Gili Ad-Marbach
University of Maryland, MD·Education Research
Only about half of undergraduates who start a biology degree finish one. A major reason students leave is the sense that teaching in introductory courses is poor.
- Fields
Education Research
Biology
Social Science
- Topics
STEM education
biology education
discipline-based education research
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Sep 2027
What they work on
- Identify, through a multi-round Delphi consensus survey of about 40 experts from biology departments, the departmental values and beliefs linked to support for or resistance to graduate student teaching training.
- Rank these departmental cultural commitments by their importance to teaching professional development, using successive Delphi rounds that refine the expert panel's list.
- Use the ranked consensus results to propose a theory of change for improving how biology departments train graduate students to teach.
More about the research
Graduate students often teach these courses, especially discussion and lab sections, yet many graduate programs offer them little training in how to teach. This project asks why: what is it about the culture of a biology department that supports, or works against, training graduate students as teachers?
Why it matters
Many students abandon biology after poorly taught introductory courses, often led by graduate students with little teacher training. By identifying the departmental values that help or hinder this training, the work could guide biology departments and graduate program leaders in improving how teaching assistants are prepared. Better-trained instructors may, in turn, help more undergraduates stay in and complete the biology major.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Andrea Beach
Western Michigan University, MI·Education Research
Synthesize research published from 2010 to 2021 on instructional interventions in undergraduate STEM and social science courses, using a framework synthesis approach to identify themes and advances in instructional change.
Scott Kreher
Dominican University, IL·Education Research
Characterize how beginning students, experienced students and expert faculty understand controlled experiments, using interviews to inform new assessment and teaching tools.
Madhura Kulkarni
Northern Kentucky University, KY·Education Research
Create and assess a "4C" fellowship for underrepresented and transfer STEM students that combines scholarships with co-mentoring, community building, career development, and research experiences.
The school
University of Maryland: 49 labs on PI Pages, $1.5B a year on research, 602 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.