have equitable outcomes (probably) but there is a drop off in some groups participation at least during the COVID-19 period.

Thank you for your question

Appreciate the response, David, this is very helpful.  For sure, I'll check out the paper you shared.  Thanks, Mesut

Thanks Mesut,

if you have questions, please reach out and I will do my best to answer.

David

Will do.  Thanks, Mesut

Hello Alexander,

Thanks for the kind words and the comment. This is a large program with a wide range of faculty at over 120 institutions. I did do an analysis of the what the instructors said about how they did the online- wet-lab component. The following strategies were the most prevalent: some faculty performed the wet-lab tasks with students watching; some worked with small teams in which one student did work for the other students (in a form of rotation); some offered simulated presentations. There were some other variations on this. I did do an analysis from the second COVID-19 semester in which I considered hybrid models directly (none, partial and full physical wet-lab participation). Only the full physical presence model produced a full research experience in the wet-lab.

Thanks for your question

David

Hi David. Thank you for putting together this video! It's very interesting to see the contrast between the bioinformatics and wet-laboratory results. Did you find that any set of instructor strategies mentioned above led to better scores than others?

I also wonder what strategies the bioinformatics instructors may have implemented with the transition to online labs. Our video features an instructor for a virtual engineering lab that saw positive results when implementing inclusive teaching practices.

Hi Thomas,

Thanks for your kind comments. Your follow-up question is interesting and to an extent you point out the first issue that needs to be solved. It is true that overall, the strategies I mentioned were used. but as in your comment, this is not a univariate decision. In other words, these were the main strategies but they were combined with other sets of teaching approaches and techniques. I have employed a post-doc to do some qualitative analysis of the teachers written descriptions of their teaching and it is my plan to come back and analysis some of the outcomes in relation to clusters of teaching approaches. The short answer to your question is that I haven't done the analysis yet; the longer answer is that it is in the works if we can find good clustering of teaching codes and we have enough participants in each group.

Sorry for the unsatisfying answer. But indeed this is something that needs to be explored.

Thanks David

Hi David,

Thanks for the detailed note. It's very interesting work and best of luck on the next phase!

Thomas

Thanks Thomas

Hello Rivka,

Thanks for this comment. I am very glad there is some corroborating evidence here. It is always a problem if the outcomes are more general - but all the data comes from one program (even if that program is very varied in terms of population and institution). Glad to hear that our results sync with yours,

David

Hello Rivka (again),

I just watched your video and indeed there is overlap in the types of content in the program. I was not sure what you were using for outcome data in terms of student research experience. But I thought I would direct you to the tool we developed. Here is the link:

https://www.lifescied.org/doi/full/10.1187/cbe....

It might offer you some additional options. I hope this is useful. If you have questions don't hesitate to ask.

David

Hello Sharon,

It is always nice to speak to a fellow SEA-PHAGES faculty. Thank you for the endorsement of the findings of this study. I hope to see you at the upcoming SEA Teachers meeting where I will present more information about our educational research in the SEA.

Cheers David