About Codon Learning
Codon Learning’s mission is to help all students succeed in biology and stay in college. We do this by helping faculty and students apply evidence-based teaching and learning practices, many of which are made much easier with effective educational technology.
More specifically, our platform helps instructors to design and teach high-structure courses (Eddy & Hogan, 2014; Freeman, Haak, & Wenderoth, 2011; Wilton et al., 2019). If designed properly, students receive the structure, practice, and continual feedback that enables them to develop stronger metacognition and self-regulated learning skills. Self-regulated learning skills have proven to be essential for long-term persistence in STEM courses (Rodriguez, Rivas, Matsumura, Warschauer, & Sato, 2018; Sebesta & Speth, 2017; Seymour & Hunter, 2019).
Our efficacy studies show that the Codon platform helps all students perform better and that it's having an oversized effect on students who come to college less prepared.
Today, the platform is used in over 700 courses at many different types of colleges and universities. Our funding comes from the National Science Foundation and scientists who care deeply about improving science education.
Dr. Scott Freeman at the University of Washington—who’s known for his education research and textbooks in majors biology and evolution—describes us well:
“Before Codon, no one had ever designed a teaching and learning platform that implemented backward design and high-structure course design, much less insights from the cognitive science literature on metacognition and self-regulated learning. They are working at an entirely different level of sophistication than any company I’ve run across.”
Eddy, S. L., & Hogan, K. A. (2014). Getting Under the Hood: How and for Whom Does Increasing Course Structure Work? CBE—Life Sciences Education, 13(3), 453–468.
Freeman, S., Haak, D., & Wenderoth, M. P. (2011). Increased Course Structure Improves Performance in Introductory Biology. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 10 (2), 175–186.
Wilton, M., Gonzalez-Nino, E., McPartlan, P., Turner, Z., Christoffersen, R. E., & Rothman, J. H. (2019). Improving Academic Performance, Belonging, and Retention through Increasing Structure of an Introductory Biology Course. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 18(4), ar53.
Seymour, E., & Hunter, A.-B. (2019). Talking about leaving revisited: Persistence, relocation, and loss in undergraduate STEM education. Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
Fernando Rodriguez, Mariela J. Rivas, Lani H. Matsumura, Mark Warschauer, Brian K. Sato. (2018) How do students study in STEM courses? Findings from a light-touch intervention and its relevance for underrepresented students. PLOS One