Scott Cooper
October 24, 2005
Course Portfolio for BIO 103 and 105:
Introductory Biology and General Biology
1. Cooperative Teaching
Introductory Biology (BIO 103) and General Biology (BIO 105) are both four-credit General
Education courses with three hours of lecture and two hours of lab per week. The BIO 103 and
105 courses each have 3-7 sections of 100-140 students in a typical semester. The courses were
developed and are taught in a fairly unique way, in that all of the instructors work together to
develop the lecture materials, and use the same PowerPoint lectures in their classroom. This
allows us to draw from the broad expertise of the entire faculty in choosing content, stories and
assignments for students. While we make use of our colleague’s expertise, we each give all of
the lectures in our section of the course. We call this cooperative teaching, as opposed to team
teaching where an “expert” only talks about their area of specialty. To date, 10 instructors in our
department have been involved in the cooperative development of these courses, meeting weekly
during the semester (Appendix A). We have also been involved in two Lesson Study projects,
which are similar to our cooperative teaching approach, but goes a step further and critically
assesses student learning in a single lesson (Appendix B). In addition to improving student
learning, side benefits of this arrangement include; increased collegiality among the faculty, a
package of tested teaching materials for new lecturers and continuity in an important prerequisite
course for our majors. We have also worked cooperatively to rewrite our lab manual, with eight
co-authors. A typical syllabus for the lecture and lab is in Appendix C.
2. Teaching and Learning Philosophy
Traditional introductory biology courses are very content heavy, with an emphasis on
memorizing terms and definitions. We were concerned that students would quickly forget what
they had learned, and would not be able to use what they had learned in later classes. We made
the decision to focus less on memorization of facts, and more on application of concepts learned
in class to solving problems. To decide what content to keep, we asked instructors in our core
courses to identify what concepts they would like to see stressed. In some of the problem solving
exercises we ask students to apply basic concepts to understand and solve problems related to
key concepts covered in class. This helps to reinforce these key concepts, and lets the students
see the importance of these concepts in understanding many biological processes. Other
problems are related to current issues in the news. These are designed to allow students to see
that the concepts being learned in class have relevance in their daily lives.
The BIO 103/105 labs were traditional "cookbook" exercises in which students worked alone,
conducting experiments that required little more than filling in blanks in their lab manual. We
revised our Introductory Biology labs in 2000 to include a "student active pedagogy" in which
groups of students design and perform some of their own experiments. The format of the lab
portion of the course has also changed from 12 individual labs to a format of three units each
lasting four weeks (Appendix C). In the new format, the students work in teams to solve
problems, design experiments, analyze data and prepare reports. This allows students to get a
more realistic experience of how science is practiced.
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Scott Cooper
October 24, 2005
3. Teaching Strategies and Methods
Our teaching philosophy centers on replacing some of the content in our introductory biology
courses with problem solving activities. These activities occur in lecture, through out-of-class
assignments, and on exams. During lectures students are often asked to interpret data and solve
problems. In-class problem solving allows students to immediately apply what they have
learned, and allows instructors to identify and clarify any misconceptions. We use several
methods to integrate problem-solving activities into large lecture sections. The most common
are in-class multiple-choice questions directly in the PowerPoint presentation (Appendix D). In
2005 we adopted a textbook that came with personal response systems, essentially remote control
“clickers”, that students use to answer questions in class. Although we have had some technical
glitches, these have proven useful in allowing instructors to rapidly gauge where students are
having difficulty in lecture. This system has also been shown to be more inclusive of students,
such as women and minorities, who are less likely to yell out an answer in a large classroom.
While immediate application of concepts learned in class to solve problems helps to cement
these key concepts, these questions do not allow students time for reflection, or to solve more
complex problems. We have developed both in-class (formative) and out-of-class (summative)
exercises for this purpose. In-class we use a method we have termed “collect and project”.
Students are given a worksheet or a half sheet of scrap paper, and given a more complex problem
to solve in lecture. The students then work with their neighbors in groups and write down their
solution to the problem. The instructor then collects the student work, and projects a few
representative examples for discussion. They can either point out which examples would be
correct, or ask the class to indicate which they think is most accurate. An advantage of these
formative assessment tools is that they allow the instructor to identify misconceptions or
misunderstandings while everyone is still in class and there is an opportunity to make corrections
(Appendix E).
We use a couple of out-of-class problem solving exercises. Some involve reading assignments
or web exercises followed by a set of questions for the students to answer. They then take an online quiz on D2L to assess their understanding of the materials (Appendix F). A novel
adaptation of the “collect and project” model we have used the past two years involves assigning
different groups of students a question to answer, and then asking them to prepare a single
PowerPoint slide with their results. These are put in a D2L drop box, and the instructor collects
these and puts them into the next lecture (Appendix G). In this way the students analyze part of
the data presented in class, and the instructor has an opportunity to add to or clarify key concepts.
This work was funded by two grants, one from UWL and one from UW-System (Appendix H).
In the new labs, students are given the opportunity to design and perform some of their own
experiments. We moved from a course with 12 independent, unconnected labs to a course with
three units that each last four weeks. Each unit consists of four interconnected labs, and in some
cases, experiments that span several weeks. At the end of the unit, groups of students
collaboratively write a lab report in which they explain the rationale for their experiment, the
methods used, the analysis of their results, and a discussion of the significance of these results.
This is a much more realistic scientific experience, and reinforces the problem solving skills
stressed in lecture. We were also successful in obtaining a NSF-CCLI grant to purchase digital
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cameras attached to microscopes so that students could put pictures of what they were seeing
under the microscope into their lab reports. This also allows them to view and discuss their
results more easily, as compared to one student at a time looking through a microscope
(Appendix H).
4. Evidence of Student Learning
In these large introductory courses we are forced to rely more heavily on multiple-choice
questions. We typically use a GRE/MCAT format in the exam in which students read a short
passage and have to use some problem solving skills to answer a series of multiple-choice
questions related to the passage. Some instructors also give one to two short answer questions on
each exam; however, with 100-140 students in a typical class, this is about the limit to what can
be graded in a reasonable amount of time. We have also demonstrated that in-class problem
solving by students followed by feedback and formative assessment improves student learning as
measured with both free response and multiple-choice questions (Appendix E). These
improvements persist for several semesters but eventually fade, stressing the importance of
making strong connections between introductory and second tier courses (Appendix I). While
recollection of specific content does appear to wane over the semesters, instructors have reported
that students in upper level courses do seem better at problem solving, especially in lecture
settings (Appendix J). A survey of the students indicates that 90% like in-class problem
solving, and rate it as the most effective factor in preparing them for exams, above the lecture,
textbook, and notes placed on D2L (Appendix K).
In the labs, students learn the basics of writing a scientific lab report, which they will use
repeatedly throughout their major. Student performance on lab quizzes and exams improved
slightly in the laboratory as compared with the traditional lab.
5. Future Goals
 Continue assessing student misconceptions and improving the in-class problem-solving
exercises.
 Explore new methods to make large classes more interactive.
 Improve laboratories to make them contain more student-active exercises.
6. Appendices
A. Quotes on Cooperative Teaching
B. Teaching Improvement Profile for Lesson Study Project
C. Lecture and Lab Syllabus
D. Stone Soup presentation on in-class problem-solving exercises
E. Formative Assessment Article
F. NYT articles on modification of starch and cell division
G. Student “posters” for population exercise
H. Grants
I. Long term retention of material learned in Introductory Biology
J. Quotes on impact on second tier courses
K. Student Assessment of Learning Gains
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