258.3 - Building ICABL: An Inclusive Community for the Assessment of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Learning

Victoria Moore (Elon University), Kimberly Cortes (Kennesaw State University), Kirsten Block (American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology), Shelly Engelman (Custom EduEval LLC), Margaret Kanipes (North Carolina Agricultural and Technical University), Peter Kennelly (Virginia Polytechnic Institute amp; State University), Yang Lim (Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman), Jennifer Loertscher (Seattle University), Tejiri Olafimihan (American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology), Ludmila Tyler (University of Massachusetts Amherst), Territa Upchurch-Poole (Juniata College), Daniel Dries (Juniata College)

Assessment is a critical feature of effective instruction. Beyond assigning a grade to student performance, regular assessment can provide instructors, departments, and institutions with ongoing feedback on instructor, course, and program effectiveness. Despite its importance, designing assessments that are accessible to all students and measure relevant learning outcomes can be challenging for many biochemistry and molecular biology (BMB) instructors because they receive little, if any, formal training in assessment practices. Consequently, we - a team of writers for the ASBMB Certification Examination - have launched ICABL, an inclusive community for the assessment of BMB learning. With funding from an NSF grant (Award No. 2018204), we piloted a virtual workshop on summative assessment in Summer 2020. The 28 participants discussed best practices in summative assessment, including Bloom’s taxonomy, backward design using the ASBMB Foundational Concepts and Skills, and rubrics development as tools for informing instructors on the effectiveness of instruction. An explicit objective of the workshop was to broaden representation in the ASBMB education community. Accordingly, 68% of participants taught at minority-serving institutions, as compared with less than 10% of current ASBMB membership. Both immediate and six-month follow-up surveys highlighted the efficacy of this virtual workshop in supporting participants’ professional development. In addition, we have subsequently recruited many of the participants to write and score for the ASBMB Certification Exam as one step in our goal to develop an examination team that better represents and can more effectively address the diversity of individuals in our BMB classrooms. With continued support from the NSF (Award No. 2120673), over the next three years we will be offering a series of additional workshops, both in the United States and overseas, addressing summative, formative, and alternative assessment.

Funding via NSF-RCN UBE awards 2018204 and 2120673.