UCLA Center for Education Innovation & Learning in the Sciences | Monthly Newsletter

CEILS Monthly Newsletter | Issue #59 | March 5, 2020 | ceils.ucla.edu

Announcements

UCLA Summer Institute on Scientific Teaching - Applications Now Open!

Date : August 17-20, 2020

UCLA’s Summer Institute on Scientific Teaching is a 4-day professional development opportunity for current STEM faculty and instructors as well as future STEM faculty who are interested in an academic career that involves teaching and mentoring diverse undergraduates. The goal of the Summer Institute is to help faculty and instructors develop the teaching, assessment, and classroom observation skills they need to begin an evidence-based curricular transformation of their undergraduate STEM classrooms.

Join this year's cohort of Scientific Teaching Fellows:

Applications are open until April 1st.

For more information visit the event web site.

Call for Proposals:

OpenUCLA Accessible Course Materials Initiative Awards Applications

OpenUCLA is a Centennial Initiative created to help erase barriers that limit access to the materials and scholarship produced at UCLA. UCLA Library is offering the OpenUCLA Affordable Course Materials Initiative Awards for the 2020-2021 academic year in order to support and encourage UCLA instructors to create and use Open Education Resources (OERs) and low or no-cost resources as their required course materials.

Two OpenUCLA ACMI awards of $5,000 each will be awarded to eligible faculty. Each award will result in the development and release of an Open Education Resource (OER), to be made available on eScholarship. This is a great opportunity for early career professionals, lecturers, and adjunct faculty.

Applications are due March 20th, 2020.

For more information visit the website and apply here .

Apply to be an Inaugural ENCOUR Fellow

The Ethics Network for Course-based Opportunities in Undergraduate Research (ENCOUR) , a n NSF-funded RCN-UBE consortium, is pleased to announce a call for applications for its inaugural cohort of ENCOUR Fellows. Recent national efforts to reform post-secondary laboratory education in STEM have resulted in the genesis of course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs).

This program will provide a year-long, mentored opportunity for CURE instructors, designers, and/or facilitators to develop and field-test resources to integrate Ethics/Responsible Conduct of Research (E/RCR) education into their CUREs. A stipend and travel funds will also be awarded to fellows. Applicants with all levels of experience in developing, designing, and/or facilitating CUREs are invited to apply including graduate students, post-docs, and current faculty.

Applications are due March 20th, 2020.

For more information visit the website , view the application , or contact Dr. Jefferey Olimpo at jtolimpo@utep.edu . View a template of the application here before submitting .

Upcoming CEILS Events

CEILS Scientific Teaching Seminar Series on Grading Practices

Rethinking Grading: Designing grading practices to promote intrinsic motivation, equity, and rigor in our courses

Date : March 13th, 2020 | 2:00-3:00pm

Location: 1100 Terasaki Life Sciences Building (1st floor conference room)

Speaker: Dominic (Nic) J. Voge, Senior Associate Director, McGraw Center for Teaching & Learning, Princeton University

Grades are powerful motivators for students. They are so powerful they can eclipse other intrinsic motivations such as interest, improvement, and a love of learning which instructors highly value. This talk introduces a motivational framework for thinking about students’ engagement in our courses and guides instructors through a process of designing grading systems that realize their multiple aims.

View the event web si te for more information and register here

Save the Date: Part II of the Seminar Series

Date : April 17th, 2020 | 2:00-3:00pm

Location: 1100 Terasaki Life Sciences Building (1st floor conference room)

Speaker: David Laude, Distinguished Teaching Professor of Chemistry, University of Texas, Austin

View the event website for more information and register here

Winter Quarter CEILS Journal Club Meetings

Fridays from 2:00-3:00pm | Terasaki Life Science Building 1100

March 6 – UPLIFT Fellows Jackie McCourt and Jesse Bloom Bateman will present "Can a Journal Club Course that Incorporates Inclusive Pedagogy Have a Positive Impact on Students’ Scientific Identity?"
March 13 – Nic Voge, Scientific Teaching Scholar (visiting speaker) and Senior Associate Director in McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning at Princeton University will present Rethinking Grading: Designing Grading Practices to Promote Intrinsic Motivation, Equity, and Rigor in our Courses.

View the STEM Education Research Journal Club event page for more details.

Spring quarter journal club will resume in April.

Featured Teaching Resources

Designing an Inclusive & Informative Syllabus

Spring quarter is weeks away, which means it is time to take a look at your next syllabus. To help with updates, we have compiled some resources on syllabus design, including a template with sample text .

View the CEILS Resource Guide on Inclusive Syllabus Design here .

The Guide for Inclusive Teaching at Columbia

Inclusive teaching gets a lot of attention on college campuses. Instructors are increasingly expected to understand how course climate— the intellectual, social, emotional, and physical environment of a class—impacts their students, and respond to calls for inclusive classroom environments from both students and administrators. But creating a supportive learning environment for all students can be challenging. Where do you begin?

The Guide for Inclusive Teaching at Columbia helps instructors answer that question by offering five inclusive teaching principles derived from research and evidence-based practices. In addition, the guide contains practical, accessible, and usable strategies that instructors can use immediately.

Calls for Award Nominations

Life Science Excellence Awards

Nominations now open!

Please submit your nominations to

clynch@college.ucla.edu by Mon. April 6, 2020

***Please note there is a new category to recognize graduate students this year***

SAVE THE DATE: Be sure to join your colleagues at the award ceremony Monday, May 4th, from 4:00-6:00 pm in 158 Hershey Hall to celebrate Excellence in Life Sciences at UCLA!!

UCLA Distinguished Teaching Awards

Nominations now open!

March 6, 2020 - Teaching Assistants

April 3, 2020 - Non-Senate Faculty

Find out more here

Chancellor’s Award for Community-Engaged Scholars

With strategic funding from the Chancellor’s Office, the Faculty Advisory Committee of the Center for Community Learning is pleased to announce the 2nd annual Chancellor’s Award for Community-Engaged Scholars. This program offers five $10,000 awards to support a cohort of UCLA ladder faculty who will advance community-engaged research and integrate this work within undergraduate education.

To apply : Submit the application materials ccl@college.ucla.edu by April 3, 2020

Contact Shalom Staub, Director of the Center for Community Learning sstaub@college.ucla.edu

Featured Off-Campus Events

SoCAL PKAL Regional Network Meeting:

Cultivating Diverse

Leadership in STEM

Date: March 28, 2020

Location: University of LaVerne, CA

Registration Deadline: March 25, 2020

This event will focus on cultivating diverse leadership in STEM. To ensure diverse leadership. We have three goals for attendees of this conference: 1) take home at least one new skill, activity, or classroom tool to enhance inclusive excellence on their campus, 2) connect with participants from other institutions to problem-solve and promote collaboration, and 3) reflect on policies and processes that help or hinder broader participation in leadership in STEM.

View the event website for more information.

Interested in attending? CEILS may be able to sponsor registration fees. Contact us to learn more.

Teaching Tomorrow’s Scientists:

An American Society for Cell Biology Regional Meeting

Date: May 30, 2020

Location: Soka University of America, Aliso Viejo, CA

Registration Deadline: May 24, 2020

You are invited to join Teaching Tomorrow’s Scientists: An ASCB Regional Meeting for an exciting mix of science, education, and networking. This day-long meeting is designed for a teaching-intensive audience of life scientists. The meeting will include education research plenaries, a poster session, a networking lunch, afternoon workshops, and an end-of-day networking dinner and mixer. Abstracts are invited for 75-minute workshop sessions appropriate for undergraduate biology educators (deadline is March 4). Abstracts are also invited for posters presenting educational innovations, education research, and biological research (deadline is April 20). There is no submission fee for either type of abstract.

View the event website for more information.

Interested in attending? CEILS may be able to sponsor registration fees. Contact us to learn more.

In the News

Professor Pays it Forward by Promoting Diversity and Environmental Justice | UCLA Newsroom

Climate scientist Aradhna Tripati’s path to a career in science included a detour through being a lonely child. In Los Angeles in the 1980s, she remembers, “I was usually one of the few dark-skinned kids in my class, and my family faced many issues that felt isolating.” She escaped into books and studied so intensely that by age 12 she attended Cal State Los Angeles, and there she found supportive friends, mentors and role models. In graduate school, when family illnesses struck and she began fostering her sister, she considered leaving the program — but her friends and faculty became her support network, guiding her to fellowships that helped pay the bills, giving her research experience in environmental science, and providing letters of recommendation for her scholarship applications.

5 Principles as Pathways to Inclusive Teaching | HigherEd

Implementing inclusive teaching strategies in your classroom does not require huge changes or full course redesigns. Nor does inclusive teaching demand the abandonment of favorite classroom techniques, topics, readings or assignments. Rather, it suggests ways to be more intentional about how you deploy those tools to create the best learning environment for your students. In fact, inclusive teaching practices may not be something totally new; you may already be using many inclusive teaching strategies without specifically calling them such. You can implement them in small steps along a number of paths, as long as your compass is set to intentionality and forethought.

We Know What Works to Close the Completion Gap | ChronicleVitae

"Nearly everything we understand about global warming," writes Nathaniel Rich in Losing Earth, "was understood in 1979." The same could be said of one of the most persistent and damning problems facing higher education in the United States: the gap in college completion between white undergraduates and their fellow students from underrepresented minority groups. Six-year graduation rates for white students at American colleges and universities are still nearly 30 percentage points higher than for black students, and nearly 20 points higher than for Hispanic students. Those numbers should outrage anyone with an interest in American higher education.

Online Workshops and Events

Upcoming Free Webinar:

A conversation and discussion about the strengths and limitations of using concept inventories in research and practice

Tuesday, March 10, 2020 | 3:00 - 4:30pm

Presenters: Stacey Lowery Bretz, Chemistry and Biochemistry, Miami University and Michael Klymkowsky, Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder

No registration necessary. Join the meeting here .

Upcoming Free Webinar:

Transforming the Conversation about Teaching Evaluation in Higher Education: Thoughts from the National Academies' Roundtable on Systemic Change in Undergraduate STEM Education

Tuesday, March 24, 2020 | 11:00 am PT

Presenters: Ann Austin (Michigan State University), Noah Finkelstein (University of Colorado Boulder), Kerry Brenner (National Academies), and Dea Greenhoot (University of Kansas)

This webinar is designed for individuals involved in STEM education reform initiatives or who are interested in change efforts and avenues for connecting to a national agenda. We welcome current faculty as well as future STEM faculty; academic and administrative leaders at 2- and 4-year colleges and universities.The webinar will provide an opportunity for participants to share ideas on what kinds of resources and events would be helpful to elevating and advancing the discussion of teaching evaluation, in particular how it relates to evidence-based instruction and faculty incentives and rewards.

Visit the website for more information.

National and Regional Events

Present at the 2020 National SABER Conference

Date: July 23 - 26, 2020

Location: University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

The Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research (SABER) is currently soliciting abstracts for talks, roundtables, posters, or workshops for the 2020 National SABER conference. The abstract guidelines are currently posted on the SABER website .

Abstracts are due March 13th at 5:00 pm.

For more information visit the event website .

Date: March 13 - 14, 2020

Location: CSU Fullerton

The CSU Symposium champions the advancement of educator and student success. The Symposium at CSU Fullerton facilitates the discussion of innovative ideas and the exploration of the best learning practices. This year's theme provides an opportunity for participants to explore topics crucial to the success of higher education. The purpose of the symposium is to challenge our biases, affirm our commitment to current best practices in inclusive pedagogy, acknowledge the achievements of our peers, encourage one another, and recharge ourselves as educators.

Registration is still open, so register now!

2020 ASM Conference for Undergraduate Educators

Date: July 9-12, 2020

Location: Bellevue, Washington

View the event website for more information.

The ASM Conference for Undergraduate Educators (ASMCUE) is driven by, for, and with the community! Microbiology and biology educators gather to learn best practices and classroom strategies, hear biology education research updates, and meet new colleagues who teach the same classes. Join us and come learn from your peers and network with like-minded educators. Plan now to contribute to ASMCUE by submitting a proposal for a concurrent education session, workshop, education research poster, short tips & tools talk ("microbrew"), or dissemination station!

Deadlines:

Short talks or Dissemination Station – March 31, 2020
Travel Awards – March 15, 2020

CIRTL - Graduate Students and Postdocs

Attention UCLA Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Scholars!

The Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL) is a national network providing graduate students and postdoctoral scholars with online training on evidence based teaching and professional development opportunities.

UCLA is a member of CIRTL, giving graduate students and postdoctoral scholars access to all CIRTL online programing across the network, as well as local learning communities and opportunities for professional development on campus. We also have a separate newsletter specifically for our CIRTL@UCLA community where we share information most relevant to graduate students and postdoctoral scholars. Subscribe to the CIRTL newsletter here .

Learn more about CIRTL@UCLA and get connected: https://cirtl.ceils.ucla.edu/

Featured Job Opportunities

Senior Consultant for the Center of Teaching and Learning

University of California, Berkeley