Education Research by Caylyn Harvey

Annotated Bibliography

Implementing Recommendations for Introductory Biology by Writing a New Textbook

Mark J. Barsoum, Patrick J. Sellers, A. Malcolm Campbell, Laurie J. Heyer, Christopher J. Paradise. 2013. Implementing Recommendations for Introductory Biology by Writing a New Textbook. CBE--Life Sciences Education. Vol 12(1): 106-116.

Using national recommendations, the authors of the ICB textbook designed the course to emphasize data interpretation while focusing less on memorizing a large amount of information. The authors did an experiment to test the effectiveness of their redesigned textbook in comparison to a traditional introductory biology course. During the semester-long experiment, assessments demonstrated no difference between students taking the traditional course and students taking the ICB course. A semester later, the ICB students had retained more content knowledge than traditional students, though the difference was not significant (p=0.06). In data interpretation, the ICB students significantly improved over time (p=0.015) and were significantly better at interpreting data by the end of the semester than the traditional students (p<0.01 and p<0.05 in the final two assessments of the semester). In addition, ICB students were more likely to have more accurate perceptions of biology as a discipline as well as of their own abilities as scientists.

take-aways for essay:

no difference in content knowledge (but better retained?)

better data interpreters (this was lost when they were no longer taking the ICB course)

more accurate perception of their abilities and biology

Integrating Concepts in Biology: A Model for More Effective Ways to Introduce Students to Biology

K. N. Prestwich and A. M. Sheehy. 2015. Integrating Concepts in Biology: A Model for More Effective Ways to Introduce Students to Biology. CBE--Life Science Education. Vol 14(3).

This is a book review of the ICB textbook. It praises the book's approach for its focus on core concepts, its emphasis on leading students to construct their own knowledge, and its use of illustrations and online links. The review raises specific issues with a few elements of the book, like the informal jargon and some terminology. Overall, the review gives positive commentary on the ICB textbook's efforts to revolutionize the way students learn introductory biology.

"It exemplifies an innovative and enlightened new direction in education that is worthy of emulation by those who see the biology elephant with different perspectives."

An Active Textbook Converts "Vision and Tweak" to Vision and Change

Wagner, J.D., Campbell, A.M., Sly, B.J. and Paradise, C.J. 2015. An Active Textbook Converts “Vision and Tweak” to Vision and Change. CourceSource.00:xxx. doi:00.0000/journal.cs.000000

This article explains that the creation of the ICB textbook was in response to the call for a change in biology education, many aspects of which were formally declared by the Vision and Change conference and subsequent publication. In addition to creating a better environment in which to learn, the ICB textbook also creates a better environment in which to teach. Not only are the students more engaged, but their professors are as well. The article also stresses that all of ICB's weaknesses are actually strengths: the consistent (possibly old-fashioned) color scheme was chosen so that color blind people could tell the difference between them; some of the figures are missing error bars or other notations, but that is how they were published in the original papers; and some of the research examples seem forced to fit into a chapter because they could actually fit into many chapters, which lends itself to the claim the textbook makes that the core concepts are connected in so many ways.

"It is not uncommon to end class totally surprised by what new ideas or issues we covered in class. Because of this spontaneity, we are more engaged and responsive to the students' learning."

"The [traditional] class does not allow students to think critically."

"Among the faculty from around the country who reviewed ICB prior to its publication, the fear of change was the most common reason they gave for not wanting to adopt this new approach."

Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics

Freeman S, et al. (2014) Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 111:8410–8415.

This study found that students who are in active learning classes perform better and fail less than students in traditional classes. "[O]n average, student performance increased by just under half a SD with active learning compared with lecturing...[O]n average, students in traditional lecture courses are 1.5 times more likely to fail that students in courses with active learning." The study also said that if the experiments they analyzed had been done as clinical trials, they would have been stopped because of the huge and obvious benefit to the experimental group (active learners) compared to the control (traditional lecture).

Active learning definition: "Active learning engages students in the process of learning through activities and/or discussion in class, as opposed to passively listening to an expert. It emphasizes higher-order thinking and often involves group work."

Bio 2010

Bio 2010: Transforming Undergraduate Education for Future Research Biologists. Washington, D.C.: National Academies, 2003. Print.

This book gives recommendations for the restructuring of the undergraduate biology major. It calls for more math to be integrated into courses, more interdisciplinary thinning and projects, new approaches through new assessment techniques, more independent resources, more seminar courses, and a reexamination of the MCAT requirements. It also lists the main concepts that need to be covered in biology, chemistry, physics, engineering, math, and computer science for a biology student. The new biology major they propose is so interdisciplinary that it is almost just a general science major, and would require the restructuring of several departments.

"Communicating how scientific advances and discoveries are made is a crucial part of undergraduate scientific education. First, exposure to the experimental and conceptual basis of key discoveries gives students a deeper understanding of scientific principles. Reading a classic paper can give students a sense of scientific inquiry at its best." (29)

Vision and Change

Bauerle, Cynthia Margaret. Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education: A Call to Action: Final Report of a National Conference. Washington, D.C.?: American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2011. Print.

This book lays out the core concepts biology students should understand and core competencies they should develop. It gives a list of assessment instruments and student-centered learning resources that are available. Moving forward, the book is a call to action in the sense that it suggests that biology curricula and departments be restructured in order to become more interdisciplinary and more focused on active learning.

Beyond the Biology: A Systematic Investigation of Noncontent Instructor Talk in an Introductory Biology Course

Seidel, S. B., A. L. Reggi, J. N. Schinske, L. W. Burrus, and K. D. Tanner. "Beyond the Biology: A Systematic Investigation of Noncontent Instructor Talk in an Introductory Biology Course." Cell Biology Education 14.4 (2015): n. pag. Web.

This article reports a study that analyzed the words that professors say in the classroom that do not pertain to the content of the class. The researchers listened to recordings of most of the class meetings of a course throughout a semester. The class was team-taught by two tenured professors who had federal research grants, active laboratories, and were "committed to scientific teaching and strove to include active learning, equity and diversity, and assessment strategies in each class session." The researchers defined "noncontent" speak as anything that was said by the instructor to the whole class that was not specific to course content, or an analogy for course content, or setting up the class schedule or homework for the day. With all the "noncontent" words they had left, the researchers divided everything into five main categories: building the instructor/student relationship, establishing classroom culture, explaining pedagogical choices, sharing personal experiences, and unmasking science. They further broke those categories down into smaller sections, and could also evaluate the differences in the amount of each type of comment said on each day or by each of the two professors. For example, they found that quotes representing at least three of the five main categories were present in 97% of the class sessions recorded. Another example of their analyses of their statistics is they also found that one of the professors said significantly more "sharing personal experience" noncontent statements than the other.

The article was particularly interesting because the study ist he first to ever examine what is said in the classroom that does not relate to the class. It would be interesting going forward if someone could do a study to see how those extra words actually affect student learning.

Talking to Learn: Why Biology Students Should Be Talking in Classrooms and How to Make It Happen

Tanner, K. D. "Talking to Learn: Why Biology Students Should Be Talking in Classrooms and How to Make It Happen." Cell Biology Education 8.2 (2009): 89-94. Web.

Tanner says that pretty much everyone agrees that students need to be talking in the classroom. You don;t typically meet resistance to that concept, but you will meet resistance to the more complex teaching approaches of introducing that to the classroom. Tanner insists that "student talk" is a core part of any innovative pedagogy in use today, and the practice itself can be established in any classroom easily. To demonstrate the effectiveness of student talk, Tanner describes a clicker experiment done in a large class. Students answered a multiple choice question, then were allowed to discuss the question in small groups and then answer the question again. After that, students were asked a second question that would have required them to generalize the knowledge they should have learned through the first question. The percentage of students who answered the second question correctly was significantly higher than the percentage who answered the first question correctly by themselves, and significantly higher than the percentage who answered correctly after discussion. Also, "students whose answers to the first question were incorrect initially but correct after discussion were 77% correct on the second isomorphic question, whereas those who were incorrect initially and again incorrect after discussion were only 44% correct on the second isomorphic question." This suggests that the students are learning how to generalize the concepts. The most interesting find was that based on the number of initial correct answers, the researchers found that fewer than half of the discussion groups would have included a person who got the answer right on their first try. Thus, the study showed that talking together helped students learn, even when none of them knew the answer originally.

One very useful thing from Tanner is that she lays out her argument very well. She stresses that talking is very important to the education of students, and she uses simple, effective words like "key," "accessible," "easily integrated," "minimal effort," and "significant impact" in her conclusion to really get her point across.

Professors Can Learn to Be More Effective Instructors

Flaherty, Colleen. "New Study Suggests That Faculty Development Has a Demonstrable Impact on Student Learning." New Study Suggests That Faculty Development Has a Demonstrable Impact on Student Learning. Inside Higher Ed, 10 Feb. 2016. Web. 12 Feb. 2016.

This article is about a book, Faculty Development and Student Learning: Assessing the Connections (Indiana University Press), which details a study done at Carleton College and Washington State University to determine the effects of faculty development on student learning. Faculty who went through development training provided raters with students' assessments from before and after the instructor training intervention, and raters found that the students from after the intervention scored higher on every piece of the designed rubric. In the end, the articles says that the authors of the book claim that faculty development is worth the investment. At the very least, we can start collecting samples of assessments as a base line, keep moving forward, and see how we can develop from there.

Notes

I don't think all of my citations are correct--need to check this