College of Biological Science Office of Educational Scholarship and Practice

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COESP logo

Provenance: John Dawson, University of Guelph
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To be recognized as a leader in educational scholarship and practice in the biological sciences.

College of Biological Science, University of Guelph
Established: 2016

https://www.uoguelph.ca/ada-cbs/coesp

Vision and Goals

Mission:
To Support and Promote:
- Evidence-based Teaching Practice
- Learning Outcome Development & Assessment
- Biology Education Research

Values:
The COESP is:
- Inclusive: we value including all of CBS, from students to faculty to administration
- Accessible: we value our work being accessible to the community, and that might mean translating some of the jargon of SOTL (Scholarship of Teaching and Learning) into terms that are understood by biologists and applicable to biology education
- Responsive: we value responding to the community in a way that is useful, positive, and forward-thinking
- Evidence-Based: whatever we do, we value responses that are based in evidence. That evidence might come from the literature, or it might be evidence that we generate ourselves.

Center/Program Structure

The COESP is housed within the College of Biological Science. It's faculty Director (20% FTE) reports to the Associate Dean Academic for the College. There is one part-time staff (20% FTE) and a steering committee of 3 faculty members, a liaison with our central education office and student representatives.

Are there advantages of being structured this way?
Being run by faculty in the College lends credibility and legitimacy to the programming and approaches presented by the COESP.

Are there particular challenges that result from this structure?
There are two main challenges: 1) The time needed to meet our goals exceeds that of the current workers. 2) The tension between research and teaching among the faculty extends to those involved in the COESP.

Funding

The College has committed to funding the COESP for its first 3 years of development. Organizing researchers with experience and interest in DBER into the BioEd Research Hub has resulted in obtaining funding for research through internal University funds.

How has this funding structure influenced the undergraduate STEM education programming the center offers?
The funding provided by the College has supported the development of the office and all of the programming we have put on.

What are the specific advantages of having a center funded in this way?
Having a stable commitment of funds from the College allows the COESP to plan programming with security.

What are the challenges?
We are looking beyond our first three years to sustain and grow the COESP. A complete lack of national-level funding for science education research in Canada is an ongoing challenge. Lower demand for programming and available grants can also be an issue.

Has this funding structure has changed over time?
No, but we will be looking at how to align our funding with our programs.

Description of Programming

Our programming is mainly seminars and workshops aimed at the needs and challenges faced by our staff and faculty of higher biology education at our University. Successes have been graduate-student led journals club-style discussion groups of a paper by an invited speaker to increase participation and interest. An annual COESP Day also brings in a half-day workshop for our College focused on undergraduate education and also highlights DBER in the College.

Successes and Impacts

In our first year, the development of a graduate student award for DBER, education conference travel grants, course improvement grants, and DBER grants have raised the profile of the COESP. Our COESP Day had participation from across the campus. Forming the BioEd Research Hub from faculty with experience and interest in DBER has gained internal funding to perform research.

Evaluation and Assessment

How does your center demonstrate its value, both in terms of assessing its own programming and responding to external evaluation?
Attendance at our seminars and workshops and the quality and number of applications to our grants and awards are the main indicators of value to the College.

Elements Contributing to Success

Certainly, the financial and philosophical support of the College and its recognition of undergraduate education as crucial have been essential for success.

Supplemental Materials