A. Daniel (Dan) Johnson
Assoc. Teaching Professor, Biology
Co-Founder, The Adapa Project
5/15/2014

Workshop Objectives
 Explain to students the value of inquiry
 Describe how NANSLO labs are delivered
 Use NANSLO lab activities w/ your suggestions, additions
 Find open-access interactive activities
 Describe how NANSLO labs increase access
 Use others’ ideas to engage your students
 ID NANSLO lab skills that translate to telemedicine

Who’s Engaged? Lost? Checked Out?

S URPRISE !
We See Things VERY Differently Than Students
How we see ourselves…

How Students Can See Us

How We Imagine Labs

How Students Imagine Labs

How We Imagine Inquiry

How Students See Inquiry

Inquiry: The Research
Evidence says:
 Deeper, longer lasting learning
 Authentic
 Collaborative
 Learner-centric
 Engages more students

Evidence says:
 Deeper, longer lasting learning
 Authentic
 Collaborative
 Learner-centric
 Engages more students
Inquiry: The Reality
Students say:
 This isn’t a real science class
 What’s the answer?
 I hate group work!
 You’re not teaching
 Can’t you lecture?
This is boring!

Why So Much Resistance?
 If inquiry is better, what’s wrong with…
- my students?

Why So Much Resistance?
 If inquiry is better, what’s wrong with…
- my students?
- my labs?

Why So Much Resistance?
 If inquiry is better, what’s wrong with…
- my students?
- my labs?
- ME ?!

What’s Behind Student Resistance?
When they say:
 This isn’t a real science class
 What’s the answer?
 I hate group work!
Translation :
 This is different, and that scares me
 How will I be evaluated?
Am I doing this right?
 I don’t know how to be part of a “good” team

What’s Behind Student Resistance?
When they say:
 You’re not teaching
 Can’t you just lecture?
 This is boring!
Translation:
 What’s my role now?
What’s yours?
 I already know how to manage that
 We want to get in, get done, & get out

Resistance Comes From Affective Domain
“Affect is as important to outcomes as cognitive domain”
J. Lester, NCSU,
Cyberlearning 2012
 Key to:
– Learning: constructivism, neurocognitive models
– Motivation: value, expectancy, self-efficacy
– Engagement: 5E, attention, interest

Successful Inquiry Improves Learning
Gains AND Perceptions /Affect
Evaluation Goals:
 Evidence to show students they are learning more
 Monitor student affect, buy-in
 Separate normal uncertainty/discomfort from
legitimate concerns
 Inform revision process

Graded Work Is One Piece of Puzzle
 Formative assessments
– Angelo & Cross
 Informal class observations
– Focus on key behaviors
 Deep lab evaluation
– Multi-part
– Mandatory
– Stress value, commit time to it
– Post results, responses

WFU’s Core Labs Survey*
 Online
– Conduct in lab
 Personal data
– Demographics
– Self-ratings
 Instructor ratings
– Knowledge
– Management
– Engagement
– Grading
– Strengths, weaknesses, recommendations (OR)
*5 or 10 pt Likert scale unless marked as open response (OR)

Lab Course Evaluation, cont.
 Units, Activities
– Interesting, engaging
– Stimulated or improved thinking
– Complemented lecture
– Connected to other lecture, lab topics
– Other comments (OR)
 Lab Course Overall
– Clarity of goals, workload
– “How can we improve lab?” (OR)
– “Other comments or suggestions?” (OR)

Raw Data ≠ Useful Data

Use Mixed Methods to Mine Data

Quantitative Data for Physiology
Lab Units: Baseline
BIO114 Lab: Spring 2014
Structure-Function Relationships
Open format dissections
Insect Hormones
Metamorphosis of Manduca sexta
Nerve-Muscle Interactions
Frog gastrocnemius preparation
Regulation of Plant Transpiration
Weight potometry in Vinca radiata
Metabolism and Oxygen Use
Oxygen utilization by crayfish
Writing Workshop
Technical writing tutorial; peer review
Physiology Journal Club
Read 3 primary literature articles
Interesting, engaging
Avg S.D.
7.47
1.57
Stimulated thinking, learning
Avg S.D.
7.37
1.51
Complemented lecture
Avg S.D.
7.46
1.62
Connected to other units
Avg S.D.
7.52
1.53
7.22
1.79
7.44
1.71
7.76
1.73
7.26
1.69
8.50
1.50
8.34
1.46
8.44
1.48
8.15
1.41
6.66
1.79
7.00
1.60
7.06
2.01
6.83
1.68
7.36
5.88
1.60
2.11
7.34
6.50
1.52
7.44
1.58
7.30
2.02
6.31
2.27
6.83
1.50
2.16
6.54
1.94
6.66
1.88
6.46
2.06
6.59
2.03

Quantitative Data for Physiology
Lab Units: Comparisons
BIO114 Lab: Spring 2014
Structure-Function Relationships
Open format dissections
Insect Hormones
Metamorphosis of Manduca sexta
Nerve-Muscle Interactions
Frog gastrocnemius preparation
Regulation of Plant Transpiration
Weight potometry in Vinca radiata
Metabolism and Oxygen Use
Oxygen utilization by crayfish
Writing Workshop
Technical writing tutorial; peer review
Physiology Journal Club
Read 3 primary literature articles
Interesting, engaging
Avg S.D.
7.47
1.57
Stimulated thinking, learning
Avg S.D.
7.37
1.51
Complemented lecture
Avg S.D.
7.46
1.62
Connected to other units
Avg S.D.
7.52
1.53
7.22
1.79
7.44
1.71
7.76
1.73
7.26
1.69
8.50
1.50
8.34
1.46
8.44
1.48
8.15
1.41
6.66
1.79
7.00
1.60
7.06
2.01
6.83
1.68
7.36
1.60
7.34
1.52
7.44
1.58
7.30
1.50
5.88
6.54
2.11
6.50
1.94
6.66
2.02
6.31
2.27
6.83
1.88
6.46
2.06
6.59
2.16
2.03

Quantitative Data for Physiology
Lab Units: Longitudinal Data
BIO114 Lab: Spring 2014
Insect Hormones - OLD
Hormones in D. melanogaster
Insect Hormones - NEW
Metamorphosis of Manduca sexta
Nerve-Muscle Interactions
Spring 2014
Nerve-Muscle Interactions
Mean of prior 3 semesters
Regulation of Plant Transpiration
Spring 2014
Regulation of Plant Transpiration
Mean of prior 3 semesters
Interesting, engaging
Stimulated thinking, learning
Avg S.D.
Complemented lecture
Connected to other units
Avg S.D.
Avg S.D.
Avg S.D.
5.96
0.36
6.37
0.40
6.64
0.40
6.42
0.38
7.22
1.79
7.44
1.71
7.76
1.73
7.26
1.69
8.50
1.50
8.34
1.46
8.44
1.48
8.15
1.41
8.69
0.2
8.52
0.22
8.54
0.16
8.21
0.20
6.66
1.79
7.00
1.60
7.06
2.01
6.83
1.68
6.54
0.24
6.87
0.21
7.47
0.27
6.94
0.10

Quantitative Baseline: Scores of
Experienced Inquiry TAs
Returning TAs in: BIO113L
Avg S.D.
BIO114L
Avg S.D.
BIO213L
Avg S.D.
BIO214L
Avg S.D.
All Labs
Avg S.D.
Mastery of material.
Knows concepts, principles lab is based on.
8.01
1.99
8.39
1.50
8.40
0.86
8.19
1.53
8.33
0.72
Adaptability .
Responds, solves unexpected problems in lab.
7.90
2.15
8.36
1.79
8.68
1.29
9.11
1.77
8.51
0.39
Stimulates thinking about topic, concepts.
7.70
2.12
8.03
2.05
8.40
1.14
9.1
0
1.72
8.31
0.45
Communication skills.
Speaks clearly, does not mumble, ramble, talk too long. Clear, logical explanations.
Holds your interest and attention.
Uses examples average student understands.
Clear expectations.
Tells you how to achieve them, how to improve.
8.13
2.23
8.53
1.88
8.57
1.72
8.82
1.88
8.51
0.16
7.71
7.08
2.23
2.70
7.80
2.16
7.64
2.55
8.21
1.37
8.18
1.83
8.9
2
8.6
8
1.93
8.16
0.32
2.16
7.90
0.40
8.53
1.61
8.44
1.97
8.50
1.35
8.29
1.99
8.44
0.61
Availability for help outside of class.
Available to explain things and help you learn.
Ability to challenge you.
Pushed you to develop new skills and abilities, improve those you already had.
8.07
1.58
8.26
2.15
8.33
1.03
8.1
9
1.94
8.46
0.29

Open Responses Enrich Numeric Data
Rules of Thumb
 Never read “sober”
 Prioritize responses
– Frequency outweighs ferocity
– “80/20” rule
– Don’t over-analyze
 Look for common origins
– One cause, many symptoms?
– Single section effects?

Compiling Open Responses

Compiled Responses: Spring 2014
Total Negative
Overall Interest
Not exciting, interesting overall
Not useful in life goals
Associated lab
Intro courses uninteresting; lost interest in sciences; realized did not like subject; prefer to approach differently
Lab, Lecture Grading
Rpt grading subjective, harsh
Inconsistent grading
Grading overall
Lecture grading harsh
Workload
Too much work for credit
Too much work overall
Too much labwork
Lecture, Lab Guidance
Lack of lab guidance
Poor lecture instructor
Uninteresting lab
Too broad, uninteresting lecture, lack of lecture guidance
Difficulty
Too much memorization
Too hard for non-science folk
Lack of prior background
Too challenging for skills
56
8
3
2
2
1
Total Positive
15 Interesting, enjoyable topic
5
2
2
6
11 Enjoy expts, hands on lab
6
2
Part of major, career goals
Applications to humans
2
1
Prior interest
11 Learning Outcomes
4
4
Learned a lot of skills, learned problem solving,
3 presentation
11 Course Structure
3
3
2
1 ea
Enjoyable lecture, good instructor, lab reinforced learning, lab was enjoyable
Course Content
Relevant to world
More to it than I thought
70
29
11
8
7
5
4
1 ea.
4
1 ea.
2
1
1

Open Responses: Spring 2014
Nerve-Muscle Interactions
 Positive
– Favorite, fun, cool, awesome, enjoyed most (15/45)
– I really enjoyed this lab…engaging, connected what we were learning in lecture, AND was SO COOL! I left and told all of my friends and my parents about it.
– Fascinating lab! Very cool to see nerve and muscle connection.
– Fun to work with frogs, see first-hand how gastronomic muscle and sciatic nerve worked.
– Engaging and I learned helpful lab skills from doing experiment.
 Negative
– Hard to get into this. Missed so many labs due to weather. If we had time, would have been more enjoyable, made more sense.
– Bored me.

Open Responses: Spring 2014
Hormones in Manduca
 Positive
– Highly relevant to topics in lecture. Actually helped me learn material for exam. (2/43)
– This was by far my favorite lab.
– Fun experiment, enjoyed the experience
– Overall not to bad, made me think.
 Negative
– Potential to be really intriguing, but a lot of technical problems.
Made it a little difficult to write a lab report (3/46).
– Did not like handling/observing caterpillars, but tied very well into what we learned from lecture & helped expand my knowledge.
– Very sad to kill the caterpillars; wish was way around this.
– Not really a fan of hormones

Open Responses: Spring 2014
Plant Transpiration
 Positive
– Enjoyable because easy and straightforward topic, lab (2/44)
 Negative
– This unit was not as exciting as the others; slightly boring (8/45)
– Hard to grasp when you haven't gone over plants in lecture yet.
(6/45)
– Lab felt very rushed and unorganized
– Tedious. I don't know. Plants are okay I guess.

General Feedback Prompts
 “Would you take another bio class?”
 “How could we improve or change the labs to help you learn better, faster, or more effectively?”
 “Are there any other suggestions that you have that you think will help us improve lab for future students?”

Compiled Responses: Spring 2014
Total Negative
Overall Interest
Not exciting, interesting overall
Not useful in life goals
Associated lab
Intro courses uninteresting; lost interest in sciences; realized did not like subject; prefer to approach differently
Lab, Lecture Grading
Rpt grading subjective, harsh
Inconsistent grading
Grading overall
Lecture grading harsh
Workload
Too much work for credit
Too much work overall
Too much labwork
Lecture, Lab Guidance
Lack of lab guidance
Poor lecture instructor
Uninteresting lab
Too broad, uninteresting lecture, lack of lecture guidance
Difficulty
Too much memorization
Too hard for non-science folk
Lack of prior background
Too challenging for skills
56
8
3
2
2
1
Total Positive
15 Interesting, enjoyable topic
5
2
2
6
11 Enjoy expts, hands on lab
6
2
Part of major, career goals
Applications to humans
2
1
Prior interest
11 Learning Outcomes
4
4
Learned a lot of skills, learned problem solving,
3 presentation
11 Course Structure
3
3
2
1 ea
Enjoyable lecture, good instructor, lab reinforced learning, lab was enjoyable
Course Content
Relevant to world
More to it than I thought
70
29
11
8
7
5
4
1 ea.
4
1 ea.
2
1
1

“Ignorable” General Responses
 Instructors
– Hardest grader ever/ in course/ in my life
– First I did “X”, then they did “Y”, and even after I worked so hard I got…
– TA never told us we couldn’t do “X”
 Units, Course
– I learned this in high school
– Shorter / no labs
– Let groups go as fast as they want; no waiting
– BORING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
– Food in lab

Useful General Responses
Mechanics
 Post 1-2 well-written example papers before ours are due
 In fly unit, data tables were hard to read, fill in.
 Just 2 meter tapes made field lab slow; need 4.
Content
 Go over statistics in more detail
 Shorten frog lab intro-overlaps too much
 More guidance on designing own experiments

Useful General Responses
Evaluation
 Have everyone write 4-sentence summary rather than quiz.
Miscellaneous
 Add some practice manipulations
 Chemistry uses “X” in lab; could we?
 Overall, labs pretty well done (20/122)
 Avg: 2-3 useful suggestions/course/semester

Investigate, Interpret With Caution
 Reports graded too harshly
 We get too little feedback/ takes too long
 TA is:
– Unfair/has favorites
– Unavailable
– Rude, inappropriate
– Too demanding
– “So relaxed, chill” – (no scores <5 in Likert questions is too good)
 More time between reports

Interpret With Caution
 More resources available for Bio Lab help
 A bit more preparation would help run more smoothly.
 Lab outlines so we can learn important info before coming to lab, ask questions sooner.
 More exciting, innovative labs
 Take out waiting times
 Avg: 60-70% comments/semester negative; typically ID 3-5 issues to address/course

Open Response “Red Flags”
 Instructor/TA –
– Not following course manual
– Never knows how to run lab
– Not giving back anything graded
– Keeps changing things around
 Info in lab, lecture is not the same

Quantitative “Red Flags”
 Course objectives are unclear
Typical
5. How clear were the course objectives?
#
1
2
3
4
5
Red Flag
Answer
Very unclear
Most objectives were unclear
Mixed
Most objectives were clear
Very clear
Total
5. How clear were the course objectives?
#
1
2
3
4
5
Answer
Very unclear
Most objectives were unclear
Mixed
Most objectives were clear
Very clear
Total
Response
1
2
2
13
14
32
Response
1
3
10
17
1
32
%
3%
6%
6%
41%
44%
100%
%
3%
9%
31%
53%
3%
100%

Quantitative “Red Flags”
 Interest in biology decreases
Typical
6. Your interest in biology is now _____ that it was before you took the course.
#
1
2
3
4
5
Answer
Much less
Somewhat less
About the same
Somewhat more
Much more
Total
Red Flag
6. Your interest in biology is now _____ that it was before you took the course.
#
1
2
3
4
5
Answer
Much less
Somewhat less
About the same
Somewhat more
Much more
Total
Response
0
0
11
18
3
32
Response
8
5
8
8
3
32
%
0%
0%
34%
56%
9%
100%
%
25%
16%
25%
25%
9%
100%

Quantitative “Red Flags”
 Student effort decreases
Typical
I always tried to do as little as possible.
I let others do more of the work, and did less myself.
I tried to do my share of the work.
I would do more than average, if the topic or experiment interested me.
I always tried to do more than what was expected or required.
1%
0%
31%
37%
31%
Red Flag
2%
13%
33%
38%
14%
 Frequency of “red flags” varies by semester

Responding To Results
 Evaluate responses with team
– Policies and procedures?
– Add’l resources?
– New units, activities?
 Consider:
– Source, context of data
– Student maturity, experience

Responding To Results
 Make high-value changes first
– “80/20” rule
 Remember long-term goals:
– Course, program
– Inquiry philosophy
 Ask students for advice
 When in doubt…wait

At End of Day, Remember…
 Inquiry impacts both cognition, affect
 Goal is positive partnership
 Learning this dance takes…
- Persistence
- Patience
- Practice
- Time

My Thanks To…
 Preparators
– Shannon Mallison
– Christie Otten
– Gant Hewett
– Allen Emory
 125+ TAs
 15,000+ undergrads
 Sue Schmidt
 Pat Shea

For Questions or More Information…
Dan Johnson johnsoad@wfu.edu
336-758-5320

Lab From Students’ POV
 Go to YouTube video
 What do you see that’s ...
Positive?
Negative ?
 Is this a good inquiry lab experience?