More Information
Innovative, Evidence-Based Course Design
Course design often includes providing context and increasing the accessibility of microbiology concepts to both majors and non-majors. We often use high-impact pedagogy to increase student engagement (e.g. internships and game-based design).
Assessment Tool Development: Designing and Implementing Concept Inventories
A related project includes developing the tools needed to clearly assess student learning outcomes. Concept inventories are sets of validated multiple-choice questions that can be used by faculty nationwide to determine student understanding of common learning objectives.
Science Literacy and Science Communication.
The ability to communicate scientific findings to many different audiences (public to peers) is crucial both to student professional success and the ability of the voting populace to make informed decisions regarding science-heavy topics, such as vaccinations, GMO food labeling and universal vaccinations.
Faculty Mentoring
The Ethics Network for Course-based Opportunities in Undergraduate Research (ENCOUR) is an NSF-funded program based at University of Texas- El Paso that promotes teaching RCR and ethics principles to students participating in Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs). As part of the steering committee, I’ve both presented to the current (22-23) cohort and guided a small-group (pod) in aligning course goals with assessment and instructional activities. I’ve also worked with ENCOUR fellows as they prepare their RCR/ethics activities for dissemination.
Biology Scholars and PALM Networks both function as a resource for new faculty that are interesting in improving their pedagogy with active learning, documenting student progress, and disseminating their curricular improvements.
News from the Boury Lab
Recent papers:
Boury, N., Van den Bogaard, M. E. D., Wasendorf, C., Amon, J., Judson, S., Maroushek, S. R., & Peters, N. T. (2022). The Use of a Multimodal Case Study To Illustrate Microbial Genetics, Metabolism, and Evolution: The Emergence of VRSA-1. Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education, 23(3), e00125-22.
https://journals.asm.org/doi/full/10.1128/jmbe.00125-22
Wasendorf, Chloe, Joshua W. Reid, Rebecca Seipelt-Thiemann, Z. T. Grimes, Brock Couch, Nick T. Peters, Julia Massimelli Sewall, Audrey L. McCombs, Patrick I. Armstrong, and Nancy Boury. "The development and validation of the mutation criterion referenced assessment (MuCRA)." Journal of Biological Education (2022): 1-15.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00219266.2022.2100451
Grimes ZT, Boury NM, Wasendorf C, McCombs AL, Reid JW, James O, Couch B, Armstrong PI, Seipelt-Thiemann RL. An Assessment to Investigate Student Conceptions of Pedigree Analysis. The American Biology Teacher. 2022 Nov;84(9):535-44.
Recent Awards:
Carski Award (2022) - https://www.cals.iastate.edu/news/releases/boury-receives-national-microbiology-teaching-award
AgOnline Teacher of the Year (2021)
Preparing the Next Generation to Predict Pandemics (2020)
CALS Distance Education Teaching Award (2020)
Novel Digital Internship Offered Summer (2020)
Dr. Boury leads ASMCUE planning committee (2019-20)
Learning Community Scholarship Award (2018)
