Use of new technologies in first year biology teaching
1993 - 2003
Mary Peat, Sue Franklin, Rob Mackay-Wood & Aida Yalcin
School of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science
Who are our students & what are the
problems?
 Large classes - 1700 first year biology students; in transition from school; in many faculties
and degree programs
 Varied academic backgrounds - very heterogeneous, including range of abilities, biological
knowledge, sense of purpose
Project - investigating student
perceptions of usefulness of IT to
learning
Methodology
Teacher /student ratios changing - more students; fewer staff - need for greater flexibility
Research model based on a mixed methods paradigm - see Philips et al. 2000.
Focus on overall teaching and learning process, not on individual resources
Access to resources - in the labs; in the Resource Centre; online
Action research approach - informed each data collection occasion
Use of surveys, focus groups and interviews - qualitative and quantitative data
allowed for triangulation
What have we done?
Provided learning communities in large classes - to promote a sense of belonging, to offer
peer support groups, to use collaborative teaching strategies, to encourage taking responsibility
for own learning
Increased flexibility - with respect to resources and communications
Our personal journey:
metamorphosis to the Internet
early use of computers - pre-1986 - main frame systems; 1986 - 1991 - stand-alone systems
with limited accessibility (mostly in the lab classes)
Results
Communications technologies - low use of email for course matters (29%); high use
for social communications (90%)
Staff v student perceptions of usage - higher expectation by staff of use of learning
resources and communications technologies for learning (84%)
Use and usefulness of the Internet to support
learning
Use of an intranet - 1992 - 1996 - better at handling large classes; accessibility still a problem
Types of web-based materials
Staff
Students
Expectation
Expectation
Actual
74%
81%
76%
5%
80%
12%
9%
58%
33%
11%
55%
34%
Remedial materials - target principal concepts within each unit of study
Communications - student access to help - CyberTutor, CyberAdmin and
CyberTechSupport; student access to one another
Advantages of web-based resources?
For the students? - flexible learning opportunities; equity of access; suit different learning
modes; offer appropriate communications
For the staff? - enhance devolution of responsibility for learning to students; asynchronous
communication mode encourages better communications with students
Use and usefulness of web-based learning
Staff
Students
resources
Use to support learning
Usefulness in supporting
learning
- not useful
- useful
- extremely useful
Actual
- never/rarely
- weekly
- daily
Usefulness of email in supporting learning
- not useful
- useful
- extremely useful
16%
48%
36%
41%
37%
22%
71%
24%
5%
5%
80%
12%
9%
58%
33%
11%
55%
34%
Student comments
It is a very effective method of independent study and is very helpful in being another complement to
lectures and the text
CBL allows interactive study from home, which certainly assist in learning, understanding and revising
Allow visual reinforcement. Visual aids/animation helps clarity and understanding. Self-tests at end
helpful “
Negative
“I’m not good with computers, don’t find it useful
Don’t use computers
Don’t agree with putting all important information on the web, it was difficult for me to access the
Internet, hence I miss out on a lot of learning material
I don’t believe they do help. The information is much more successfully provided elsewhere, as it is
more organised and direct”
Implications from results
A variety of self-assessment online - mock exams; self-assessment modules (SAMs)
Lecture notes online - before the lectures; in various formats (text files; PowerPoint
presentations)
Expectation
“It is a huge help with personal study that can be conducted at home
Web-based resources - high use of computers/Internet (95%); less use of learning
resources (75%)
Use of Internet to support
learning
Usefulness of Internet in
supporting learning
- not useful
- useful
- extremely useful
Expectation
Use of email
Positive
Student use of resources
Move to the Internet - from 1997 - stimulated the development of virtual resources, with more
flexible learning opportunities
Use and usefulness of communications technologies
for course related matters
Staff
Students
Expectation
Expectation
Actual
84%
73%
75%
0%
66%
34%
9%
60%
31%
9%
53%
38%
Awareness of environment - we are an on-campus provider; our online materials may not be used
by all students as there may be no need to use them
Online replacement vs online optional - some of our materials are compulsory, some optional the latter may not be used
Access and equity - in spite of being on-campus, we have provided materials for anyplace/anytime
access and this is acknowledged by the students
Learning styles - we are providing a rich learning environment for a large diverse group of students.
Which parts of the environment are most used? Future investigations
References
Franklin, S., Lewis, A. & Peat, M. (2001) A large scale evaluation of the effectiveness of educational resources: a research methodology. In Proceedings of Research &
Development into University Science Teaching and Learning, UniServe Science National Annual Workshop
Peat, M. (1999) Virtual communication for lab-based science teaching: a case study. In Proceedings of the Computer Based learning in Science International
Conference, ISBN 80-7042-144-4
Peat, M. (2000) Online assessment: the use of Web-based self assessment. In A. Hermann and M. M. Kulski (Eds) Flexible Futures in Tertiary Teaching Cambridge
Media, Perth (119-127)
 Peat, M., Franklin, S. & Mackay-Wood, R (1997) The development of self-assessment modules: use of tailor-made templates. In Virtual Conference on Computers in
University Biology Education 1997 http://www.liv.ac.uk.ctibiol/vCUBE97/html/rob-mackay-wood.html