If you would like more information about the 2024 offering of BC Bio, please see their website: https://bcbio.opened.ca/
Hope to see you there!
Author Archives: Robin Young
That’s a wrap for BC Bio 2023!
We had beautiful weather, excellent talks, and lots of connections! Thanks to all who attended BC Bio 2023, and all who helped to make it a success! We had a total of roughly 65 attendees, either in person or online.
Look to the future for BC Bio 2024, which is expected to be at University of Victoria.
Schedule Released!
Here’s our preliminary schedule for BC Bio. We will update this post as additional information is released. Note that ALL talks and session will be held in the Library, room L305. This room cannot be accessed by the main Library entrance. You must enter either via the Commons entrance, or the side entrances, which is directly across from the Science building. Signs will be posted to help you find it. There are both elevators and stairs to get you to the third floor.
BC Bio 2023 Schedule
| 8:30 AM | Arrival & Registration |
| 8:50 AM | Welcome, Land Acknowledgement, Administrative notes |
| 9:00 AM | Talk 1: Pam Kalas & Team, UBCV. Title: Honoring the hidden sides of pedigree analysis and (maybe?) debunking the myth of genetic essentialism. |
| 9:30 AM | Talk 2: Aisling Brady, North Island University. Title: Ungrading a First-Year Biology Lab Course. |
| 10:00 AM | Talk 3: Richard Plunkett, UBCO. Title: Back to the Classroom: Pedagogical Methods and Student Social Interactions After COVID-19 Restrictions |
| 10:30 AM | Break |
| 11am -12pm |
Plenary Speaker: Sumer Seiki (See additional information below).
Talk Title: Making Positive Impacts: Connecting social justice and science instruction |
| 12-1pm | Lunch (provided for in-person registrants) |
| 1:00 PM | Talk 4: Miranda Meents & Erin Barley, SFU. Title: Curriculum Mapping of Technical Skills Coverage |
| 1:30 PM | Talk 5: Evelyn Sun. UBCV. Title: From in vitro to in silico: Re-envisioning a wet lab course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) into a data science experience |
| 2:00 PM | Talk 6: Andis Klegeris, UBCO. Developing and assessing problem-solving and critical-thinking skills of undergraduate students. |
| 2:30 PM | Break |
| 3:00 PM | Roundtable Discussions (see below) |
| 3:30 PM | End of BC Bio – Brief Wrap Up & Acknowledgements |
Afternoon Roundtable Discussions
We will have space for roughly 5 attendees per table. Please be advised that this portion of the day will not be accessible via Zoom. Live streaming will end after Talk 6.
- Anti-Racism & Indigenization of Science (Facilitator: Marina Tourlakis, Quest U)
- AI in Education & Pedagogy (Facilitator: Jason Toal, Educational Consultant for Technology Projects & Strategy, UBCO)
- Ungrading/ Alternative Grading (Facilitator: Aisling Brady, North Island University)
- Designing & Implementing Open Educational Resources for students (Facilitator: Mathew Vis-Dunbar, Data & Digital Scholarship Librarian)
- Labs & Experiential Learning (Facilitator: Ken Savage, UBC Okanagan)
- Student Engagement & Mentoring. (Facilitator: Zoe Soon, UBC Okanagan)
Plenary Speaker
More information on the complete schedule will be available once we have registration numbers. For now, here’s what we do know…
Plenary Talk: Dr. Sumer Seiki
Talk Title: Making Positive Impacts: Connecting social justice and science instruction
Speaker Bio: Dr. Seiki has an extensive background in education and has held several positions including Assistant Dean, Director of Teacher Education Programs at the University of California, Riverside School of Education and Associate Professor of Science Education. She has a PhD in Science Education, a Master of Science, and a Bachelor of Science in Plant Biology, and has taught biology courses, ethnic studies courses, science for social justice courses, etc. at various California community colleges and universities.
In recognition of her research contributions to education, Dr. Seiki was awarded the 2020 American Education Research Association Early Career Award from the Narrative SIG. She continues to research the intersection of community cultural wealth and science education, and is passionate about transforming science curriculum to be more inclusive and accessible to diverse learners.
Link to Dr. Seiki’s University profile.
BC Bio 2023 – Registration is now open!!
Hello past and future BC Bio attendees!
This email is to notify you that registration fr BC Bio is now open! Please follow the link below to register for both the in-person and live-streamed versions of this meeting, which will be held on Thursday May 11th, at UBC Okanagan in Kelowna, BC.
This link will also allow you to sign up to give talks, and suggest roundtable discussions. Note that we will be adding additional information, including lodging information, to this website very soon, for those that need it. So please check back often!
Looking forward to seeing you there!
Robin and the rest of the BC Bio team
(P.S. Please forward this to anyone that you feel might be interested in attending. The more the merrier!)
BC BIO is back for 2023! And in person! Save the Date!
Hello and Welcome back to the BC Bio website!
After consulting with our community, and each other, we are pleased to announce that BC Bio is coming back in 2023, and this year, will be hosted at UBC Okanagan in sunny Kelowna BC! It will be held on Thursday May 11th, 2023.
July 2021, Hover Collective / UBCO University Relations
More information will follow, but for now, we are also pleased to announce that our plenary speaker will be Dr. Sumer Seiki, Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education, here at UBC Okanagan. Dr. Seiki is a former plant biologist, who now focusses her research on exploring equity and diversity in the science classroom.
More information will follow soon!
Robin, Zoe, Brendan, Matt and Marina – 2023 BC Bio organizing committee.
(P.S. A reminder that we also have a BC Bio Slack channel. You can cess it via this link).
Thanks to all for another successful BC Bio!
We have had another very successful BC Bio in the virtual space! This year we had 115 registrants, and 83 attendees!
We also decided as a group to start a group listserv. If you are a biology educator in BC, that works in higher education, we encourage you to subscribe! You can follow this link to the group on Google groups, or email the group directly, at bc-bio(at)googlegroups.com to join.
See you all next year!
BC Bio 2021 schedule released!
BC Bio is on Wednesday May 12, 2021! Here is the plan for our afternoon. All times listed are for the Pacific time zone.
| Time | |
| 1:00-1:10 | Arrivals, welcome message, ground rules, land acknowledgement |
| 1:10-1:55 | Dr. Diane Ebert-May. “Assess what’s important: Creating assessments that show how all biology students use their knowledge” |
| 1:55-2:10 | Follow up questions for Dr. Ebert-May |
| 2:10-2:30 | Breakout Session Round A (~20 minutes) |
| 2:30-2:35 | Short break (~5min) |
| 2:35-3:20 | Dr. Fiona Rawle. “Fostering Meaningful Connection” |
| 3:20-3:35 | Follow up questions for Dr. Rawle |
| 3:35-3:55 | Breakout Session Round B (~20 minutes) |
| 3:55-? | Wrap up and acknowledgements. We officially end at 4pm, but we are happy to stay if others wish to (but please don’t feel pressured to do so!). |
About the Breakout Rooms:
Like last year, we are planning to have 2 rounds of breakout rooms for this event (~20 minutes each), to allow folks to socialize and discuss. Zoom now has the option to choose your own breakout rooms, which makes our job as organizers much easier! HOWEVER, it does require you to have version 5.4 or better. Please take the time to update Zoom on the device you are planning on using for this event, so that you have the option to choose your own breakout room.
Breakout Rooms Round A:
| # | Topic | Facilitator |
| 1 | Follow-up with our first speaker | Diane Ebert-May |
| 2 | Indigenizing the curriculum | Christine Goedhart |
| 3 | Transition back from the online environment – Lecture edition | Lauren Dalton |
| 4 | Transition back from the online environment – Labs edition | Tyler Donner |
| 5 | Assessments – Moving away from timed exams | Maryam Moussavi |
| 6 | Assessments – Re-imagining grading: Ungrading & student self-assessment | Marcia Graves |
| 7 | Assessments & group work | Marina Tourlakis |
| 8 | Online learning – What worked & what didn’t | Alida Janmaat |
| 9 | No specific topic but I still want to talk! | No pre-selected facilitator |
| 10 | Quiet Room (for those who may need a quiet space instead of a breakout room) | No facilitator. Please feel free to turn your camera/ microphone off if you need to. |
Breakout Rooms Round B:
| Room # | Topic | Facilitator |
| 1 | Follow-up with our second speaker | Fiona Rawle |
| 2 | Fostering Community – First Year Experience | Ellen Rosenberg |
| 3 | Fostering Community – Non-Majors | Zoe Soon |
| 4 | Fostering Community – Ecology & Evolution | Jackie Dee |
| 5 | Fostering Community – Plant Biology | Miranda Meents |
| 6 | Fostering Community – Cell & Molecular Biology | Martha Mullaly |
| 7 | Fostering Community – Bench work Labs | Marcia Graves |
| 8 | Fostering Community – Field work/ labs | Alicia Rippington |
| 9 | No specific topic but I still want to talk! | No pre-selected facilitator. |
| 10 | Quiet Room (for those who may need a quiet space instead of a breakout room) | No facilitator. Please feel free to turn your camera/ microphone off if you need to. |
If you haven’t registered yet, please do so! Scroll down just a little to the previous post to find the registration link!
Registration open for BC Bio 2021!
Registration for BC Bio is now open!
Please click here to register!
Looking forward to seeing you all there!
BC Bio 2021 will be on Wednesday May 12th, from 1-4pm (PDT)
You are invited to BC Bio 2021: Looking Back to Move Forward – Evolving our Collective Teaching Practice. Wednesday May 12th, 1-4pm
We are pleased to announce that BC Bio is back for another year of community building at our virtual conference! Building on the success of last year’s conference (120 attendees from across the province, country and continent!) we are once again hosting BC Bio as an a 3-hour, afternoon event. We are excited to have not one, but two wonderful plenary speakers for this event: Dr Diane Ebert-May (University Distinguished Professor, Michigan State University) and Dr. Fiona Rawle (Associate Professor of Teaching & Associate Dean of Undergraduate Biology, University of Toronto).
We are pleased to announce that BC Bio is back for another year of community building at our virtual conference! Building on the success of last year’s conference (120 attendees from across the province, country and continent!) we are once again hosting BC Bio as an a 3-hour, afternoon event. We are excited to have not one, but two wonderful plenary speakers for this event: Dr Diane Ebert-May (University Distinguished Professor, Michigan State University) and Dr. Fiona Rawle (Associate Professor of Teaching & Associate Dean of Undergraduate Biology, University of Toronto).
The format will be similar to last year, with a combination of excellent talks from our plenary speakers and breakout groups to allow for more direct community-building and discussion with our colleagues. Registration will open on April 26th, 2021. At that time we will also be looking for facilitators to help with breakout rooms. Registration will open on April 26th, 2021. The link will be posted on this website at that time.
While this is officially an event for BC Biology Educators, we welcome students, post-docs staff and faculty from across the globe who wish to attend. As always, it is our sincere wish to offer a relaxed and open atmosphere. Children, pets, houseplants, housemates and other folk that may not fit into the category of Biology Educator are also welcome to attend. Please join us for a BYO happy hour snack/ drink of your choosing.
Looking forward to reconnecting with all of you one year later in this great experiment we’ve all been living!
Your BCBio 2021 organizers,
Marcia Graves (UBC Vancouver, marcia.graves@ubc.ca)
Alida Janmaat (UFV, Alida.Janmaat@ufv.ca)
Robin Young (UBC Okanagan, robin.young@ubc.ca)