As a quantitative biologist, it is very important to me that we effectively teach quantitative content to our undergraduate biology majors.  As part of my prior position as a postdoc with the Quantitative Undergraduate Biology Education and Synthesis (QUBES) project, I had the opportunity to work with faculty across the country who want to improve the teaching of quantitative content in their biology courses. While no longer directly working with QUBES, I continue to be connected to the QUBES community through involvement in online faculty mentoring networks and workshops.

One common barrier to success in undergraduate biology and retention in STEM in general is math anxiety.  By reducing working memory, math anxiety can significantly decrease math performance (Faust et al. 1996, Ashcraft and Kirk 2001). Groups that are underrepresented in the sciences are particularly vulnerable to negative effects of math anxiety or low math confidence on persistence in the Biology major.

In collaboration with Jeremy Wojdak at Radford University, we developed the BIOMAAP (Biology students Math Attitudes and Anxiety Program) materials to improve biology students’ attitudes towards quantitative content, with the goal of improving performance and retention in Biology.  Our easily-adaptable materials are intended to fit into a wide range of biology or other science courses, and use a range of techniques shown to help alleviate math anxiety and improve math performance, such as metacognitive activities in which students reflect on their own problem solving strategies or algorithms. This project was funded by NSF IUSE and officially ended in 2021, but the materials are still available through QUBESHub at biomaap.org.