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The following citations are divided into subsections (e.g. rationale/motivation,
design). Those that fit under more than one subsection were placed according to
which aspect of the study it informs and shapes the most.
Research questions:
1) Does the faculty learning community/departmental change approach lead
increased use of active learning?
2) Do the course changes spearheaded by the faculty learning community
improve student learning and attitude towards biology?
Rationale/motivation
Andrews, T. M., Leonard, M. J., Colgrove, C. A., & Kalinowski, S. T. (2011). Active
learning not associated with student learning in a random sample of college
biology courses. CBE Life Science Education, 10, 349-405.
The authors sought to evaluate the impact of active learning in biology on student
learning across multiple institutions and instructors. Learning gains on the
Conceptual Inventory of Natural Selection were compared to the level of active
learning in the course, as determined by the frequency of active learning exercises.
There was no correlation between active learning frequency and learning gains, in
contrast to the findings of meta-studies on the effect of active learning. This finding
points to an important challenge facing departmental change in teaching methods;
the pedagogical background, experience, and knowledge of educational research
could greatly affect the success of implementing active learning. We therefore
wanted to evaluate whether the pedagogical changes that emerged from the faculty
learning community could successfully improve student learning.
Bewer, C. A., & Smith, D. (eds) (2011). Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology
Education: A Call to Action. Final report of a national conference organized by
the AAAS, July 15-17 2009, Washington DC. ISBN 978-0-87168-741-8.
The AAAS vision and change report was a main catalyst for change at Iowa State
University. In order to prepare students for a rapidly changing scientific world, the
authors suggest that biology courses need to become more skills- and conceptbased. When overhauling introductory biology, we focused on some of the main
recommendations of the report; generating student-centered classrooms and
shifting our focus to central concepts over details.
Haak, D.C., HilleRisLambers, J., Pitre, E., & Freeman, S. (2011). Increased structure
and active learning reduce the achievement gap in introductory biology.
Science, 332, 1213-16.
The authors evaluated the effect of high levels of structured active learning
exercises on the learning gains of disadvantaged students, as measured by grade
point averages. In-class group activities, clicker questions, and quizzes reduced the
grade gap between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged students. One of the
main goals of the faculty in the current study is to improve learning amongst lowerperforming students through student-centered approaches.
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Umbach, P.D., & Wawrzymski, M. R. (2005). Faculty do matter: The role of college
faculty in student learning and engagement. Research in Higher Education, 46,
153-184.
Umback and Wawrzynski utilized national datasets to explore the relationship
between faculty attitudes/behaviors and undergraduate student outcomes. Overall,
there is a positive correlation between faculty who place high value on teaching and
student-centered learning, and student perception of learning and active
involvement in their education. Moreover it seems that faculty attitudes and
pedagogical behavior both create and are part of general culture that emphasizes
best practices, which can affect student learning in indirect ways. Liberal arts
colleges tend to be more successful at generating this culture, as opposed to larger
research-intensive universities. At Iowa State University, the faculty formed a
faculty learning community in part to generate such a culture. Since faculty attitudes
appear to have a large effect on student learning, we hope that this cultural shift will
enable more effective use of student-centered learning.
Design
Chapman, B. S. (2001). Emphasizing concepts and reasoning skills in introductory
college molecular cell biology. International Journal of Science Education, 23,
1157-76.
The author of this study is a college faculty member seeking to improve the critical
thinking skills of introductory biology students. Assessments included; pre/post
questions on content knowledge from the Graduate Record Examination Subject
Test in Biology, exam questions that evaluate critical thinking skills, and pre/post
surveys on attitudes towards science. The results confirmed that course changes
correlated with improved critical thinking skills, and somewhat improved content
knowledge and attitudes toward science. This study showed that our goal of
improving student skills while not losing content was feasible. We also planned to
use a similar method of data collection, combining data from pre/post questions and
surveys and exam questions.
Ueckert, C., Adams, A., & Lock, J. (2011). Redesigning a large-enrollment
introductory biology course. CBE Life Sciences Education, 10, 164-74.
The goal of this study was to bring multiple faculty instructors together to assess
and improve a large-enrollment introductory course. This involved a multi-step
process whereby faculty converged on common learning objectives and central
concepts, developed a learning gains assessment, and implemented a course
redesign based on new course goals. Course changes included case studies and
examples that pertained to multiple student interests, use of class response systems,
quizzes, and small-group work. Results were collected over 6 years to compare
learning before and after course redesign. The redesign correlated with increased
percentages of course A and B grades and a reduction in the drop-fail-withdraw
rate. Similar results were obtained with the pre/post content questions. Finally,
student confidence and satisfaction improved. This study design is very similar to
our own. The current study involves several faculty cooperating to redefine course
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goals and design a more student-centered course. As such we are comparing the
effect of course changes on student learning over time, with the goal of improving
student skills and content knowledge.
Methods for data collection and analysis
Armbruster, P., Patel, M., Johnson, E., & Weiss, M. (2009). Active learning and
student-centered pedagogy improve student attitudes and performance in
introductory biology. CBE Life Sciences Education, 8, 203-13.
The study describes an effort to overhaul an introductory biology course, with a
single instructor, with a focus on incorporating more active learning. Student
understanding of concepts and student attitudes were compared longitudinally
before and after redesign. Assessment of concept understanding utilized exam
question performance rather than pre/post questionnaires, though assessment
focused on only two exam questions. The authors saw improvement in both
conceptual knowledge and attitudes after redesign. This study shows that course
changes similar to the ones we are implementing in the current study can lead to
measurable changes. However, we would like to have more information on which
concepts students struggle with and more comprehensive measurements of student
performance. Based on the success of Armbruster et al. we included a large number
of carefully selected exam question in addition to surveys of student attitudes
towards biology. We hope to generate similar measurable differences in exam
question performance, while collecting more information on student understanding
across different topics.
Ebert-May, D., Derting, T. L., Hodder, J., Momsen, J. L., Long, T. M., & Jardeleza, S. E.
(2011). What we say is not what we do: Effective evaluation of faculty
professional development programs. Bioscience, 61, 550-8.
The authors evaluated the correlation between how faculty report their use of
student-centered activities, and actual teaching practices. There was a significant
disconnect between reported practices and actual practices, suggesting
misconceptions about how to implement student-centered learning and what a
student-centered classroom looks like. Though in the current study we do not
intend to use an intensive evaluative observation protocol with faculty, we are
collecting data on number and time-on-task for active learning exercises. This data
serves as a more objective measure of the outcomes of course redesign, while
providing concrete feedback that faculty can evaluate on their own.
Semsar, K., Knight, J. K., Birol, G., & Smith, M. K. (2011). The Colorado learning
attitudes about science survey (CLASS) for use in biology. CBE Life Sciences
Education, 10, 268-78.
The authors modified an existing assessment of student perceptions of
science in order to determine how students perceive the subject of biology. In
particular, the authors sought to discriminate novice and expert perceptions and
determine how perceptions change over time. As observed in other fields, students
tend to take on more novice perceptions after an introductory course. As a part of
our current study we will measure the effect of active learning on skills and
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proficiency in science. Since one aspect of proficiency is a sophisticated
understanding of the field of biology, we evaluated student perceptions using this
instrument.
Interpretation
Dolan, E. L. (2007). Grappling with the literature of education research and practice.
CBE Life Sciences Education, 6, 289-96.
In this review the overall goals of education research as well as metrics for
evaluating such research are discussed. When beginning our journey to redesign an
introductory biology course, the discussions of different journals and approaches
were a critical resource. We are currently using this review and the references
within to compare our study design and results to other literature, and especially to
explore ways to analyze our large dataset. In particular, we are currently developing
a plan to re-validate and determine the reliability of our assessments.