Jennifer Doherty
Assistant Professor of Biology and Physiology/Ecology Education Michigan State University
- East Lansing MI
Jennifer Doherty is a physiology education researcher who investigates how students develop principle-based mechanistic reasoning.
Industry Expertise
Areas of Expertise
Accomplishments
Distinguished Teaching Award, University of Washington
n/a
Education
University of Pennsylvania
Ph.D.
Biology
University of Pennsylvania
B.A.
Biology
Links
News
Jennifer Doherty Named Recipient of 2024 Teacher Scholar Award
Michigan State University online
2024-05-03
Jennifer Doherty believes that students learn best from their mistakes.
In fact, the assistant professor in the Department of Physiology and Lyman Briggs College allows her students to retake any exam without penalty.
“Students have multiple chances to succeed in my courses,” Doherty said. “That does mean I have to rewrite multiple exam questions but that’s okay. I believe that for students to succeed, they have to understand what they are being taught and not just memorize it.”
Event Appearances
What are your students thinking?
2022 | University of Pennsylvania Department of Biology Casper Career Symposium Philadelphia, PA
Getting Started in Educational Research
2023 | American Physiological Society Webinar
What are your students thinking about Bulk Flow?
2022 | Michigan State University Department of Physiology East Lansing, MI
Journal Articles
What a difference in pressure makes: A framework describing undergraduate students’ reasoning about bulk flow down pressure gradients
CBE Life Sciences Eduction2023
Pressure gradients serve as the key driving force for the bulk flow of fluids in biology (e.g., blood, air, phloem sap). However, students often struggle to understand the mechanism that causes these fluids to flow. To investigate student reasoning about bulk flow, we collected students’ written responses to assessment items and interviewed students about their bulk flow ideas. From these data, we constructed a bulk flow pressure gradient reasoning framework that describes the different patterns in reasoning that students express about what causes fluids to flow and ordered those patterns into sequential levels from more informal ways of reasoning to more scientific, mechanistic ways of reasoning. We obtained validity evidence for this bulk flow pressure gradient reasoning framework by collecting and analyzing written responses from a national sample of undergraduate biology and allied health majors from 11 courses at five institutions. Instructors can use the bulk flow pressure gradient reasoning framework and assessment items to inform their instruction of this topic and formatively assess their students’ progress toward more scientific, mechanistic ways of reasoning about this important physiological concept.
Undergraduate students' neurophysiological reasoning: What we learn from the attractive distractors students select
Advances in Physiology Education2023
The basis for mastering neurophysiology is understanding ion movement across cell membranes. The Electrochemical Gradients Assessment Device (EGAD) is a 17-item test assessing students’ understanding of fundamental concepts of neurophysiology, e.g., electrochemical gradients and resistance, synaptic transmission, and stimulus strength. We collected responses to the EGAD from 534 students from seven institutions nationwide, before and after instruction. We determined the relative difficulty of neurophysiology topics and noted that students did better on “what” questions compared to “how” questions, particularly those integrating concentration gradient and electric forces to predict ion movement. We also found that, even after instruction, students selected one incorrect answer, at a rate greater than random chance for nine questions. We termed these incorrect answers attractive distractors.
Oaks to arteries: The Physiology Core Concept of "flow down gradients" supports transfer of student reasoning
Advances in Physiology Education2023
The basis for mastering neurophysiology is understanding ion movement across cell membranes. The Electrochemical Gradients Assessment Device (EGAD) is a 17-item test assessing students’ understanding of fundamental concepts of neurophysiology, e.g., electrochemical gradients and resistance, synaptic transmission, and stimulus strength. We collected responses to the EGAD from 534 students from seven institutions nationwide, before and after instruction. We determined the relative difficulty of neurophysiology topics and noted that students did better on “what” questions compared to “how” questions, particularly those integrating concentration gradient and electric forces to predict ion movement. We also found that, even after instruction, students selected one incorrect answer, at a rate greater than random chance for nine questions. We termed these incorrect answers attractive distractors. Most attractive distractors contained terms associated with concentration gradients, equilibrium, or anthropomorphic and teleological reasoning, and incorrect answers containing multiple terms were more attractive.
How students reason about matter flows and accumulations in complex biological phenomena: an emerging learning progression for mass balance
Journal of Research in Science Teaching2023
In recent years, there has been a strong push to transform STEM education at K-12 and collegiate levels to help students learn to think like scientists. One aspect of this transformation involves redesigning instruction and curricula around fundamental scientific ideas that serve as conceptual scaffolds students can use to build cohesive knowledge structures. In this study, we investigated how students use mass balance reasoning as a conceptual scaffold to gain a deeper understanding of how matter moves through biological systems. Our aim was to lay the groundwork for a mass balance learning progression in physiology. We drew on a general models framework from biology and a covariational reasoning framework from math education to interpret students' mass balance ideas. We used a constant comparative method to identify students' reasoning patterns from 73 interviews conducted with undergraduate biology students. We helped validate the reasoning patterns identified with >8000 written responses collected from students at multiple institutions.
Design-based research: A methodology to extend and enrich Biology Education Research
CBE Life Sciences Education2020
Recent calls in biology education research (BER) have recommended that researchers leverage learning theories and methodologies from other disciplines to investigate the mechanisms by which students to develop sophisticated ideas. We suggest design-based research from the learning sciences is a compelling methodology for achieving this aim. Design-based research investigates the “learning ecologies” that move student thinking toward mastery. These “learning ecologies” are grounded in theories of learning, produce measurable changes in student learning, generate design principles that guide the development of instructional tools, and are enacted using extended, iterative teaching experiments. In this essay, we introduce readers to the key elements of design-based research, using our own research into student learning in undergraduate physiology as an example of design-based research in BER. Then, we discuss how design-based research can extend work already done in BER and foster interdisciplinary collaborations among cognitive and learning scientists, biology education researchers, and instructors. We also explore some of the challenges associated with this methodological approach.
