Including undergraduate peer facilitators (UPFs) in lectures can support students in large and often challenging introductory science courses. Our team decided to increase UPF involvement by creating BIOL113, an undergraduate-led companion course to BIOL180, the largest introductory Biology course at the University of Washington. This study is part of a larger project that assessed the overall experience of both UPFs and students, and this particular work focuses on the former. I investigated how BIOL113 contributed to the experience and development of UPFs.This study incorporated qualitative data from graduated and enrolled UPFs alongside UPF applicants. Through surveys, I explored personal, professional, and academic growth, leadership skills, program expectations, and a sense of belonging. My findings underscore the distinctive role of undergraduate-led programs in enhancing UPF experiences. UPFs’ expectations for the program aligned with their experience and enriched their sense of belonging within the biology department, STEM, and the broader University of Washington community. Furthermore, engaging in UPF roles developed individual leadership skills while also contributing to their personal, professional, and academic development. In addition, the survey highlighted an important area for improvement: tailored professional development for UPFs should focus on marketing the skills gained in teaching and leadership as particularly valuable in the job market, graduate school, or professional school. Understanding the impact of BIOL113 on UPF experience can inform instructional approaches, with the possibility of expanding such initiatives university-wide.

Evidence-based changes to instruction can lead to better student outcomes and performance. For this reason, instructors are interested in collecting data about student experience and outcomes. However, the process of data collection and analysis can be time-intensive for instructors, making it challenging to gather data necessary to improve their classes. Moreover, when data collection does happen, it often centers quantitative data, but this systematically devalues students' experiences. Therefore, we sought to develop a tool that aids instructors in processing and analyzing qualitative data pertaining to students’ class experiences. As part of our research project, we have developed an R-shiny based data processing app that integrates Artificial Intelligence to summarize findings from open response questions on student surveys. This tool is intended to alleviate the time-intensive nature of analyzing student responses to open-ended survey questions. In order to validate the accuracy of AI-generated summaries, we compared them to manual summaries generated using in vivo qualitative coding methods. We find that our app generates responses that are comparable to the manually generated summaries. The summaries include prominent themes along with details about student experiences within those themes. With this tool, instructors can gather real-time data, even in large classes, eliminating the concern of the time-intensive process of manually reviewing responses. By developing this tool, we hope to empower instructors to explore diverse questions that provide them with valuable insights on how to optimize the structure of their classes to improve student experience and outcomes.

Introductory biology classes are often a stepping stone for students in various STEM majors, as prerequisites or major requirements. For this reason, it is vital that these courses properly prepare students for life beyond their classes, through the ability to apply the knowledge they are gaining to the real world. Because textbooks are often used as preparatory assignments or as the content on which a course is grounded, we decided to focus on this type of circular tool, in order to evaluate the level of humanization in introductory biology courses. We set out to find out the degree to which six popular and prominent introductory biology textbooks humanize science, by positioning the content in a social context. We did this by developing our definition of humanization, and based on this, a continuum of humanization. We then developed a rubric for coding the extent of humanization, with the lowest being scarce humanization and highest being content that centers justice. We also coded topics of biology, from ethics to the environment. The team went through page-by-page and line-by-line to apply the rubric to all six textbooks, including the text as well as questions. In terms of the questions, we found that out of 9262, only 236 questions were humanizing. For the text, out of 9670 pages, there were 1352 humanizing passages. Overall, we found the inclusion of humanizing content to be rare across the six textbooks analyzed, and humanization by inclusion of justice to be particularly rare. We end by giving suggestions to educators, a main one being to pose justice-centered problems to students - a “problem-posing” model of science education.

Including undergraduate peer facilitators (UPFs) in lectures is often done to support students in large and often challenging introductory science courses. Our team increased UPF involvement by creating BIOL113, an undergraduate-led companion course to BIOL180, the largest biology course at the University of Washington. This study is a part of a larger project that assessed the overall experience of both UPFs and students, and this particular work focuses on the latter. We examined how BIOL113 enhanced students' learning and academic success in Introductory Biology. By incorporting quantitative and qualitative data, we compared the performance of students who received UPF support in this companion class with those who did not. Quantitative data included grades, exam scores, and course completion rates, while qualitative data encompassed students' perceptions of peer facilitation though blast surveys. We found that undergraduate-led programs play a unique role in improving students' learning and including UPFs promoted peer-to-peer interaction and student engagement. Additionally, UPFs serve as relatable role models, providing mentorship and practical guidance. Moreover, programs like BIOL113 have a rare opportunity to disproportionately support students from minoritized groups. Understanding the impact of BIOL113 on students' success can inform instructional strategies, with potential expansion of such programs across the University.