tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-64146490706161661942024-03-13T07:25:18.758-06:00Actively Learning to TeachOne university instructor's musings about how to effectively teach in higher education.Neil Haavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13952094460830822185noreply@blogger.comBlogger119125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6414649070616166194.post-4809252521263465882023-08-01T14:38:00.000-06:002023-08-01T14:38:36.084-06:00Flipped classroom effectiveness impacted by attendance<p><span style="font-family: arial;">This is an interesting article:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: #fcfcfc; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-size: 16px;">Buhl-Wiggers, J., la Cour, L. & Kjærgaard, A.L. Insights from a randomized controlled trial of flipped classroom on academic achievement: the challenge of student resistance. </span><i style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: inherit; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px;">Int J Educ Technol High Educ</i><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: #fcfcfc; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-size: 16px;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: inherit; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px;">20</span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: #fcfcfc; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-size: 16px;">, 41 (2023). <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-023-00413-6">https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-023-00413-6</a></span></span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: #fcfcfc; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">What the authors found was that flipping the classroom did have a positive impact on student academic achievement but that the effect was insignificant until they controlled for student attendance. Those who attended class benefited from flipping the classroom relative to those students who attended a traditional lecture class. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: #fcfcfc; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-size: 16px;">The study tried to understand the impact on attendance and what they found in the qualitative portion of the study was that some students in the flipped classroom relative to </span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: #fcfcfc; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-size: 16px;">the traditional class skipped class as a means of resisting the non-traditional approach to teaching and learning. Student interviews indicated that reasons for not attending the flipped class were because they were reticent to engage with peers that they did not know and resented the apparent decreased contact with their instructor. In a traditional class there is the apparent sense that the instructor is speaking to you even though they are really speaking to a mass and not you individually. I have read of this response to active learning before in the SoTL literature.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">So, flipping the classroom does improve student academic achievement, but only if students attend class. This makes sense as the benefits of flipping the classroom can only be realized if students are in class. What is more interesting for me is the reasons for students not attending class. It seems to me that the primary reasons students give for resisting a flipped classroom approach are addressed by <a href="http://www.teambasedlearning.org/" target="_blank">Team-Based Learning</a>. The key is to have stable teams such that students develop a learning community in which they feel safe to risk learning. In addition, I think it is key that instructors well-explain the reasons for flipping the classroom and applying active learning in the classroom at the <a href="very start of the term" target="_blank">very start of the term</a> and then <a href="https://my.nsta.org/resource/?id=10.2505/4/jcst18_047_05_80" target="_blank">reiterate those reasons throughout the term</a>. It is critical that students understand our rationale for why we teach the way we teach so that they realize that we have their best interests at heart.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I know I sound like a broken record but many of the issues that instructors and students face with active learning strategies such as the flipped classroom, seem to me to be addressed by Team-Based Learning.</span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Resources</span></h4><p><a href="https://my.nsta.org/resource/?id=10.2505/4/jcst18_047_05_80" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: arial;">Finelli, C. J., Nguyen, K., DeMonbrun, M., Borrego, M., Prince, M., Husman, J., Henderson, C., Shekhar, P., & Waters, C. K. (2018). Reducing student resistance to active learning: Strategies for instructors. Journal of College Science Teaching, 47(5), 80–91.</span></a></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="http://www.acube.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Bioscene-December-2021-20.pdf" target="_blank">Lemelin C, Gross CD, Bertholet R, Gares S, Hall M, Henein H, Kozlova V, Spila M, Villatoro V, Haave N. 2021. Mitigating student resistance to active learning by constructing resilient classrooms. Bioscene: Journal of College Biology Teaching, 47(2): 3-9.</a><br /></span><p><a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ntlf.10101" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: arial;">Smith, G. A. (2008). First-day questions for the learner-centered classroom. The National Teaching & Learning Forum, 17(5), 1–4.</span></a></p><p><br /></p>Neil Haavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13952094460830822185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6414649070616166194.post-2090209565070354582022-06-07T14:10:00.000-06:002022-06-07T14:10:24.113-06:002nd-year biochemistry in winter 2021<h2 style="text-align: left;">Introduction</h2><p>This is the fifth and final instalment of my reflections on my experience with online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic of the 2020/21 academic year. This reflection considers the course AUBIO/AUCHE 280 - Biochemistry: Proteins, Enzymes & Energy which I taught in the winter term of 2021. Links to my previous reflections may be found at this link <a href="https://activelylearning2teach.blogspot.com/2022/02/surviving-online-teaching-during.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</p><p>I have taught Biochemistry: Proteins, Enzymes & Energy a total of 23 times since 1994 on the <a href="https://www.ualberta.ca/augustana/index.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Augustana Campus of the University of Alberta</a>. The Augustana Campus is the rural undergraduate liberal arts and sciences campus of a large research university whose primary campus (among five) is in Edmonton, the capital of Alberta. Edmonton is an hour northwest of Camrose where the Augustana Campus is located. Augustana has a small student population (1100) relative to the rest of the university (40,000).</p><p>AUBIO/AUCHE 280 is the first of two biochemistry courses that we teach on the Augustana campus. This first biochemistry course reviews the chemical properties of water upon which students are able to build an understanding of amino acid behaviour within cells and as components of proteins. This is critical for students to understand the properties of enzymes and how they are able to regulate metabolism. The course then uses these principles of enzyme regulation to explore the central pathways of cellular metabolism: glycolysis, citric acid cycle, and oxidative phosphorylation. The second biochemistry course we teach at Augustana is AUBIO/AUCHE 381 - Biochemistry: Intermediary Metabolism which picks up where AUBIO/AUCHE 280 ended by completing the exploration of cellular metabolism: gluconeogenesis, pentose phosphate pathway, and the metabolism of lipids, amino acids, and nucleotides. </p><p>My reflection on teaching biochemistry during the winter 2021 term relies on my own personal experience, students' feedback from the end of term student ratings of instruction (SRI), the SoTL literature I have read, and advice that I have received from my colleagues. These are the four lenses that Stephen Brookfield (2017) advocates should inform any critical reflection of teaching:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>students' eyes</li><li>colleagues' perceptions</li><li>personal experience of the instructor</li><li>theory (the SoTL literature)</li></ul><p></p><p></p><h2>Methods & Materials</h2><p>The course syllabus for the Winter 2021 iteration of AUBIO/AUCHE 280 is available at this link <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Nw2P4nG_JSBLq_cjEVp0lcwirH-o3R53/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">here</a>. Briefly, students' grades were based on two midterm exams (20% each), a final exam (35%), a video assignment (10%) and homework (15%) that was assigned through the <a href="https://achieve.macmillanlearning.com/start" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Achieve website</a> that accompanied the required textbook for this course, Biochemistry, 9/e by Berg et al (2019). The video assignment consisted of students providing a recorded voice-over of animations that lacked sound which explained particular biochemical phenomena being studied in the course. The assignment of <a href="https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/e/2PACX-1vRXP7WBzg_2_GlUucyRIMuaqryjRLY5F1kcpGHkm7aHfic4nbShzkK6pRqwXin-Xx-EWQcYkvighkU9/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000&slide=id.g9b52dc8de5_1_0" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Achieve homework</a> was a new course requirement implemented for the first time in 2021.</p><p>In this blog post, I use the SRIs (student ratings of instruction) that I received that term as the lens of students' experiences placing them in the context of others I have received over the years. I have posted the details of Augustana's SRIs in a previous blog post linked <a href="https://activelylearning2teach.blogspot.com/2022/02/history-theory-of-biology-in-w21.html" target="_blank">here</a>. Note that the student comments below in the Results section are in response to four open-ended questions inviting students to type their comments into our online SRI survey:</p><p></p><ul><li>What aspects of the course and/or instructor did you find most valuable?</li><li>What aspects of the course and/or instructor did you find least valuable?</li><li>How useful were the course textbook(s) and/or other learning support materials?</li><li>Please add any other comments that you would like to make about the course and/or instructor.</li></ul><div>Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to test for significant differences among the cohorts of students. If ANOVA detected a difference of statistical significance (𝛼 = 0.05) in the response to the SRI prompt, then the Tukey-Kramer post-hoc test was used to determine if there were significant differences between cohort pairs.</div><p></p><p></p><h2>Results</h2><p>Over the years students have fairly consistently rated this course and how I teach it very well. There are a couple of statistically significant differences indicated for the cohorts in winter 2018 and 2021 that I note in the results below.</p><h3><i>Students' perceptions of the instructor</i></h3><p><i>Instructor overall</i></p><p>Students in my biochemistry class have consistently well-rated my excellence as an instructor (mean = 4.4). ANOVA did not find any significant differences among the different cohorts of students (𝛼 = 0.05). </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC6ZVfR-NThjCG04x4tctHxc3f9xVPE8xN4ATjSqhAouOV0pMoL6AWH9ofTXmUfq8x6qmj7rc-vJl-cSNYpuK8KlggQEy_liAyRJajDIT7b_KTc8j4dx3k-VH7qR4HtlRH1gjn5zj6zkgMdILkwSSzrdUjT9bM_T4W1SHJoBw7-BK4p2f4AEHbmIhl/s1592/instructor.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1592" height="189" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC6ZVfR-NThjCG04x4tctHxc3f9xVPE8xN4ATjSqhAouOV0pMoL6AWH9ofTXmUfq8x6qmj7rc-vJl-cSNYpuK8KlggQEy_liAyRJajDIT7b_KTc8j4dx3k-VH7qR4HtlRH1gjn5zj6zkgMdILkwSSzrdUjT9bM_T4W1SHJoBw7-BK4p2f4AEHbmIhl/w669-h189/instructor.png" width="669" /></a></div>Related student comments:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Dr. Haave was always willing to answer questions related to the course material.</li><li>The instructor overall was excellent</li><li>Dr. Haave is a great instructor and very knowledgeable! I enjoy taking his classes!</li></ul></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div><i>Instructor preparedness</i></div><div>Students in my biochemistry class have consistently highly rated how well I had prepared the course (mean = 4.7). ANOVA did not find any significant differences among the different cohorts of students (𝛼 = 0.05). </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisvDGkqBACB7MHMZi_WrcYJV-arB8psBImkD58DrTH4WQeYG92k8n-j4ij9I44HQlGtxVbBNO-pXhKSS8OK6CQvN75EdjZZoWZNR1PoPOBTIhs-sOMsMiVnKB6lsjfqiorNBCp71AkrXdzO_QzcZsWE7l_0CpCxFHn4CV7CSNINyJTKivMdVdT1TjZ/s1516/prepared.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1516" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisvDGkqBACB7MHMZi_WrcYJV-arB8psBImkD58DrTH4WQeYG92k8n-j4ij9I44HQlGtxVbBNO-pXhKSS8OK6CQvN75EdjZZoWZNR1PoPOBTIhs-sOMsMiVnKB6lsjfqiorNBCp71AkrXdzO_QzcZsWE7l_0CpCxFHn4CV7CSNINyJTKivMdVdT1TjZ/w664-h197/prepared.png" width="664" /></a></div>Related student comments</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>[I found most valuable to be the] course video</li><li>I liked that all the asynchronous lectures were posted at the start of the semester so that if I had a busy week coming I could get ahead before hand.</li><li>I found this course to be very well planned and the instructor was very helpful.</li></ul><div><br /></div><div><div><i>Instructor's effective use of contact time</i></div><div>Students have consistently rated my use of class time (changed to contact time starting in 2021) as being very effective (mean = 4.4). However, ANOVA did detect differences with the Tukey-Kramer post-hoc test indicating that W2021 is significantly lower from cohorts W2006 to F2012 and W2020 (α = 0.05). </div></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTY1IidOvNguHEi2as7HcElqT70aF1IjHYfZkIfuaxfKR4kKbOpkJOebm3dCRpJJFcR3I6A5uiX2xzGtr53ttWOOjVaBaBD9jZXlm4jUSRWWFAgEZi2d3OrOStsKgoGtWTVpaRbLihP9-RidFFxLwVUGY9gefsMOG5gzoDQ5U80189ZG_LW8jtKObu/s1544/contact%20time.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1544" height="193" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTY1IidOvNguHEi2as7HcElqT70aF1IjHYfZkIfuaxfKR4kKbOpkJOebm3dCRpJJFcR3I6A5uiX2xzGtr53ttWOOjVaBaBD9jZXlm4jUSRWWFAgEZi2d3OrOStsKgoGtWTVpaRbLihP9-RidFFxLwVUGY9gefsMOG5gzoDQ5U80189ZG_LW8jtKObu/w665-h193/contact%20time.png" width="665" /></a></div>Related student comments:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>[The team apps] can help fix loose ends you may have or point out important concepts.</li></ul><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div><div><i>The instructor communicated effectively</i></div><div><div>Biochemistry students have consistently rated highly my effective communication (mean = 4.6). ANOVA did detect significant differences among the cohorts. Tukey-Kramer indicates that W2018 is significantly lower than all other cohorts except W2006, W2017, W2019 & W2021 (α = 0.05). This prompt was worded differently prior to fall 2020 (the instructor spoke clearly).</div></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZVS9PcWQQNOz1zhp8_gZpHF-iF7fwOXIjCy5n5oD8oNHOB2HmHvmTMvy6hCdqUd4gcy7IS0DHlq98KJ0cQhX0QPkIVq-HPGbIDMPRjJjcaM66IfGjBglkJR_WiauF_ZGgtEwB_Y46A_RBwlUgfE-7FXzYO9CRV-iGVevxgWlTmKgnGFhyewD7O1Qc/s1516/speech.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1516" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZVS9PcWQQNOz1zhp8_gZpHF-iF7fwOXIjCy5n5oD8oNHOB2HmHvmTMvy6hCdqUd4gcy7IS0DHlq98KJ0cQhX0QPkIVq-HPGbIDMPRjJjcaM66IfGjBglkJR_WiauF_ZGgtEwB_Y46A_RBwlUgfE-7FXzYO9CRV-iGVevxgWlTmKgnGFhyewD7O1Qc/w663-h197/speech.png" width="663" /></a></div>Related student comments:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>One of the problems I personally had (might be a me problem exclusively) is that trying to make correlations to other fields was sometimes difficult, but the breakdown Dr Haave would give made it easy to understand in hindsight.</li></ul><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div><i>Instructor's constructive feedback</i></div><div><div>Students in AUBIO/AUCHE 280 consistently highly rate my constructive feedback (mean = 4.2). ANOVA did not find any significant differences among the different cohorts of students (𝛼 = 0.05). </div></div></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr07GwOFi9YknAfyQsB67ZkR_MaIpj1m185dNSBItHewzMOhvB16-8NlAtklKkMaBcyYV3B8bC3lkHRfbQjK2CRvvd6nGE15CN446FXgPMOMQVBHhiYUCRqYhnbFS8Iu5JyAKWL1ZTSwqkRzlR_HEqBTQZZyW3xipir2cAAtDZ0uFogrgDOgNAm6ez/s1516/feedback.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1516" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr07GwOFi9YknAfyQsB67ZkR_MaIpj1m185dNSBItHewzMOhvB16-8NlAtklKkMaBcyYV3B8bC3lkHRfbQjK2CRvvd6nGE15CN446FXgPMOMQVBHhiYUCRqYhnbFS8Iu5JyAKWL1ZTSwqkRzlR_HEqBTQZZyW3xipir2cAAtDZ0uFogrgDOgNAm6ez/w664-h197/feedback.png" width="664" /></a></div>Related student comments:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>I liked the use of achieve and the homework assignments</li><li>[I found most valuable the] Achieve website quizzes.</li><li>[I found most valuable the] 2 stage exam</li><li>I liked the homework assignments and thought they were good practice.</li><li>The textbook and achieve website were very useful in this course.</li></ul><div><div><i>Instructor's respectful treatment of students</i></div><div><div>Students have consistently appreciated my respectful treatment of them (mean = 4.6). ANOVA did detect significant differences among the cohorts with the Tukey-Kramer post-hoc test finding that the F2008 cohort significantly rated me lower (mean = 4) compared to all other cohorts except W2006 & W2018 (α = 0.05).</div></div></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtJvH1r6kza_qNviPUiazXzYTxLUIaKm8SCcSDoeUaWbOyTdN1oFZ_90l_UYrlAVA3CEuV53Lf--47u7Qk_u0sFqxDJ3qmgyHbipm8ak9_y7YKqTt9ti80Nd4Nemy4rD6GA8HxXzG33gNXNLedbZOlNxW3QdOnNPDxXmRhEKIinmZAEta8kiABX86f/s1516/respect.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1516" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtJvH1r6kza_qNviPUiazXzYTxLUIaKm8SCcSDoeUaWbOyTdN1oFZ_90l_UYrlAVA3CEuV53Lf--47u7Qk_u0sFqxDJ3qmgyHbipm8ak9_y7YKqTt9ti80Nd4Nemy4rD6GA8HxXzG33gNXNLedbZOlNxW3QdOnNPDxXmRhEKIinmZAEta8kiABX86f/w664-h197/respect.png" width="664" /></a></div>One student commented:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Dr. Haave was always willing to ask questions and never made you feel stupid.</li></ul><div><br /></div></div><h3><i>Students' perceptions of the course structure & material</i></h3><div><i>Quality of course content</i></div><div><div>Most student cohorts have rated the quality of this biochemistry course content highly with an SRI greater than 4. ANOVA did detect differences among the cohorts with the Tukey-Kramer post-hoc test detecting paired differences between the extremes: W2018 is significantly lower than the W2007 and F2010 cohorts (α = 0.05).</div></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSXCp5c39kyJJHpLoRpWTkT8pgCZnoNrvlfMnwjIxsaes9FQ-7v4G6tWTDYiqGl6ssl30TRpyyezKnau8F1fncY0QEpsn-h5kyX63cl2m2ekBbkNVXXSdo8te_GIWbiqFJDqueaOnfvh464QQxCrvUj30SFC8xq0_uNKsn-Fyub4w3w29Jy7Swglf6/s1544/content.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1544" height="193" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSXCp5c39kyJJHpLoRpWTkT8pgCZnoNrvlfMnwjIxsaes9FQ-7v4G6tWTDYiqGl6ssl30TRpyyezKnau8F1fncY0QEpsn-h5kyX63cl2m2ekBbkNVXXSdo8te_GIWbiqFJDqueaOnfvh464QQxCrvUj30SFC8xq0_uNKsn-Fyub4w3w29Jy7Swglf6/w664-h193/content.png" width="664" /></a></div>One student commented:<div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>I found every aspect of the course valuable</li></ul><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div><i>Clarity of course goals and objectives</i></div><div>Biochemistry students consistently rate highly the clarity of my goals and objectives for the course (mean = 4.3). ANOVA did not find any significant differences among the different student cohorts (𝛼 = 0.05). </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxT6Xql7FoHi1qaG-MvJf2XtDtSE-lbsld50ywoVd_j892SSJWbtTKa11yiRxUfT442FZOS-7QbK5nBvXdpbU0hOloUD11RoHA1TLyDr9xHvNzuppQxTe3bvCwYhLXkqYilL_HWaOn51YaRINX_V0Ght58e_oQqsKadkmPykXvOHlCB2b8EDpe6_q4/s1544/goals%20&%20obj.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1544" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxT6Xql7FoHi1qaG-MvJf2XtDtSE-lbsld50ywoVd_j892SSJWbtTKa11yiRxUfT442FZOS-7QbK5nBvXdpbU0hOloUD11RoHA1TLyDr9xHvNzuppQxTe3bvCwYhLXkqYilL_HWaOn51YaRINX_V0Ght58e_oQqsKadkmPykXvOHlCB2b8EDpe6_q4/w667-h194/goals%20&%20obj.png" width="667" /></a></div>There were no student comments related to the clarity of the course goals and objectives.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><div><i>Course workload and difficulty</i></div><div><div>Biochemistry students consistently rate the workload and difficulty of the course to be high. ANOVA did detect significant differences among the cohorts. The Tukey-Kramer post-hoc test detected significant differences for workload between the W2020 cohort and all other cohorts except W2006 & W2021 (α = 0.05). Note that data is missing for the W07 and W18 cohorts due to an administrative error.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh1NW82tJrHZ9Y7SMV7Iz-pasyEIZYhTgpFgzhfAaw951h5-aoxMk23l5uGI1W_18pdkHg1EChoPsftCCNYcSbVe8K8r3Urim4wSKksKvdWDcVtmB7Z_F2LrDJB5FOtcEOD0ChJV2L7ujWX5VAvxGA_YY-IpnTF6NeSvpIFdeGHT-t6BM3ZWOMNAIE/s1544/workload.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1544" height="193" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh1NW82tJrHZ9Y7SMV7Iz-pasyEIZYhTgpFgzhfAaw951h5-aoxMk23l5uGI1W_18pdkHg1EChoPsftCCNYcSbVe8K8r3Urim4wSKksKvdWDcVtmB7Z_F2LrDJB5FOtcEOD0ChJV2L7ujWX5VAvxGA_YY-IpnTF6NeSvpIFdeGHT-t6BM3ZWOMNAIE/w663-h193/workload.png" width="663" /></a></div>ANOVA did not detect significant differences among the cohorts regarding the difficulty of the course (α = 0.05).<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF1w3FtVJvIV1dFtg4leuco6WQK4RLXqZggrSBicPPp4q6lbcvx4DW9u6iqZEmBNYwHzmfhjXOvdevsc1Ifp8hHgURJQnd2G3Pn73-h5NCdeOHQE5WfQ9sQQF3hJhWDGQvd1K6gGaY6Xc8cShSuzzm-FN3D5i4CuQjwNDW4XSeSIMjOlvxZaH20t3U/s1544/difficult.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1544" height="193" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF1w3FtVJvIV1dFtg4leuco6WQK4RLXqZggrSBicPPp4q6lbcvx4DW9u6iqZEmBNYwHzmfhjXOvdevsc1Ifp8hHgURJQnd2G3Pn73-h5NCdeOHQE5WfQ9sQQF3hJhWDGQvd1K6gGaY6Xc8cShSuzzm-FN3D5i4CuQjwNDW4XSeSIMjOlvxZaH20t3U/w665-h193/difficult.png" width="665" /></a></div>Related student comments:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>The team apps, though quite hard sometimes, are great for applying your learning.</li><li>the course was demanding and took up more time than all my other courses</li><li>It is a tough course overall</li></ul></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div></div><h3><i>Students' perceptions of their own experience</i></h3><div><i>The course was a good learning experience</i></div><div>Students typically find biochemistry to be a good learning experience (mean = 4). ANOVA did not detect significant differences among the student cohorts (α = 0.05). Note that due to an administrative error, data was not collected for this prompt in 2007 or 2018.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCaI02703i0fmgzLxCAoWJJtxRct4CjaN_eEkEbuKUdhHSEhy7ZaxdV0tjFM-FHOfJ70uedqEoknwMKwBjOY--VnUrEGpmHoJ3rSna4jPgVZO4Q7a0d399Omqu5wUfpzvzwd45WiyMifq23Lp6uDjW5hbX-35RY8h6GlnOtyPH9bHw4eU3SBne5ZKA/s1516/experience.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1516" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCaI02703i0fmgzLxCAoWJJtxRct4CjaN_eEkEbuKUdhHSEhy7ZaxdV0tjFM-FHOfJ70uedqEoknwMKwBjOY--VnUrEGpmHoJ3rSna4jPgVZO4Q7a0d399Omqu5wUfpzvzwd45WiyMifq23Lp6uDjW5hbX-35RY8h6GlnOtyPH9bHw4eU3SBne5ZKA/w665-h198/experience.png" width="665" /></a></div>Related student comments:<div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>I found the group applications most valuable because they allowed for group interaction and discussion about the material being learned.</li><li>I really enjoyed working on the video assignment (even though I'm not great with video editing).</li><li>a fun learning experience</li></ul><div><br /></div><div><i>Motivation to learn more</i></div><div><div>Most students in this course are motivated to learn more about biochemistry (mean = 3.6). ANOVA indicated significant differences among the student cohorts (α = 0.05) but differences between pairs of cohorts were not detected by the Tukey-Kramer post-hoc test (α = 0.05).</div></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4wh-2R_V3gnUDcXDxSyMQg2ICsa6W1NTF6--qi9AlMZa82Uxrmjg-rxHyMbJRU5lYheO829T9t3M2u6NxLvti-W-r7_DZhyZCHEEUOjTvQuFD1rUDVcaeqaUIdAOsIbY9kHAn-wI6tFsb1OJN1pIgzQcDjfp0qJ9Ve-TO7A-cHDR_gyefKRQtTZ8j/s1544/motivation.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1544" height="193" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4wh-2R_V3gnUDcXDxSyMQg2ICsa6W1NTF6--qi9AlMZa82Uxrmjg-rxHyMbJRU5lYheO829T9t3M2u6NxLvti-W-r7_DZhyZCHEEUOjTvQuFD1rUDVcaeqaUIdAOsIbY9kHAn-wI6tFsb1OJN1pIgzQcDjfp0qJ9Ve-TO7A-cHDR_gyefKRQtTZ8j/w664-h193/motivation.png" width="664" /></a></div>There were no student comments related to students' motivation to learn more.<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div><i>Students increased their knowledge</i></div><div>Biochemistry students highly rate their acquisition of biochemical knowledge in this course (mean = 4.4). ANOVA did not detect significant differences among the student cohorts (α = 0.05).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWoD8JX9wvpvo7bsKgzEXEr-S6OdfinpFOiq5_1hZa4WK94WaX6Q1ByFdRqxbbktsWD0WOWOUv3bpHmVYxbKCjcJphDLGNTHgvBscj3eZJus8IFfwKJO05bmeyV0Cps2vxXdt8O3vopqYAcTRrihQGq2RhZ8R_Pzhxm5CJNDrkbSYmj7aQVf1C9COT/s1544/knowledge.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1544" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWoD8JX9wvpvo7bsKgzEXEr-S6OdfinpFOiq5_1hZa4WK94WaX6Q1ByFdRqxbbktsWD0WOWOUv3bpHmVYxbKCjcJphDLGNTHgvBscj3eZJus8IFfwKJO05bmeyV0Cps2vxXdt8O3vopqYAcTRrihQGq2RhZ8R_Pzhxm5CJNDrkbSYmj7aQVf1C9COT/w666-h194/knowledge.png" width="666" /></a></div>Related student comments:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>After taking this course I found my knowledge in a field that I had zero knowledge on expanded greatly as the course was streamlined and the videos provided gave a lot of insight on what we needed to know.</li></ul><div><br /></div><h3><i>Student concerns</i></h3><div>A couple of students noted that they felt that there was insufficient time for the online exams (1 hour for the MT exams and 1.5 hrs for the final exam) delivered through <a href="https://www.ualberta.ca/information-services-and-technology/news/2020/examlock-opens-new-doors-ualberta.html" target="_blank">ExamLock</a>. In addition, a couple of students indicated that they would have preferred live lectures over Zoom rather than the pre-recorded video lectures I had prepared before the course began. One student indicated their dissatisfaction with two-stage exams (these were implemented for the two MT exams) preferring to write the entirety of an exam on their own. A few students indicated dissatisfaction with the use of many Zoom meetings for answering student questions with few opportunities to apply their learning as occurred in the previous semester in <a href="https://activelylearning2teach.blogspot.com/2022/05/2nd-year-molecular-cell-biology-in-fall.html" target="_blank">Molecular Cell Biology</a> with TBL Apps.</div><div><br /></div><h2>Discussion</h2><p>Although students' responses to my teaching and the course I had prepared for them were somewhat weaker than in previous terms, it was still overall well-received by students in the winter 2021 term. I knew that the winter 2021 offering of AUBIO/AUCHE 280 - Biochemistry: Proteins, Enzymes & Energy was not going to be as good of a learning experience as in previous years because I did not have sufficient time to solve the problem of academic dishonesty during online exams, quizzes and applications of learning that I had observed in the previous fall 2020 term with <a href="https://activelylearning2teach.blogspot.com/2022/03/first-year-biology-in-fall-2020.html" target="_blank">AUBIO 111 - Integrative Biology I</a> and <a href="https://activelylearning2teach.blogspot.com/2022/05/2nd-year-molecular-cell-biology-in-fall.html" target="_blank">AUBIO 230 - Molecular Cell Biology</a>. Please do not misunderstand me: there were only a handful of students who unfairly took advantage of the online learning situation in fall 2020; most students learned with academic integrity. Still, it is incumbent upon the instructor to ensure that students are being assessed equitably in an environment where no student receives an unfair advantage. The only way I was able to ensure equitable assessment for all students in the winter 2021 term was to pre-Google every online question that contributed to students' final grades. I was able to do that for the MT and final exams but not for in-class (via Zoom) applications of students' learning. As a result, I was unable to implement TBL as the instructional strategy as students had experienced in courses that I had taught in previous terms. In addition, I also used our university's in house developed exam proctoring software, <a href="https://www.ualberta.ca/information-services-and-technology/news/2020/examlock-opens-new-doors-ualberta.html" target="_blank">ExamLock</a> which takes periodic snapshots of students' desktop and sends an alert to the online proctor when students browse to another window on their desktop.</p><h3><i>What did I learn? What will I do differently?</i></h3><p>Students appreciate and benefit from the online homework websites that many publishers make available with the adoption of their textbooks for a course. I tried this for the first time in the previous fall 2020 term, using <a href="https://mlm.pearson.com/northamerica/masteringbiology/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mastering Biology</a> for AUBIO 111 and <a href="https://digital.wwnorton.com/ecb5" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Smartwork5</a> for AUBIO 230. For AUBIO/AUCHE 280 I used the <a href="https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/e/2PACX-1vRXP7WBzg_2_GlUucyRIMuaqryjRLY5F1kcpGHkm7aHfic4nbShzkK6pRqwXin-Xx-EWQcYkvighkU9/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000&slide=id.g9b52dc8de5_1_0" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Achieve homework website</a> that accompanied the textbook I had adopted for the course (Biochemistry, 9/e by Berg et al, 2019) which has been shown to improve student learning outcomes and is viewed favourably by students (McWilliams & Bergin, 2020; McWilliams et al, 2020). I decided to implement these online homework websites for my courses in the 2020/21 academic year to increase the feedback that students would receive as they practised their learning. I was concerned that this would be lacking in the online learning environment that existed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of my students commented that they appreciated the practice of applying their learning through Achieve. I will use publisher's homework websites again in the future. </p><p>Unlike the previous term in which I implemented TBL as the instructional strategy for AUBIO 111 - Integrative Biology I and AUBIO 230 - Molecular Cell Biology, I did not do the same for the winter 2021 offering of AUBIO/AUCHE 280 - Biochemistry. As I already stated above, this was because any online question that was assessed for contribution to students' final grades had to be pre-Googled and I simply did not have the time to do that for each and every App that I had prepared for F2F teaching. Instead, I used class time to meet with students online over <a href="https://zoom.us/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Zoom</a> to answer any of their questions. Many students used that time to either read the textbook pages I had assigned or view the video recorded minilectures I had prepared during the preceding summer of 2020. But many students showed up without questions hoping that others would ask questions for them. After a couple of weeks, online attendance over Zoom declined but a core of approximately 10 students continued to show up for Zoom classes. I offered to put students into random breakout rooms to attempt the Apps I had prepared using <a href="https://www.google.ca/forms/about/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Google Forms</a> but without the marks being recorded. This turned out to be a good learning experience for the students who did show up. But a couple of students did comment on the SRI that they felt little incentive to continue showing up for class when the marks were not contributing toward their final grade. In the future, when I again implement TBL for this course I will have students do a couple of Apps each class that do not contribute toward their final grade and then end the class meeting with one that does for which I have pre-Googled the exercise to ensure that it is not possible to copy and paste and answer after a simple Google search (I can usually complete 2-3 Apps in a one hour class). A study has found that implementing Apps without the mark contributing to students' final grades does not negatively impact student learning outcomes and is preferred by students (Deardorff et al, 2014) yet some students indicate that they will not show up for the class if the work completed in-class does not contribute to their final grade. I wish there had been time for me to prepare to mix it up like this (most not for marks, one per class for marks) for biochemistry in winter 2021.</p><p></p><h3><i>Two-stage tests during MT exams</i></h3><p><a href="https://www.saltise.ca/resources/strategies/two-stage-exam/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Two-stage testing</a> has been found to improve student learning outcomes (Mahoney & Harris-Reeves, 2019). However, in this course the response from students toward this testing strategy was mixed. This is an interesting result because when I used two-stage testing for the <a href="https://learntbl.ca/what-is-tbl/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Readiness Assurance Tests (RATs) when TBL is the teaching strategy</a>, the student response has been predominantly positive. I believe the difference in response is that in the winter 2021 term, the two-stage testing was used for high stakes MT exams instead of for low stakes RATs. Also, unlike two-stage testing for RATs in which students spend most of their time on the team portion of the quiz, for higher stakes exams, it is the individual portion of the two-stage quiz for which students require more time. My experience suggests that the time allocation is different depending upon whether the test is formative or summative. If it is formative the allocation is 1 part individual to 2 parts team; if it is summative it is 2 parts individual to 1 part team. This is my sense based on winter 2021 vs the preceding terms which implemented TBL in biochemistry. My colleagues have suggested this may be because students are less prepared for the formative quizzes (i.e., students are still learning the material - they have only just experienced the new course material in the assigned pre-class reading or video) vs being better prepared for the summative exams (i.e., students have spent more time and repeated time with the material being examined). Thus, more time is required during the team portion of a 2-stage exam/quiz that is formative in nature because there is more student discussion. In contrast during a summative 2-stage exam, students are more sure of their understanding and thus the team discussion does not require as much time. I have not yet found a peer-reviewed paper that analyzes this issue.</p><h3><i>What happened in 2018 and 2021?</i></h3><p>This biochemistry course is one of my favourite courses to teach and is typically very well received by students despite its perceived difficulty and workload. So what happened in 2018 and 2021 in which the SRIs are lower for some of the survey prompts (i.e., contact time was used effectively, instructor communicated effectively, quality of course content).</p><p>Winter 2018 was the 2nd term of Augustana's first year of implementation of our <a href="https://www.ualberta.ca/augustana/about-us/advantage/calendar/index.html" target="_blank">new term structure</a> in which students completed one course during the first three weeks of the term and then completed their other four courses during the subsequent 11 weeks of the term. I think students (and instructors!) were still adjusting to that change and it impacted some of the ratings for that term though perhaps not as much as it affected the SRIs for <a href="https://activelylearning2teach.blogspot.com/2022/05/2nd-year-molecular-cell-biology-in-fall.html" target="_blank">Molecular Cell Biology in the preceding fall 2017 term</a>.</p><p>I did not use TBL as the instructional strategy in 2021 for AUBIO 280 because I had not yet solved the problem of academic dishonesty in an online environment. The solution required pre-Googling all online assignments, quizzes, and exams and I only found the time to do that for the exams. As a result, many students did not avail themselves of the practice time that I provided them to apply their learning because the in-class (via Zoom) Apps were no longer for marks that contributed toward their final grade. I simply did not have adequate time to prepare for this in the transition from F2F to online teaching.</p><p>But why did the W2021 cohort rate my effective use of class time significantly differently from cohorts W2006 to F2012 and W2020 but not from the cohorts in W2017 through to 2019? I think the answer is that I started using TBL consistently as the instructional strategy after F2012 and that although students' learning outcomes improve with TBL (Liu & Beaujean, 2017), students may not perceive the instructional time (i.e., in-class or over Zoom) to be as well utilized as when class time is used for lecturing (Lane, 2008) similar to what has been found in other active learning classes (Deslauriers, et al, 2019; Van Sickle, 2017; Smith & Cardaciotto, 2011). However, when implemented well, most students will respond well to active learning (Finelli et al, 2018). </p><p>Based on the graphs in the Results section above, it appears (i.e., a nonsignificant trend) to me that my ability to implement TBL in AUBIO/AUCHE 280 - Biochemistry: Proteins, Enzymes & Energy was improving prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. What might be improving students' reception of TBL in this biochemistry course? Some of the things that I was starting to do are well-articulated suggestions in the article by Finelli et al (2018). My method of canvassing students' team responses during their in-class apps when we were meeting F2F was to use <a href="https://validatedlearning.co/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">QuickKey</a> which uses QR codes on cards that are quickly scanned by instructor's smartphones or tablets. It is an ingenious system (note that the app also enables smartphones and tablets to grade MCQ tests similar to a scantron) but requires instructors to remain visible at the front of the class in order to scan the QR cards. This limits instructors' ability to walk among student teams to offer encouragement and advice while the teams work on the assigned applications of learning. Between 2012 and 2021 I became better at interacting with student teams in a specified time before returning to the front of the class to scan the QR codes. A simple thing to do in principle but something that I need to be intentional about - it took practice for me to do well.</p><p>A final consideration is the room that I teach in (the physical space) can impact how students learn (Cotner, et al, 2013; Park & Choi, 2014). I started teaching in Augustana's active learning classroom (ALC) in 2017. In contrast to the traditional lecture theatre, our ALC is designed around pods of tables at which is located a large computer screen/whiteboard. This allows students to work in teams facing each other across a common table while at the same time viewing what I am presenting on the screen. In addition, the whiteboard ability of the screens at each pod enables students to work on group problems that I assign during class. This is an excellent design for active learning and teamwork. A drawback of Augustana's ALC is that there are two wings that float above the main floor of the classroom that house 4 pods of students (6 students to a pod). When the number of students seated on the main floor exceeds its limit (approximately 48) then the overflow goes upstairs into these wings where the sight lines between the student and the instructor are poor. It took me a couple of years to learn that the best way to deal with student enrolments greater than 48 in this ALC was to rotate the student teams through the different learning pods such that no one team was relegated to the weaker learning environment in those upstairs wings for the entire term. When the situation is explained to students along with its pros and cons students come on board with the learning environment. When well-implemented, this is an excellent learning space.</p><h2>Resources</h2><p><a href="https://www.macmillanlearning.com/college/ca/product/Biochemistry/p/1319114679" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Berg, Jeremy, M., Tymoczko, J. L., Gatto, G. J. J., & Stryer, L. (2019). <i>Biochemistry (9th ed.)</i>. W. H. Freeman and Company, MacMillan Learning.</a></p><p><a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-ca/Becoming+a+Critically+Reflective+Teacher%2C+2nd+Edition-p-9781119050711" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Brookfield, S. D. (2017). <i>Becoming a critically reflective teacher (2nd ed.)</i>. Jossey-Bass.</a></p><p><a href="https://doi.org/10.2505/4/jcst13" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Cotner, S., Loper, J., Walker, J. D., & Brooks, D. C. (2013). It’s not you, it’s the room - Are the high-tech, active learning classrooms worth it? <i>Journal of College Science Teaching, 42</i>(6), 82–88.</a> </p><p><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.3352/jeehp.2014.11.6" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Deardorff, A. S., Moore, J. A., McCormick, C., Koles, P. G., & Borges, N. J. (2014). Incentive structure in team-based learning: graded versus ungraded Group Application exercises. <i>Journal of Educational Evaluation for Health Professions, 11</i>, art 6.</a> </p><p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1821936116" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Deslauriers, L., McCarty, L. S., Miller, K., Callaghan, K., & Kestin, G. (2019). Measuring actual learning versus feeling of learning in response to being actively engaged in the classroom. <i>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116</i>(39), 19251–19257.</a> </p><p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/bmb.21485" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Eguchi, H., Sakiyama, H., Naruse, H., Yoshihara, D., Fujiwara, N., & Suzuki, K. (2020). Introduction of team-based learning improves understanding of glucose metabolism in biochemistry among undergraduate students. <i>Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education, 49</i>(3), 383–391.</a></p><p><a href="https://my.nsta.org/click?file=jcst1805_80.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Finelli, C. J., Nguyen, K., DeMonbrun, M., Borrego, M., Prince, M., Husman, J., Henderson, C., Shekhar, P., & Waters, C. K. (2018). Reducing student resistance to active learning: Strategies for instructors. <i>Journal of College Science Teaching, 47</i>(5), 80–91.</a></p><p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/tl.333" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Lane, D. R. (2008). Teaching skills for facilitating team-based learning. <i>New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 2008</i>(116), 55–68.</a></p><p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/stl0000075" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Liu, S.-N. C., & Beaujean, A. A. (2017). The effectiveness of team-based learning on academic outcomes: A meta-analysis. <i>Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology, 3</i>(1), 1–14.</a> </p><p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1469787417723243" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mahoney, J. W., & Harris-Reeves, B. (2017). The effects of collaborative testing on higher order thinking: Do the bright get brighter? <i>Active Learning in Higher Education, 20</i>(1), 25-37.</a> </p><p><a href="https://community.macmillanlearning.com/t5/learning-science-research/achieving-student-success-using-indicators-of-college-readiness/ba-p/11253?attachment-id=1136" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">McWilliams, K., & Bergin, J. (2020). <i>Achieving student success: Using indicators of college readiness to measure the efficacy of Achieve</i>. MacMillan Learning.</a></p><p><a href="https://prod-cat-files.macmillan.cloud/MediaResources/instructorcatalog/college/learning-science/Achieve More_2020.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">McWilliams, K., Bergin, J., Black, A., Baughman, M., & Runyon, B. (2020). <i>Achieve more: The learning engineering of Achieve and insights into instructor implementations and instructor and student outcomes</i>. MacMillan Learning.</a></p><p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-014-9742-0" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Park, E. L., & Choi, B. K. (2014). Transformation of classroom spaces: traditional versus active learning classroom in colleges. <i>Higher Education, 68</i>(5), 749–771.</a> </p><p><a href="https://josotl.indiana.edu/article/view/1808/1805" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Smith, C. V, & Cardaciotto, L. (2011). Is active learning like broccoli? Student perceptions of active learning in large lecture classes. <i>Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning, 11</i>(1), 53–61.</a> </p><p><a href="https://doi.org/10.14434/josotl.v16i2.19216" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Van Sickle, J. R. (2016). Discrepancies between student perception and achievement of learning outcomes in a flipped classroom. <i>Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 16</i>(2), 29–38.</a> </p></div></div>Neil Haavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13952094460830822185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6414649070616166194.post-60692919154560429932022-06-03T18:30:00.000-06:002022-06-03T18:30:17.885-06:00confusing the teaching strategy with the professor and course contentAt the Augustana Campus, a number of us have been using team-based learning (TBL) for a number of years and it is interesting how different students and colleagues respond to its implementation. Most students, when confronted with TBL for the first time are open to it but unsure. At midterm, many students are frustrated with the course but seem to confuse the difficulty of the course content with the teaching strategy blaming the strategy rather than the difficulty of the course. By the time the course ends most students appreciate the incremental and developmental nature of TBL realizing that the daily/weekly requirement to attend to learning the course material ends up making studying for the final exam more efficient because TBL has structured their learning such that they are studying for the final exam throughout the course rather than leaving the learning to cram it in during the week before the exam.<br />
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But, there is a very vocal minority who are frustrated with TBL as an instructional strategy and are convinced that their instructor has abandoned them to have to learn it on their own instead of understanding that ultimately, learning does occur on one's own but that TBL has structured class time to practice their learning thereby revealing to students those areas that still need their studious attention. It can be heartbreaking to receive student evaluations of instruction at the end of the term that harshly denigrate the course, instructor, and instructional strategy after working hard to develop appropriate in-class assignments (apps or applications in the language of TBL) for students to learn the course material and accompanying skills through practice under the guidance of both peers and instructor.<br />
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I think some of the frustration experienced by students with TBL is misplaced and should actually be placed on the course content itself. I use TBL to teach biochemistry, molecular cell biology and first-year functional biology. Each of these courses was a challenge for students before I began implementing TBL in my courses. It is just that students' frustration with learning difficult course content has shifted from blaming the nature of the course content to blaming the nature of the instructional strategy used to teach the course.<br />
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Now, don't misinterpret what I am saying here. Most of my students learn to appreciate what TBL does for them. But the minority who passionately dislike TBL as a learning and teaching strategy is incredibly vocal about it assuming that most students think like them when the data from my student evaluations of teaching make this clearly a false assumption.<br />
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The other interesting response is how colleagues respond to my use of TBL as an active learning strategy in my classrooms. Many are very interested, some are little sceptical, and a very few are very annoyed that this teaching and learning strategy persists on our campus. My sense is that these annoyed colleagues are taking the vocal dislike of the passionate few students at face value and accept their opinion to be the common judgement of the inability of TBL to promote student learning outcomes. I find it interesting that colleagues who are rigorous about ensuring that the conclusions they make in their own research are based upon evidence end up making vocal judgements about a teaching strategy on their campus based on hearsay. And when introduced to the vast literature which provides the evidence of its efficacy, dismisses the entire published body of evidence on the basis of a few poor studies.<br />
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Part of the issue of a few colleagues negatively responding to TBL being used on their campus is, I am sure, because the ones who first implemented it on our campus, followed by myself who adopted it a few years later were rather vocal in its efficacy making it seem as if those who were not using TBL to teach their courses were somehow teaching with an inferior instructional strategy. There is nothing as infuriating as the zealousness of the recent and naive convert and I confess to being a TBL zealot when I experienced TBL on the road to Damascus back in 2010.<br />
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In order to promote active learning on my campus in all of its marvellous and effective forms, I need to rebuild some bridges after unleashing the rhetoric of TBL. Teaching and learning is a wondrous activity to be engaged in. To be part of someone's learning journey and see the lightbulb come on when a concept, principle or skill finally clicks into place and becomes integrated with the mental model of the world ... that is a wondrous thing to behold. And as instructors, when we experience our own "aha" moment while realizing that a different instructional approach works for a different student who was previously struggling to understand, that is our own lightbulb experience that I am so grateful to experience again, and again, and again.<br />
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<h4>
Resources</h4>
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Carmichael, J. (2009). Team-based learning enhances performance in introductory biology. Journal of College Science Teaching, 38(4), 54–61.<br />
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<a href="https://doi.org/10.1128/jmbe.v18i2.1289" target="_blank">Cooper, K. M., Ashley, M., & Brownell, S. E. (2017). Using expectancy value theory as a framework to reduce student resistance to active learning: A proof of concept. Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education, 18(2).</a><br />
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<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/87567555.1996.9933425" target="_blank">Felder, R. M., & Brent, R. (1996). Navigating the bumpy road to student-centered instruction. College Teaching, 44(2), 43–47.</a><br />
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<a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1319030111" target="_blank">Freeman, S., Eddy, S. L., McDonough, M., Smith, M. K., Okoroafor, N., Jordt, H., & Wenderoth, M. P. (2014). Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 111(23), 8410–5.</a><br />
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<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0092055X15581929" target="_blank">Huggins, C. M., & Stamatel, J. P. (2015). An exploratory study comparing the effectiveness of lecturing versus team-based learning. Teaching Sociology, 43(3), 227–235.</a><br />
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Mezeske, B. (2004). Shifting paradigms? Don’t forget to tell your students. The Teaching Professor, 18(7), 1.<br />
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<a href="https://doi.org/10.1152/advan.00053.2006" target="_blank">Michael, J. (2006). Where’s the evidence that active learning works? Advances in Physiology Education, 30(4), 159–167.</a><br />
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<a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2168-9830.2004.tb00809.x" target="_blank">Prince, M. (2004). Does active learning work? A review of the research. Journal of Engineering Education, 93(3), 223–231.</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.facultyfocus.com/resources/teaching-strategies-techniques/active-learning/student-resistance-active-learning/" target="_blank">Prince, M., & Weimer, M. (2017, November 2). Understanding student resistance to active learning.</a><br />
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<a href="http://insightjournal.park.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Ch.-2-Faculty-Article-From-Lessons-Learned-the-Hard-Way-to-Lessons-Learned-the-Harder-Way.pdf" target="_blank">Schwegler, A. F. (2013). From lessons learned the hard way to lessons learned the harder way. InSight: A Journal of Scholarly Teaching, 8, 26–31.</a><br />
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<a href="https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe-13-09-0190" target="_blank">Seidel, S. B., & Tanner, K. D. (2013). “What if students revolt?”—Considering student resistance: Origins, options, and opportunities for investigation. CBE-Life Sciences Education, 12(4), 586–595.</a><br />
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Spence, L. (2004). “The professor made us do it ourselves.” The Teaching Professor, 18(4), 6.<br />
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<a href="http://www.teambasedlearning.org/" target="_blank">The Team-Based Learning Collaborative.</a><br />
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Weimer, M. (2013). Responding to resistance. In Learner-centered teaching: Five key changes to practice (2nd ed., pp. 199–217). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, a Wiley imprint.<br />
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<a href="http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-professor-blog/didnt-teach-learn/" target="_blank">Weimer, M. (2014, September 10). “She didn’t teach. We had to learn it ourselves.” Faculty Focus - The Teaching Professor Blog.</a><br />
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<a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1407304111" target="_blank">Wieman, C. E. (2014). Large-scale comparison of science teaching methods sends clear message. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 111(23), 8319–20.</a>Neil Haavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13952094460830822185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6414649070616166194.post-47189619348673488212022-06-02T17:44:00.007-06:002022-06-06T12:57:45.878-06:00meeting student resistance to learning with resilience<br />
The interview with <a href="https://www.michaelungar.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Michael Ungar</a> (Bethune 2019) and Ungar's Globe and Mail article (2019) have made me rethink this issue of resistance to active learning by students. It is interesting what our <a href="https://www.ualberta.ca/centre-for-teaching-and-learning/events/festival-of-teaching/2019/plenary.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">2019 Faculty Learning Community</a> stumbled across in our exploration of this issue - that it is a chicken-egg issue, a cycle in which students need to be resilient to engage in active learning yet active learning promotes the development of student resilience. However, we have been thinking of this in terms of resilience being an internal issue. We have been assuming that resilience is a capacity or skill or attribute that can be developed within students. But what Ungar has got me thinking about now is that the ability to be resilient is also a matter of social network and institutional systems. Ungar's work has found that people are more resilient when there are support measures in place for people under stress. These could be some sort of welfare policies and structures or they could be the network of family and friends. Actually, it is not either-or, it is both, Resilience is fostered in people when they have a solid social network (friends and family) and when their community has structures and systems in place to ensure that people are taken care of in times of crisis. Ungar's work cites a number of these social structures such as ensuring that people are able to access insurance and welfare benefits quickly when needed or that there are systems in place to ensure that people have food and shelter when they become unsheltered. The idea that resilience is completely an internal quality is false. I don't think, however, that it is a dualistic situation. I do think that there is an internal aspect of resilience. People may have better resilience developed than others. But what is interesting from Ungar's work is that for most people it seems that social systems play a greater role in producing resilient people than relying solely on internal capability.<br />
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So what does this have to with students' resistance to learning?<br />
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It has got me thinking that if we as educators wish to promote resilience in our students such that they are able to engage in active learning then we also need to consider our classroom policies and course structures we have implemented. My question is, what sort of classroom policies and course structures will develop students' resilience? Well, a good place to start, I think is to consider the <a href="https://www.aacu.org/trending-topics/high-impact" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">AAC&U's high impact practices</a>. Which one of them will develop social structures in our courses? First-year seminars I think make sense. Also, learning communities, collaborative assignments and projects, undergraduate research, and service-learning. Why these five of the 11? I think these five will promote students' resilience because they are all structured to develop relationships among learners, between students and teachers, and between learners and their community.<br />
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I also think that active learning itself, when properly structured can promote resilience because learning activities that promote social interaction among students will develop their resilience based on Ungar's research. I think this is why team-based learning (TBL) can be such a powerful active learning instructional strategy: the stable teams established at the beginning of the term develop into a learning community as a result of students working together on the two-stage tests and on the in-class applications of learning. Think-pair-share does the same thing by getting students to interact with each other; portions of the class become a transient community. Personal response systems (PRS), such as clickers, can do the same provided that there is a sharing among students after their initial response. PRSs used properly end up being a kind of two-stage exam that fosters student interaction.<br />
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However, active learning can explicitly develop resilience or it may not, depending upon how it is implemented. If it is just think-pair-share or personal response systems which include peer discussion, it may or may not develop resilience in students because it is dependent upon whether or not students develop relationships with the students with whom they interact. This will only occur if students interact consistently with the same students. If it is a class of 500, students may not interact with the same students on an ongoing basis if they are always changing where they sit. If on the other hand students are creatures of habit (and I would argue that the vast majority are) then they will likely sit in the same seat and get to know their neighbours. The nice thing about TBL is it explicitly facilitates this relationship-building in its educational system by forming stable teams at the beginning of a course.<br />
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I think this is key. If they have a learning community, they may be more willing to take risks in learning and not be devasted by the occasional low-stakes failure. As a result, learning will be more robust with active learning as a result of interleaved retrieval practice which we know enhances learning.<br />
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<h4>
Resources</h4>
<a href="https://doi.org/10.26634/jpsy.11.4.14220" target="_blank">Beri, N., & Kumar, D. (2018). Predictors of academic resilience among students: A meta analysis. <i>I-Manager’s Journal on Educational Psychology, 11</i>(4), 37.</a><br />
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Bethune, B. (2019). The real key to bouncing back. <i>Maclean’s, 132</i>(5.4), 1–5. (available online as <a href="https://www.macleans.ca/society/when-it-comes-to-resilience-the-self-help-industry-has-it-all-wrong/" target="_blank">When it comes to resilience, the self-help industry has it all wrong</a>)<br />
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<a href="http://celt.uwindsor.ca/ojs/leddy/index.php/CELT/article/view/4428" target="_blank">Fink, L. D. (2016). Five high-impact teaching practices: A list of possibilities. <i>Collected Essays on Learning and Teaching, 9</i>, 3–18.</a><br />
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<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2017.1284193" target="_blank">Holdsworth, S., Turner, M., & Scott-Young, C. M. (2018). … Not drowning, waving. Resilience and university: a student perspective. <i>Studies in Higher Education, 43</i>(11), 1837–1853.</a><div><br /><div><a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00091383.2017.1366805" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Kuh, G., O’Donnell, K., & Schneider, C. G. (2017). HIPs at ten. <i>Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 49</i>(5), 8–16.</a> <br /><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.acube.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Bioscene-December-2021-20.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Lemelin, C., Gross, C. D., Bertholet, R., Gares, S., Hall, M., Henein, H., Kozlova, V., Spila, M., Villatoro, V., & Haave, N. (2021). Mitigating student resistance to active learning by constructing resilient classrooms. <i>Bioscene: Journal of College Biology Teaching, 47</i>(2), 3–9.</a> <br />
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<a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/stl0000075" target="_blank">Liu, S.-N. C., & Beaujean, A. A. (2017). The effectiveness of team-based learning on academic outcomes: A meta-analysis. <i>Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology, 3</i>(1), 1–14.</a><br />
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<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1469787417731201" target="_blank">Swanson, E., McCulley, L. V., Osman, D. J., Scammacca Lewis, N., & Solis, M. (2019). The effect of team-based learning on content knowledge: A meta-analysis. <i>Active Learning in Higher Education, 20</i>(1), 39–50.</a><br />
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<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0143034312472761" target="_blank">Ungar, M., & Liebenberg, L. (2013). Ethnocultural factors, resilience, and school engagement. <i>School Psychology International, 34</i>(5), 514–526.</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-put-down-the-self-help-books-resilience-is-not-a-diy-endeavour/" target="_blank">Ungar, M. (2019, May 25). Resilience: Our ability to bounce back depends more on what’s around us than what’s within us. <i>The Globe and Mail</i>.</a><br />
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</div></div></div>Neil Haavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13952094460830822185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6414649070616166194.post-47725556875781994882022-05-24T09:50:00.003-06:002022-06-03T12:27:25.089-06:002nd year molecular cell biology in fall 2020<h2 style="text-align: left;">Introduction</h2><p>This is my fourth reflection on my experience with online teaching during the pandemic of the 2020/21 academic year. This reflection considers the course AUBIO 230 - Molecular Cell Biology which I taught in the fall term of 2020. Links to my other reflections may be found at this link <a href="https://activelylearning2teach.blogspot.com/2022/02/surviving-online-teaching-during.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</p><p>I have taught cell biology in some form or other since 1990 at the <a href="https://www.ualberta.ca/augustana/index.html" target="_blank">Augustana Campus of the University of Alberta</a>. I taught BIO 201 - Cell Biology from 1990 to 1998. It was then removed from Augustana's biology degree program when the biological disciplines (zoology, botany, microbiology, and more) in the Faculty of Science on the North Campus of the U of A were reorganized into one Department of Biological Sciences. That initiated a whole scale change in the way that biology was taught in Alberta with one model following the University of Calgary and another following the University of Alberta. At that time Augustana was not a Faculty of the University of Alberta but was rather an independent private liberal arts & sciences college: Augustana University College.</p><p>To manage the issue of transfer between the Southern Alberta (U of Calgary) and Northern Alberta (U of Alberta) models of postsecondary biological education the three large universities (Universities of Alberta, Calgary and Lethbridge) entered into a <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6SVs6NvEZskTDBlS0ZoUVZTMXc/view?usp=sharing&resourcekey=0-1Zxku0790DalXjgBNwHabA" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">two-year block transfer agreement</a> with the other smaller post-secondary institutions in Alberta (e.g., Athabasca University, Red Deer College, Augustana University College, King's University College, Concordia University College, Grande Prarie Regional College, and many more). I was a part of these negotiations which resulted in the following block of courses that if students completed in their first two years at any institution in Alberta would transfer as a block for equal credit thus solving the problem of a southern and northern model of biological education:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>cell biology - 3 cr</li><li>evolution - 3 cr</li><li>genetics - 3 cr</li><li>ecology - 3 cr</li><li>biological diversity - 3 cr (could be from zoology, botany or microbiology)</li><li>biochemistry - 3 cr</li><li>chemistry - 9 cr (comprised of general and organic)</li><li>statistics - 3 cr</li><li>mathematics - 3cr</li></ul>Four of the five biology courses above must have an associated lab. This block transfer gave each institution the ability to organise these foundational biological topics in whatever made sense for their program enabling students to complete these transfer courses over a minimum of their first two years of their undergraduate degree program.<p></p><p>As a result of these block transfer negotiations, Augustana's 2nd-year biology course became a 1st-year biology course where it remained for many years. However, over the subsequent years, Alberta PSE found that many students still wanted to transfer their courses among the PSIs piecemeal rather than as a two-year block. In addition, the Department of Biological Sciences ended up not removing their 2nd-year cell biology course instead having a 1st-yr introduction to cell biology followed by a 2nd-yr eukaryotic cell biology course. By the end of 2010, the block transfer in biology was abandoned and Augustana revised the 1st-year cell biology course to 1st-year functional biology (Integrative Biology I) and returned to teaching cell biology in the 2nd-year of their biology major as AUBIO 230 - Molecular Cell Biology in 2011. </p><p>In this blog post, I reflect on the Fall 2020 offering of AUBIO 230 - Molecular Cell Biology for which I was the instructor. This was the first term that I taught completely online and it was also the first time since the 1990s that I was the instructor for more than three courses in one term all of which had to be revised from face-to-face delivery to remote delivery. This is how I spent my spring and summer in 2020: revising molecular cell biology along with a couple of other courses so that students had a reasonable educational experience in an entirely online environment. Needless to say, this was a large amount of work to complete in a very short amount of time.</p><p>My reflection on teaching molecular cell biology during the fall 2020 term relies on my own personal experience, students' feedback from the end of term student ratings of instruction (SRI), the SoTL literature I have read, and advice that I have received from my colleagues. These are the four lenses that Stephen Brookfield (2017) advocates should inform any critical reflection of teaching:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>students' eyes</li><li>colleagues' perceptions</li><li>personal experience of the instructor</li><li>theory (the SoTL literature)</li></ul><p></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Methods & Materials</h2><p>As noted in the introduction above, AUBIO 230 - Molecular Cell Biology has gone through a number of revisions from a 2nd-year cell biology course, to a 1st-yr introduction to cell biology, ending up being what it is today, a course which considers the molecular biology of the cell. The primary difference between where the course started to where it is today is that initially, the course focused on the structure of cells and what that structure told us about how cells function. It was a classic structure and function course which relied heavily on cell ultrastructure and biochemical studies to inform us about how cells work. The publication of <i>Molecular Biology of the Cell</i> in 1983 by Alberts et al. changed how cell biology was conceived and studied by senior and graduate students. Certainly, there were other textbooks that were designed to bring a molecular understanding to bear on how cells work, but none were considered the same way as Molecular Biology of the Cell which came to be known as "The Bible" of cell biology. But it was not until this same author team produced <i>Essential Cell Biology</i> in 1998 that cell biology education began to truly focus on a molecular understanding of how cells work for undergraduate students in the first two years of their degree program. </p><p>Our knowledge of the molecular biology of the cell has exploded over the last couple of decades requiring instructors to carefully curate this burgeoning field for neophyte students. I have done this for the current iteration of AUBIO 230 - Molecular Cell Biology by asking students the overarching course question of how do proteins know where to go inside the cell? If proteins are not in the correct position at the correct time in the correct concentration, cell function is disrupted. To illustrate this point, I ask students on the first day of class what would happen to their ability to absorb sugar from their sports drink after a heavy workout if the apical and basal surfaces of their enterocytes were reversed? They soon realize after drawing a functional diagram of an enterocyte that they would die due to lack of nutrient absorption. So how do the correct proteins know to arrive in their correct intracellular positions after protein synthesis? And once there, how do they communicate with other proteins that they are there and ready to function?</p><p>This grabs students' attention and we spend the remainder of the course learning the techniques and experiments that have produced our current understanding of how cells get proteins into their different organelles and once there how they work and communicate with each other. Those of you reading this who are molecular biologists know that this is a huge field. This is a second-year (sophomore) course that only introduces students to this field. </p><p>To facilitate students' learning of the molecular details of cells and the approaches we have used to study them, I use the instructional strategy of team-based learning or TBL (Haide, Kubitz & McCormack, 2014) which I have explained in some detail in a <a href="https://activelylearning2teach.blogspot.com/2022/04/third-year-biochemistry-in-fall-2020.html" target="_blank">previous blog post</a>. Briefly, students are assigned pre-class preparation (a reading &/or a video recording) guided by a reading or viewing <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ko3YW3ireyBzMrwsYzu5U9RQbCOoEpo1/view?usp=sharing" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">guide with learning objectives</a>. After this pre-class preparation, students come to class to write a two-stage quiz (iRAT + tRAT in TBL lingo) consisting of 10 MCQs answered individually in 15 minutes followed by a longer period of time for the team attempt of the same quiz. Subsequent classes consist of team applications (Apps) of their learning. In the online environment that resulted from the pandemic, RATs and Apps were completed over Zoom using the breakout rooms to facilitate the teamwork. In addition, I allocated the class time before the two-stage quiz to a drop-in session over Zoom during which anyone and everyone in the class could come to ask questions about the pre-class assignment. Some students used this time to either ask me questions or to individually review the reading or video-recording. The quizzes were conducted using the quizzing feature in adaptive mode of our LMS which is based on Moodle. Apps were completed by teams using Google Forms to deliver the problems. Both RATs and Apps contributed to students' final course grades. You may view the course syllabus that I used in Fall 2020 at this link <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-apvHiiSOCLKHsTDtmpLA1vyopOCUmyP/view?usp=sharing" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a>. For this course, I did not use any proctoring or exam monitoring software as I have in other courses. There were repercussions from this decision that I will address in the Discussion.</p><p>Something new that I implemented for this course was the use of <a href="https://digital.wwnorton.com/ecb5" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Smartwork5</a>, the online homework website that is available to students free of charge with the purchase of the assigned textbook for the course (<a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393680362" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Essential Cell Biology, 5th ed.</a>). Completion of these online individual assignments was awarded some marks toward their final grade (15%) to encourage their completion resulting in the study of the course material. These homework assignments were available to students for one week after we had completed our consideration of the topic in the course schedule (i.e., after RATs and Apps were completed and graded). Students were permitted to submit their Smartwork5 homework assignments late (5% penalty per day late). I also made available to students pre-class quizzes through Smartwork5 which enabled students to practice their learning without penalty; these pre-class quizzes did not contribute to students' final grades and were available to students throughout the term once the course schedule reached that topic.</p><p>SRI results were analysed for statistical differences among the different student cohorts using ANOVA (α = 0.05). The Tukey-Kramer post-hoc test was then used to detect differences among pairs of student cohorts (α = 0.05) if ANOVA initially detected differences among all cohorts. Details of the SRI survey were described in a <a href="https://activelylearning2teach.blogspot.com/2022/02/history-theory-of-biology-in-w21.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">previous blog post</a>. The student comments in the following Results section are in response to four open-ended questions inviting students to type their comments into our online SRI survey:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>What aspects of the course and/or instructor did you find most valuable?</li><li>What aspects of the course and/or instructor did you find least valuable?</li><li>How useful were the course textbook(s) and/or other learning support materials?</li><li>Please add any other comments that you would like to make about the course and/or instructor.</li></ul><p></p><p></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Results</h2><p style="text-align: left;">ANOVA detected significant differences (α = 0.05) among the student cohorts for all SRI prompts. Generally speaking, the Tukey-Kramer post-hoc test indicates that the Fall 2020 cohort had the best experience and Fall 2017 had the worst experience in AUBIO 230 - Molecular Cell Biology among the student cohorts I have taught.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><i>Students' perceptions of the instructor</i></h3><p style="text-align: left;"><i>Instructor overall</i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">In Fall 2020 I received the highest rating ever (mean = 4.8) for my excellence as an instructor by students in Molecular Cell Biology but this was only significantly different from the cohorts in Fall 2017 and 2019. Statistically significant differences were detected between F2017 and all other cohorts except F2019 with F2019 being significantly different from the W2012, F2012 & F2020 cohorts (α = 0.05).</div><div><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMKCv0O-TNKX-2jiWCH_gwGwoMIqAJ4bh1RgzcbQlcvDTrxlvq0-CpoAFhZxXaYnaJi1W2RPCkY5vXupmWypiw2OzhYrx9FItwxnJJBktEwYKPSYgT8pfPQ9t1MLVKy7VCOIPB4mPtEjVjYd8pIbHUZlXxmS0w2r78KMd5E7n1GMb8CQ1lMj72w0O4/s1446/instructor.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1446" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMKCv0O-TNKX-2jiWCH_gwGwoMIqAJ4bh1RgzcbQlcvDTrxlvq0-CpoAFhZxXaYnaJi1W2RPCkY5vXupmWypiw2OzhYrx9FItwxnJJBktEwYKPSYgT8pfPQ9t1MLVKy7VCOIPB4mPtEjVjYd8pIbHUZlXxmS0w2r78KMd5E7n1GMb8CQ1lMj72w0O4/w640-h200/instructor.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Student comments corroborate the numerical data above regarding my excellence as an instructor:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>I believe Professor Haave truly wants his students to succeed, not only in his course but in life. The endless resources and repetitions that Haave's style of teaching provides are unparalleled. The instructor was amazing and planned the semester perfectly.</li><li>Professor Haave, is a great professor who took a lot of time to set up the best possible way to learn during COVID.</li><li>Neil is awesome! So thankful I had him this semester and can't wait for more classes with him!</li><li>Dr. Haave is a wonderful professor, very respectful, passionate and organized.</li></ul></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div><i>Instructor preparedness</i></div><div>Significant differences were indicated between F2017 and all other cohorts (α = 0.05). The Fall 2020 cohort highly rated how well prepared I was to teach this course (mean = 4.8).</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinljXLAAvBTiPnLPgQ4bxhuFY1jKrIfbIuQqlopAOAJM_R9P1VWDabqIfKIX1qU5_Ekk_004otypx1XwTiuE1SSH3rvDKkqoYcZ0EWLUa7hsCSyVxNw-Jaeb6gmxPmCqINVjD-RE1YBtNfdtnfwV0k2v6GSm92UDVmfJA2ztA6JbqTjkwWgj36pIq7/s1446/prepared.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1446" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinljXLAAvBTiPnLPgQ4bxhuFY1jKrIfbIuQqlopAOAJM_R9P1VWDabqIfKIX1qU5_Ekk_004otypx1XwTiuE1SSH3rvDKkqoYcZ0EWLUa7hsCSyVxNw-Jaeb6gmxPmCqINVjD-RE1YBtNfdtnfwV0k2v6GSm92UDVmfJA2ztA6JbqTjkwWgj36pIq7/w640-h200/prepared.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Students' comments support the numerical data above that I was well-prepared:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>This is reflected by the way he constructs a rigid schedule for the semester, that if not maintained students will drastically fall behind. The structure creates the habits that students need in order to succeed in the field of Biology. </li><li>This whole course was very valuable as the eclass set up was very easy to follow and the amount of work placed into the preparation of the class was reflected in the course content.</li><li>The course was well organized and is one of few that a student could asynchronously learn the material effectively</li><li>I thought that the mini lectures were concise and easier to digest than the readings which was helpful.</li><li>I was truly impressed with the organization of the class, especially now being online.</li><li>[what was valuable to me was] Having lecture videos to go back to and office hours when I needed help.</li></ul></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div><div><i>Instructor's effective use of in-class time</i></div><div>The F2017 is significantly different from all other cohorts. In addition, F2019 is significantly different from F2020 (α = 0.05). The Fall 2020 cohort highly rated how effectively I used the synchronous Zoom sessions (mean = 4.5).</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcnBwajboh1T2krJgLV2tlwPmJJ5po8N3J3OVC1Oj1zizbC3RtvqXP6CjT6UR2L9VAH5uao9nSphODwgXva8ws_TJGsPyhV3Q1JCMq2UAiMhXKGWlhHdu5F3BAdkwY1PwEEeJEZc6QGtugb92KYS7tjRNEdLpFUIB9Fio3B94yQb2U4A8IPtvau4or/s1446/In-ClassTime.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1446" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcnBwajboh1T2krJgLV2tlwPmJJ5po8N3J3OVC1Oj1zizbC3RtvqXP6CjT6UR2L9VAH5uao9nSphODwgXva8ws_TJGsPyhV3Q1JCMq2UAiMhXKGWlhHdu5F3BAdkwY1PwEEeJEZc6QGtugb92KYS7tjRNEdLpFUIB9Fio3B94yQb2U4A8IPtvau4or/w640-h200/In-ClassTime.png" width="640" /></a></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The student comments on the SRI support the graphical data above that class time (i.e., Zoom time) was well used:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>I really liked working in teams and completing the "apps".</li><li>I found the instructors [sic] explanation of application questions quite valuable.</li><li>The instructor used synchronous and asynchronous classes very well and effectively. All lectures were taught asynchronously and all quizzes were during a synchronous time.</li></ul></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div><div><i>Clarity of instructor's speech</i></div><div>Statistically significant differences (α = 0.05) were detected between F2017 and all other cohorts except F2018. The Fall 2020 cohort highly rated my clarity of speech but there were no typed comments that specifically referred to this.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioTY00DfBdj7sNW404VeVMSgOsls9NkwwMVtLxqOXTDZ-UU1ZVdGtqi6U8VuLLAMe-137cg9PLSaBqR5NJUXxd4LSdYGOesjhDnQ5P6LMobLm9Ee32hg_ZrBSDKqNxLCeMwRHz9zUAtYoTj-3_6c-T6lXtnmxMJfIDCAWQHR_1dDCz_5oCHu3U2ykz/s1446/speech.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1446" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioTY00DfBdj7sNW404VeVMSgOsls9NkwwMVtLxqOXTDZ-UU1ZVdGtqi6U8VuLLAMe-137cg9PLSaBqR5NJUXxd4LSdYGOesjhDnQ5P6LMobLm9Ee32hg_ZrBSDKqNxLCeMwRHz9zUAtYoTj-3_6c-T6lXtnmxMJfIDCAWQHR_1dDCz_5oCHu3U2ykz/w640-h200/speech.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div><i>Instructor's constructive feedback</i></div><div>The F2017 cohort was significantly different (α = 0.05) from all other cohorts except F2018. The Fall 2020 cohort was clearly appreciative of the feedback I provided them (mean = 4.4) but was no different from the previous cohorts, other than Fall 2017 (mean = 3.3).</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq3agSkFNZXAaSEblF992gGaVImJI04lv4v78gvXc3OcmwN_6jzn5sCpsPeBbJ5EzWHLK-u_JEmbIxYHXPOnJO1Vk4K2X1I354W1EsAeeTYLvL16aQ4rETP_NhGURrqj_3XLbPtoWpBW97WT78CXyZoeWZExyGZ1GMDPFXDysHflGeUc2xl2XKbE_t/s1446/feedback.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1446" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq3agSkFNZXAaSEblF992gGaVImJI04lv4v78gvXc3OcmwN_6jzn5sCpsPeBbJ5EzWHLK-u_JEmbIxYHXPOnJO1Vk4K2X1I354W1EsAeeTYLvL16aQ4rETP_NhGURrqj_3XLbPtoWpBW97WT78CXyZoeWZExyGZ1GMDPFXDysHflGeUc2xl2XKbE_t/w640-h200/feedback.png" width="640" /></a></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Note that one form of feedback that I designed into the course was the <a href="https://digital.wwnorton.com/ecb5" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Smartwork5</a> assignments. Student comments support the numerical data above:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>I found that working as a team made for a deeper understanding of course information and I appreciated the direct feedback about the apps after completing them. </li><li>The textbook and SmartWorks were very useful to the course. I found that having the Pre-lecture quizzes were very helpful as a whole chapter review, and the homework was helpful (especially with the feedback it gave you).</li><li>I really enjoyed the smartwork assignments as a way to help cement learning before RATs and APPs</li></ul></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div><div><i>Instructor's respectful treatment of students</i></div><div>The F2017 student cohort was found to be significantly different (α = 0.05) from W2012, F2012, F2019 & F2020. I have consistently treated my students with respect as illustrated in the graph below.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhszhdCB4twwFa-o24TmXR7UDF2bbOMFeznnsVFCpr-tZzcB3djmUzARYrh5ylUEIs7Nt8KzGDByfCDXAibE_wmNHm9ZWcgpdXC3MN7GwdmkL-Ebbj14mpJgO1_yDxP8ynhwJDGG2bKDzIGpky-isSLFWx_pgbYk-dd9_gqVa08QhELrCaRK7Z_L7KW/s1446/respect.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1446" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhszhdCB4twwFa-o24TmXR7UDF2bbOMFeznnsVFCpr-tZzcB3djmUzARYrh5ylUEIs7Nt8KzGDByfCDXAibE_wmNHm9ZWcgpdXC3MN7GwdmkL-Ebbj14mpJgO1_yDxP8ynhwJDGG2bKDzIGpky-isSLFWx_pgbYk-dd9_gqVa08QhELrCaRK7Z_L7KW/w640-h200/respect.png" width="640" /></a></div></div><div>A sample of student comments on the SRI corroborates the data in the graph above:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>The prof cared about his students and made sure everyone was on the right track and was always ready to help.</li><li>I liked how they were encouraging and very understanding to the students, especially now that everything is online.</li><li>He always treats students with the utmost respect and creates a positive learning environment that I enjoy participating in. I especially appreciated Neil's anecdotal stories, sometimes random, but always entertaining.</li></ul></div></div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><i>Students' perceptions of the course structure & material</i></h3><div><i>Quality of course content</i></div><div>Statistically significant differences were detected between F2017 and all other cohorts except F2019 (α = 0.05). In addition, F2020 is significantly different from W2012, F2012, F2016 & F2019. The F2017 cohort was the most dissatisfied (mean = 2.8) with the course whereas F2020 was the most satisfied (mean = 4.7).</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOR_aufpevd1lG876VbNPzIUbydpshd1n0SNiwMpYbPtph2kOEORo4oYCyjkT3ya4-2zJoDGbTd5VnBOpSNpxTTzGhaI2LTdd_6HvZ46frecdtfXITf4UCKQu9JY8xyVopFd52Zvr5n94U2nX9VO2Z4sQN1v_NCmuH7Br2amvy1ukTNeKgcqKk-l3l/s1446/content.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1446" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOR_aufpevd1lG876VbNPzIUbydpshd1n0SNiwMpYbPtph2kOEORo4oYCyjkT3ya4-2zJoDGbTd5VnBOpSNpxTTzGhaI2LTdd_6HvZ46frecdtfXITf4UCKQu9JY8xyVopFd52Zvr5n94U2nX9VO2Z4sQN1v_NCmuH7Br2amvy1ukTNeKgcqKk-l3l/w640-h200/content.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">One student comment echoed the numerical results:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>This was a very interesting course and I am looking forward to taking similar ones!</li></ul></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div><i>Clarity of course goals and objectives</i></div><div>The F2017 cohort was determined to be significantly different from all other cohorts (α = 0.05). The Fall 2020 cohort found them to be clear with an average SRI of 4.7. There were no student comments that referred to the course goals and objectives.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRHirR1yyZqEfxbkn_k44qW2Q1Fxy5X3SG0ZE3pcanuV0RQdVUxYvAjEYoQfT3bPpdkXiUpxRj1OFrL5VEFAxpVCyqQBdQsjNSSMGE-7sV2HPtG0XjdlGoZ_bc0c0yhl5pXjZPi_Nutp7ImugnB4xGqC4tJchmMsGTfghUHy8lZWmV5RQiwOiMSK6f/s1446/GoalsObj.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1446" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRHirR1yyZqEfxbkn_k44qW2Q1Fxy5X3SG0ZE3pcanuV0RQdVUxYvAjEYoQfT3bPpdkXiUpxRj1OFrL5VEFAxpVCyqQBdQsjNSSMGE-7sV2HPtG0XjdlGoZ_bc0c0yhl5pXjZPi_Nutp7ImugnB4xGqC4tJchmMsGTfghUHy8lZWmV5RQiwOiMSK6f/w640-h200/GoalsObj.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><div><i>Course workload and difficulty</i></div><div>The F2020 cohort rated the course difficulty to be significantly less than the student cohorts in W2011, F2012, F2016 & F2017. In addition, the F2018 cohort rated the course difficulty significantly lower than the W2011 & F2012 cohorts (α = 0.05).</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1RyZr9QFJHeJj0C5N8jRV43cE9uZBnlvUEnk8Sd7qlrdusc4c1Blx_wp_qrJ5cg8iQXPKbjWIsETQwc2sFjJR1oKhIgP-v7rEd00rRIrEJv2f0noi8TiAJkFK8V0nf0u2ycEuW7Hc8OUXiThegu8LesR6Ku1YOdNEnSbqHTjTk9my9BY13PDT9Ljn/s1446/Difficult.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1446" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1RyZr9QFJHeJj0C5N8jRV43cE9uZBnlvUEnk8Sd7qlrdusc4c1Blx_wp_qrJ5cg8iQXPKbjWIsETQwc2sFjJR1oKhIgP-v7rEd00rRIrEJv2f0noi8TiAJkFK8V0nf0u2ycEuW7Hc8OUXiThegu8LesR6Ku1YOdNEnSbqHTjTk9my9BY13PDT9Ljn/w640-h200/Difficult.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Reflective of the numerical data above, there was only one student comment directed toward the course difficulty:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Team apps were challenging at times.</li></ul></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div><div>The F2020 student cohort rated the course workload to be significantly lighter than all other cohorts except W2011 (α = 0.05). </div><div><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghziiML0GpEIEIwVEAbaW-hVbeUHbsbCcs63FS5SanfX_XKASZQ73j8bKfTy0kPB5VzdIuyQYNmSYsnOsuqdH_LDwSV-EI8F109ew62bit2ox4fB2HMPn_L39Kb8M2iOd64ia1OzWF2k6md9ESCymbydO7s2MA_HgwMIsRxEii1BeQsmHAKJo7p-_2/s1446/Workload.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1446" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghziiML0GpEIEIwVEAbaW-hVbeUHbsbCcs63FS5SanfX_XKASZQ73j8bKfTy0kPB5VzdIuyQYNmSYsnOsuqdH_LDwSV-EI8F109ew62bit2ox4fB2HMPn_L39Kb8M2iOd64ia1OzWF2k6md9ESCymbydO7s2MA_HgwMIsRxEii1BeQsmHAKJo7p-_2/w640-h200/Workload.png" width="640" /></a></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">There was only one student comment that addressed workload whereas in previous years I have received many comments concerned about the workload (and difficulty) of molecular cell biology. I think the fewer comments regarding the course difficulty and workload indicate students found the Fall 2020 offering of Molecular Cell Biology to be not as overwhelming as previous years being more similar to what the Winter 2011 cohort experienced:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>The reading [sic] were valuable, but can be overwhelming at times.</li></ul></div></div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><i>Students' perceptions of their own experience</i></h3><div><i>The course was a good learning experience</i></div><div>There were significant differences between F2017 and all other cohorts (α = 0.05). Students in the Fall 2020 cohort highly rated their learning experience with a mean and median SRI of 4.5.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6HC2eFoIIdx1iocrTLKMRW0GiibGflCn7388pI7t5HGFAwhxGkh4xXZNdeVcCknLIlJhUYglRxdncLLuyAu6Xj7tFcSzdU2JL1X6-Y6q9kniBzixc6mXp38HkTGZymZlxU1wKHmmh5_kzCUwTahgJVlu9qsUJd1ZZqXZgYm_feP9aDz05J2SHBSEm/s1446/experience.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1446" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6HC2eFoIIdx1iocrTLKMRW0GiibGflCn7388pI7t5HGFAwhxGkh4xXZNdeVcCknLIlJhUYglRxdncLLuyAu6Xj7tFcSzdU2JL1X6-Y6q9kniBzixc6mXp38HkTGZymZlxU1wKHmmh5_kzCUwTahgJVlu9qsUJd1ZZqXZgYm_feP9aDz05J2SHBSEm/w640-h200/experience.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The written comments by students on the SRI corroborate the numerical data above that this was a good learning experience for students in the Fall 2020 cohort:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>This was by far my favourite course this semester. Neil is great and so nice! I really liked how some classes were synchronous and some wre [sic] not. and the synchronous classes were so fun. I really enjoyed splitting into teams to do quizzes and assignments - this time is hard so being able to actually talk virtually with your classmates was great!!</li><li>Overall, this instructor provided a positive learning experience throughout the semester.</li><li>The learning environment was very encouraging.</li></ul></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div><i>Motivation to learn more</i></div><div>The F2017 cohort is significantly different from the cohorts in W2011, F2012, F2018 & F2020 (α = 0.05). In addition, F2020 was significantly different from W2012 & F2016. The cohort in Fall 2020 had greater motivation to learn more (mean = 4.4) than previous student cohorts but there were no student comments that addressed this SRI prompt.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj06KPV4M-C_fzoURaQoI0tK7aVA4r76irFlQLS6nRWhIUucxYrPtoeKmO99xJyHKpRTkgucq1EljYu9in4GLl5o7TjTuv-nc7TeQcwr97-DkfPlv8YcKM9JEKT9JjJ0iPYjVN8fh_Qrp7GRCMgaHzOOp8MhZDqvJes5GgO4P1rOyKCkdFi8hKg_Ghy/s1446/motivation.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1446" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj06KPV4M-C_fzoURaQoI0tK7aVA4r76irFlQLS6nRWhIUucxYrPtoeKmO99xJyHKpRTkgucq1EljYu9in4GLl5o7TjTuv-nc7TeQcwr97-DkfPlv8YcKM9JEKT9JjJ0iPYjVN8fh_Qrp7GRCMgaHzOOp8MhZDqvJes5GgO4P1rOyKCkdFi8hKg_Ghy/w640-h200/motivation.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div><i>Students increased their knowledge</i></div><div>Statistical analysis found F2017 to be significantly different from W2012, F2012, F2018 & F2020 (α = 0.05). In addition, F2016 was significantly different from F2020. The Fall 2020 cohort highly rated their increase in knowledge with an SRI average of 4.8.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUVKl2tT54aJdt3SGRWj3jXQF2avgcyrL8JH8DI3OuY-zTS6CEcDcQcO0xofyPUeIIfeVajz-TQ_c4ngXhK8YMZm18EAKNYbRSLO3RunW33VlLoUtBnUdQ1W4cwkKJOI-_n2SQL7cRSOd8atyQTwMvX9V1mB0egd8KfLhpgizkOBR6VozxA490Uttj/s1446/knowledge.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1446" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUVKl2tT54aJdt3SGRWj3jXQF2avgcyrL8JH8DI3OuY-zTS6CEcDcQcO0xofyPUeIIfeVajz-TQ_c4ngXhK8YMZm18EAKNYbRSLO3RunW33VlLoUtBnUdQ1W4cwkKJOI-_n2SQL7cRSOd8atyQTwMvX9V1mB0egd8KfLhpgizkOBR6VozxA490Uttj/w640-h200/knowledge.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">There was one student comment that echoed the numerical data:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>This course and its instructor were very good and I learned a lot from this course.</li></ul></div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><i>Student concerns</i></h3><div>Two students commented that the team Apps were the least valuable portion of the course or induced anxiety for them during class. The student who was anxious about the Apps suggested that they not contribute as significantly as they did toward the final course grade (Apps contributed 12% toward students' final grade). Another student commented that they found the information between the mini-lecture videos and the textbook to be virtually the same and so could not justify for themselves the need to read both the text and view the videos. Another student comment suggested that it would be helpful to have an additional office hour that was outside of the flex class time (i.e., the class before the RAT that I used for students to drop in to ask their questions about the pre-class assignment) as they used the flex class time to view the videos rather than come to class to ask questions.</div><div><br /></div><h2 style="text-align: left;">Discussion</h2><p>I am very pleased with how learners responded to my efforts to produce a quality learning environment for Molecular Cell Biology in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. This corresponds to my own experience teaching the course which I found to run well from my perspective. I am also pleased that students recognized the time and energy required to prepare a traditional F2F course for online learning. </p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><i>What did I learn? What will I do differently?</i></h3><p>It is interesting that before the pandemic before I was forced to teach online, I was very dismissive of preparing and making available video-recorded mini-lectures thinking that they could not recreate the experience I provided students in F2F real-time. The pandemic has taught me that video-recorded mini-lectures are a good alternative to reading the textbook for some students. The problem, of course, is that video recording mini-lectures take an inordinate amount of time whereas an excellent author team has already made available an excellent reading resource. Is it worth an instructor's time to recreate in video format what is already available in text format? I am not sure. In the case of the 2020/21 academic year, I took the advice of my colleagues and the published literature that the online learning environment is best served with video recorded minilectures. The response from my students seems to validate this claim.</p><p>A couple of things that I am considering changing for the next time I teach this course in response to the feedback I received from students are:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Mix-up the Apps so that some are low stakes (no marks attached) and some will have marks recorded. I can typically run two or three Apps in a single 60 min class. So something I may try in the coming academic year is to have at least the first App not be for marks and the last App to count for marks. Of course, I will warn the students about which ones count and which ones do not.</li><li>Many students reported to me anecdotally that they appreciated the flex days when there was no formal class but I was available in class (over Zoom) to answer questions or discuss the pre-class assignment. I had announced to students that I would be available to meet individually with students outside of these flex classes if they were unable to attend to ask their questions. Clearly, I need to be more explicit about this alternative as at least one student in Fall 2020 did not understand this to be available to them.</li><li>I need to make it clearer to students that the learning resources are there for them to use as they wish and that the reading/viewing guides indicate what they will be responsible for on exams. At least one student in Fall 2020 thought that they had to read and watch everything. For some students this may be beneficial to their learning. But I need to make it clear to all students that the learning resources I provide to them may be used (or not) as they see fit. But that to be successful in the course they need to use the reading guide to inform their learning. Maybe I need to rename these as learning guides instead of reading/viewing guides?</li></ul><p></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><i>What was different for the Fall 2017 and Fall 2020 cohorts?</i></h3><p>I was left with a couple of questions after reviewing the statistical analysis of the cohorts' SRIs for molecular cell biology since 2011. Why did the Fall 2020 cohort have the best experience whereas the Fall 2017 cohort seems to have had the worst experience when taught AUBIO 230 - Molecular Cell Biology? </p><p>I think the explanation for the Fall 2017 student cohort reporting a relatively poor experience (relatively speaking because the F2017 experience is still overall positive, rating generally > 3, for the SRI prompts) is because that is the year that Augustana first implemented its <a href="https://www.ualberta.ca/augustana/about-us/advantage/calendar/index.html" target="_blank">new term structure</a> consisting of an initial 3-week block followed by an 11-week block in which students completed one compressed course in the first 3-wk block and then four courses in the subsequent 11-wk block. Teaching (& learning) a course in a three-week block is a very different experience from completing the same course over eleven weeks. Most Augustana faculty had never taught a compressed course before Fall 2017 and were still trying to make adjustments (or realizing that adjustments were necessary) when teaching in the three-week block. Thus, many students were feeling somewhat shell-shocked when they entered AUBIO 230 - Molecular Cell Biology during the subsequent 11-week block after their first ever experience of a three-week block course. On top of that, none of these students had ever experienced a <a href="https://learntbl.ca/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">TBL course</a> before AUBIO 230. The SRI response rate was only 51% which is ~25-35% lower than typical for me and thus may represent a disproportionate number of students taking the time to respond to the online SRI survey to express their frustration with Augustana's new term structure and having to adjust to my implementation of TBL as a learning strategy. In subsequent years there were more students enrolled in AUBIO 230 who had some exposure to TBL as a teaching strategy and Augustana faculty became more adept at teaching compressed courses in the three-week block. Fall 2017 may have been a perfect storm for student dissatisfaction when I taught Molecular Cell Biology that term.</p><p>What about Fall 2020? Why did they have one of the best if not the best experience since 2011 in Molecular Cell Biology when I taught it in the fall of 2020? This surprises me because this would have been the first term that Augustana students were forced to complete all of their courses in a completely online environment as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. I know students were stressed and dissatisfied with their learning experience because a number of them personally confided in me about this. </p><p>When we were forced to transition from fully F2F teaching and learning to fully remote delivery of our courses in the middle of the previous term (Winter 2020) I had my first experience teaching online. Thus, when it became apparent in the spring of 2020 that the entirety of the 2020/21 academic year was going to be completely online I spent all my spring and summer months preparing the five different courses I was to teach in 202/21 for a totally online experience. This required many hours of attending teaching workshops to develop my ability to continue using TBL in an online educational environment. Mini-lectures needed to be video-recorded, two-stage quizzes needed to be converted from paper delivery to online delivery via our LMS, Apps had to be converted from a paper format to Google Forms. </p><p>This. </p><p>Was. </p><p>A. </p><p>Lot. </p><p>Of. </p><p>Work.</p><p>I was unable to attend to my scholarship during the 2020/21 academic year as a result. But, the silver lining is that I was able to deliver an educational experience that was sensitive to students' needs during the pandemic. I think the SRI ratings and accompanying student quotes are evidence of that. The advice of my colleagues through conversations in the different educational communities I belong to (<a href="http://coplac.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">COPLAC</a>, <a href="https://www.acube.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">ACUBE</a>, <a href="https://www.ocube.ca/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">oCUBE</a>, <a href="https://www.ubea.ca/home.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">UBEA</a>, <a href="https://www.stlhe.ca/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">STLHE</a>, <a href="https://issotl.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">ISSOTL</a>, <a href="https://www.teachingprofessor.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Teaching Professor</a>, <a href="https://www.teambasedlearning.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Team-based Learning Collaborative</a>, <a href="https://www.ualberta.ca/centre-for-teaching-and-learning/index.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">UofA's CTL</a>) all provided me with the necessary advice to successfully prepare for online teaching. The most surprising advice that I was given was to not lecture during the in-class Zoom meetings but rather use those times to answer student questions, support students as they struggled to learn in an online environment, and provide as much as possible the opportunity to practice what they are learning online. This was relatively easy for me to do because it was what I was already doing with my implementation of TBL during my typical F2F classes. The thing I had to master in order to continue doing this in an online environment was delivering two-stage quizzes (Readiness Assurance Tests, or RATs in the vocabulary of TBL) and Apps using the breakout rooms in Zoom, the adaptive mode in our LMS (Moodle which the UofA has branded <a href="https://eclass.srv.ualberta.ca/portal/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">eClass</a>) quizzing function, and Google Forms. Plus learning how to use <a href="https://www.loom.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Loom</a> to successfully video record minilectures. An incredibly large number of skills to quickly master.</p><p>Apparently, I was successful.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><i>Dealing with academic dishonesty</i></h3><p>The one sad result from the Fall 2020 teaching term was the number of cases of academic dishonesty I reported to my Associate Dean (Academic). While marking the final exam for Molecular Cell Biology I was shocked to read an answer that was word for word the one I had in my answer key. How did that happen? I found that I had used a question from an older textbook question bank and the question bank (with answers) had been photocopied and uploaded to a "homework" or "study" site such as Course Hero. After I read that copied answer I went through the other students' answers carefully and found a few more that were worded suspiciously similar to my answer rubric. </p><p>The prevalence of academic dishonesty in the Fall 2020 11-week block was a result, I think, of my decision to not use exam proctoring software for online environments. I had decided not to use exam security software in the 11-week block of Fall 2020 because students in the preceding 3-week block course that I had taught (<a href="https://activelylearning2teach.blogspot.com/2022/04/third-year-biochemistry-in-fall-2020.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">AUBIO/AUCHE 381 - Biochemistry: Intermediary Metabolism</a>) complained that they found the implementation of ExamLock to be anxiety inducing during exams. Being mindful of the anxiety already present in students as a result of the pandemic I made the decision to discontinue using ExamLock during the fall 11-week block. After experiencing the prevelance of academic dishonesty in both AUBIO 230 - Molecular Cell Biology and <a href="https://activelylearning2teach.blogspot.com/2022/03/first-year-biology-in-fall-2020.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">AUBIO 111 - Integrative Biology I</a>, I made the decision to return to using <a href="https://www.ualberta.ca/information-services-and-technology/news/2020/examlock-opens-new-doors-ualberta.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">ExamLock</a> in Winter 2021. I was unable to detect academic dishonesty in both of the courses I taught in Winter 2021.</p><p>So, there is a balance that needs to be sought between inducing unnecessary anxiety in students during exams while simultaneously ensuring that students are being examined fairly without undue advantages to some students. Using ExamLock for online learning environments seems to be the best balance for my online courses. ExamLock does not record students' physical surroundings, but does take periodic screen shots of students' computer desktop. In addition, it detects and alerts the instructor when students navigate away from the window containing the exam. This does not prevent students from using a smartphone or 2nd computer to look up answers to questions, but at least it prevents students from simply copying and pasting answers they find on the internet. I now pre-Google all exam questions before setting the exam rewording them until they are no longer easily Googleable. It takes time, but on balance using <a href="https://support.eclass.ualberta.ca/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/375/15/using-examlock-to-promote-integrity-in-eclass-quizzes" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">ExamLock</a> and pre-Googling questions seems to be the best compromise when examining student learning in an online environment. </p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Resources</h2><p><a href="https://archive.org/details/molecularbiology0000unse_e2q3/mode/2up" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Alberts, B., Johnson, A. D., Lewis, J., Morgan, D., Raff, M., Roberts, K., & Walter, P. (1983). <i>Molecular Biology of the Cell</i>. Garland Science.</a></p><p><a href="https://archive.org/details/essentialcellbio0000unse_i5j6/page/n7/mode/2up" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Alberts, B., Johnson, A., Hopkin, K., Raff, M., Roberts, K., Bray, D., Lewis, J., & Walter, P. (1998). <i>Essential cell biology</i>. Garland Science.</a></p><p><a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393680362" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Alberts, B., Hopkin, K., Johnson, A., Morgan, D., Raff, M., Roberts, K., & Walter, P. (2019). <i>Essential Cell Biology</i> (5th ed.). W. W. Norton & Company.</a> </p><p><a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-ca/Becoming+a+Critically+Reflective+Teacher%2C+2nd+Edition-p-9781119050711" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Brookfield, S. D. (2017). <i>Becoming a critically reflective teacher</i> (2nd ed.). Jossey-Bass. </a></p><p><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4643940/pdf/nihms-730983.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Haide, P., Kubitz, K., & McCormack, W. T. (2014). <i>Analysis of the team-based learning literature: TBL comes of age</i>. <i>Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 25</i>(3&4), 303–333</a>.</p>Neil Haavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13952094460830822185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6414649070616166194.post-77643375017366819962022-05-20T17:46:00.001-06:002022-05-20T17:46:07.521-06:00cognitive vs emotional tension in the classroom: encourage the former, diffuse the latterI was re-reading some notes I made during the 2016 <a href="https://www.ualberta.ca/centre-for-teaching-and-learning/events/festival-of-teaching/index.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Festival of Teaching</a> at the University of Alberta and noted that I heard a number of excellent faculty discuss what drives their teaching and how they developed themselves as teachers. One interesting issue that came up is whether or not it is good to either foster tension in the classroom or dissolve/dismiss tension in the classroom. After thinking about it, I think there are actually two issues going on here. One faculty member who incorporates the development of tension and seeks it out in order to cultivate it in his classroom I believe was referring to cognitive tension; that is, enabling students to first see and then evaluate the tension within a dichotomy or paradox. This particular faculty member, Jérôme Melançon works hard to enable students to think and analyze cognitive tension.<br />
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The other was looking to diffuse affective tension in the classroom. - this is emotional tension. This is the tension that exists for students when they are unsure whether they are up to the task of the expectations of the course and instructor. Or the tension that materializes when students are intimidated by the instructor or feel unsure about where they stand in relation to the rest of the students in the class. This is the kind of tension that as instructors we try to diffuse when we attempt to create a safe classroom environment.<br />
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On the other hand, having students constructively evaluate and consider the tension that is present between their existing mental models and the new knowledge that confronts them in the current course is to be cultivated. This is what the keynote speaker, Ken Bain was explaining that the best college teachers enable students to integrate new learning into their existing knowledge structure (deep learning) rather than simply wrapping the new knowledge around students existing mental models. Sometimes this requires students to break down and remake, from the bottom-up, their worldview in order to integrate new knowledge. When this happens, education becomes a transformative experience because students have been enabled by their learning environment to re-consider how they understood the world to be and as a result see the world with new eyes as a result of a new integrated and thus more robust knowledge structure.<br />
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Neil Haavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13952094460830822185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6414649070616166194.post-46194019334496124542022-04-21T14:15:00.003-06:002022-06-03T10:25:03.312-06:00third year biochemistry in fall 2020<h4 style="text-align: left;">Introduction</h4><p>This is my 3rd reflection on my experience with online teaching during the pandemic of the 2020/21 academic year. This reflection considers the course AUBIO 381/AUCHE 381 - Biochemistry: Intermediary Metabolism which I taught in the fall term of 2020. Links to my other reflections may be found at this link <a href="https://activelylearning2teach.blogspot.com/2022/02/surviving-online-teaching-during.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</p><p>AUBIO/AUCHE 381 - Intermediary Metabolism, is a course that I teach on the <a href="https://www.ualberta.ca/augustana/index.html" target="_blank">Augustana Campus of the University of Alberta</a>. The Augustana Campus is the rural undergraduate liberal arts and sciences campus of a large research university whose primary campus (among five) is in Edmonton, the capital of Alberta. Edmonton is an hour northwest of Camrose where the Augustana Campus is located. Augustana has a small student population (1100) relative to the rest of the university (40,000).</p><p>I have been teaching Intermediary Metabolism approximately every other year since the early 1990s for a total of 16 iterations. B/C 381 requires a previous course in biochemistry (B/C 280) as a prerequisite such that students are familiar with amino acids, proteins, enzymes, glycolysis, the TCA cycle, and oxidative phosphorylation. Entry into B/C 381 thus assumes additional prerequisite knowledge that was required for entry into the first biochemistry course (i.e., knowledge of organic chemistry and cell biology). Intermediary Metabolism is typically a smaller enrolment course: it has ranged from 3 to 24 students over the years. Typical enrollment is 10- 15 students. Fall 2020 enrolment was on the large side with 24 students.</p><p>This blog post reflects on my teaching of this course during the 3-week block of the Fall 2020 term. That was the first time I have ever taught this course compressed into 3-weeks during which instructors meet with their students for three hours every day. It was also the first time I had ever taught this course online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I taught this iteration of Intermediary Metabolism using team-based learning (TBL) as I have been doing for the last few years (Sibley, 2018). </p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Methods & Materials</h4><p>My implementation of TBL adhered to a traditional delivery with a RAP (readiness assurance process), followed by mini-lectures as necessary and Apps (applications of learning) as is possible in an online environment. The RAP consisted of students preparing for a short quiz (i.e., iRAT consisting of 10 MCQs) completed at the beginning of the first day of a course topic (e.g., fatty acid synthesis). The quiz is completed individually and then completed again as a team (tRAT). Students were given 15 minutes to complete the iRAT (individual readiness assurance test) which was written online over Zoom using the quizzing function of our LMS (based on Moodle) and <a href="https://www.ualberta.ca/information-services-and-technology/news/2020/examlock-opens-new-doors-ualberta.html" target="_blank">ExamLock</a>, our locally produced online exam software. This exam software does not monitor the student's physical space. Rather it monitors their computer desktop taking periodic screen captures and notes an alert when a student opens another window on their computer. </p><p>I implemented the tRATs (team readiness assurance test) online using Zoom's breakout room feature. One student per team was granted access to the tRAT. While completing the tRAT as a team, the person inputting the team answers shared their screen with their team-mates through Zoom. Student teams were given the remaining time in the class after the iRAT to complete and submit their tRAT. Different from the iRAT, tRATs are set up in our LMS such that students are permitted multiple attempts at any given question for a lesser value. Thus, if students get the answer to a question correct on their first attempt, that question is granted 3 points, correct on 2nd attempt, the question garners 2 points, etc. Student teams (which are stable throughout the course) returned to the main Zoom classroom once they submitted their tRAT when I would review their results with them often generating discussion about why a particular answer was correct (or incorrect) and how different teams went about solving the question. This sometimes turned into minilectures - I explained material to students as necessary. Short video recordings on each course topic that I had made for students were also available throughout the term.</p><p>I supported my students' independent learning for the RAP and subsequent Apps by preparing <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rUCLZT8nlzJHL_ezOhKVb33lbpfmk7zg/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">reading guides</a> that listed the objectives of the course section, keywords and a carefully curated list of pages that they were invited to read from the assigned textbook. In addition, on the class day before the RAT instead of a lecture, I hosted students' questions about the reading, This is different from how I have implemented TBL in this course in previous years. In previous years I had relied on office hours for students to seek me out with their questions. But given the stress of the pandemic and to ensure that there was a time when all students were assured of being able to access my time, I used some class time to respond to students' questions. Some students availed themselves of this opportunity, but most used that class time to either read the textbook or view the <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rUgkURFKSXEhFxze5r195WPsjc6Zbh9N/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">video-recorded minilectures</a> that I had prepared for them over the summer. <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rUY0FeTwfFzNsQ9OHVRKYwMN-PGQ5vPG/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">PDFs of the slideshows</a> used in the minilectures were also available for student viewing via our LMS.</p><p>In addition, I made available online quizzes for each course topic that students could attempt twice during the week they were made available with their highest score contributing nominally toward their final grade. Students also had the option of writing a term paper in exchange for RATs and term exams being of lesser value though no students availed themselves of this option in Fall 2020.</p><p>The course syllabus for the Fall 2020 iteration of AUBIO/AUCHE 381 is available at this link <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vDrG3h-yiXFv6n05ac2zVZaQFAmCsAJF/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">here</a>. </p><p>In this blog post, I use Brookfield's (1998) four lenses of critical reflection (personal experience, student voices, colleagues' experience, and the published literature) to consider how this course unfolded in Fall 2020. I use the SRIs (student ratings of instruction) that I received that term as the lens of students' experiences placing them in the context of others I have received over the years. I have posted the details of Augustana's SRIs in a previous blog post linked <a href="https://activelylearning2teach.blogspot.com/2022/02/history-theory-of-biology-in-w21.html" target="_blank">here</a>. Note that the student comments below in the Results section are in response to four open-ended questions inviting students to type their comments into our online SRI survey:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>What aspects of the course and/or instructor did you find most valuable?</li><li>What aspects of the course and/or instructor did you find least valuable?</li><li>How useful were the course textbook(s) and/or other learning support materials?</li><li>Please add any other comments that you would like to make about the course and/or instructor.</li></ul><div>In the graphs below you will notice the lack of SRI data for the Fall 2006 and 2018 cohorts plus for a couple of other questions for cohorts from Fall 2007 and Winter 2009. This was the result of an administrative error resulting in students not being invited to complete the end of term SRI survey or those particular questions not being included on the survey for B/C 381.</div><p></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Results</h4><div>Generally, students highly rated my teaching and the course itself. I am very pleased that students responded positively to my instructional efforts.</div><div><br /></div><div>The average SRI in Fall 2020 for the <i>excellence of my instruction</i> was 4.7. ANOVA detected significant differences among the cohorts with the Tukey-Kramer post-hoc test detecting differences between the F2007 and all other cohorts <i>with the exception</i> of F2016 (α=0.05). </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEHvnBq3uSdUHa4SclInFnXUWh0op-FvxMsehSNgUwWCrjuu9u_mkiOHD9MoNc5P2HgnTkjVeiuiF5Io3QHkvzDJ9V-QsDshLZDvGG07N82s237RbkGKD9jWnAi-Lt_7Y8FvXw6URAYudblJKlG16I6cILtH5UaUdW4RIcZS9xgCTr27V5ty0_WMry/s1322/B381-instructor.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1322" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEHvnBq3uSdUHa4SclInFnXUWh0op-FvxMsehSNgUwWCrjuu9u_mkiOHD9MoNc5P2HgnTkjVeiuiF5Io3QHkvzDJ9V-QsDshLZDvGG07N82s237RbkGKD9jWnAi-Lt_7Y8FvXw6URAYudblJKlG16I6cILtH5UaUdW4RIcZS9xgCTr27V5ty0_WMry/w640-h218/B381-instructor.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The student comments corroborated the numerical ratings:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i>The lectures are also helpful in understanding aspects not fully understood by the chapter readings.</i></li><li><i>The prerecorded lectures were fantastically done and overall the class was very enjoyable.</i></li><li><i>Dr.Haave has an amazing passion for this subject and is clearly very knowledgeable.</i></li><li><i>I really liked that our tests were open book, I feel that was the best decision given the circumstances and I applaud Dr. Haave for choosing to do it that way.</i></li><li><i>I always thoroughly enjoy Dr. Haave courses, he is always visibly excited to be teaching, especially in AUBIO 381. I found myself smiling as I would almost make out a giggle or two come out of his lips as he explained certain metabolic concepts and ideas. It always helps me learn when a professor is as engaged in the material that they teach as Dr. Haave is.</i><i></i></li><li><i>Great professor who has a lot of knowledge.</i></li><li><i>Dr. Haave is one of my favourite professors at Augustana, and I'm always happy to take courses with him. His passion for teaching his students while learning from them really makes his classes enjoyable. Thanks for another great semester!!</i></li></ul></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">ANOVA detected significant differences among the cohorts regarding the <i>quality of the course content</i>. The Tukey-Kramer post-hoc test detected differences between the F2007 and W2011 cohorts (α=0.05).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkfC2Olijii3K4zuBtZOEYjaH_XR1jkYt5XW_tMGPEiKvo_va5QqTQjspQulE2qxDzWN4dLcKsdKkKmiD9CmhJ_Dd1_OdSmZIT0ymDhnz_qqUIFQ6TGcMRMvTZBT-BcgIsHGlCbE2RjBKQy2TrHVEJj5ZQVtiUPY7DVuiZWBBHK27f_G-B56eyxfor/s1444/B381-content.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1444" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkfC2Olijii3K4zuBtZOEYjaH_XR1jkYt5XW_tMGPEiKvo_va5QqTQjspQulE2qxDzWN4dLcKsdKkKmiD9CmhJ_Dd1_OdSmZIT0ymDhnz_qqUIFQ6TGcMRMvTZBT-BcgIsHGlCbE2RjBKQy2TrHVEJj5ZQVtiUPY7DVuiZWBBHK27f_G-B56eyxfor/w640-h200/B381-content.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Some student comments from Fall 2020:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i>The content is generally interesting.</i></li><li><i>The content of this course was really interesting, and I enjoyed this course way more than I was expecting to!</i></li><li><i>I found this class to be both interesting and a challenge throughout the semester.</i></li></ul></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Although the spread in students rating the <i>course as a positive learning experience</i> is greater than in previous years, the average is still high at 4.2. ANOVA did not detect any significant differences among the student cohorts. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8-OUd2Dba-XwGMBjBtIMNNG7bKGcR3EjnjAdGLNsYL72UI9xeGzpUCbeWSXwgZ72DB4hJJyIxMS7rMh0tAyfc64p_SaUCdjFUgpQ0aXvek6O97v1TXNUo5U50tZdw2I3OLsZhRHN8xmMaktxLz7RSt0ymxYqOu8q3mZN6JCGSihf3jytviUh2OaTm/s1324/B381-experience.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1324" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8-OUd2Dba-XwGMBjBtIMNNG7bKGcR3EjnjAdGLNsYL72UI9xeGzpUCbeWSXwgZ72DB4hJJyIxMS7rMh0tAyfc64p_SaUCdjFUgpQ0aXvek6O97v1TXNUo5U50tZdw2I3OLsZhRHN8xmMaktxLz7RSt0ymxYqOu8q3mZN6JCGSihf3jytviUh2OaTm/w640-h218/B381-experience.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Student comments from Fall 2020 corroborate the numerical data:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i>I like the team aspect of the course, I think it's very valuable.</i></li><li><i>This has probably been one of my favourite courses I have taken so far!</i></li><li><i>The lectures were very meticulously planned and thought out which translated into a very effective learning experience.</i></li><li><i>Overall, this course was super enjoyable! Thank you Dr. Haave!</i></li><li><i>Thanks for the great semester</i></li><li><i>Thank you for a great semester!</i></li><li><i>Overall, awesome course!</i></li></ul></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">ANOVA did not detect any significant differences among the student cohorts regarding how <i>well prepared I was as an instructor</i>. The median and average for Fall 2020 were high at 5 and 4.9, respectively. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA1cVcL7qQenJxO9NJ0Z8h9O5BFNAzjmvGKbKZFautfzYBUxNzjOsRVXfzQmOfaZeVGQDRFMGX05JJMDIJDe1nqh37RmdPeKc7KHVFuEYR-PmWCossXRrw8gi5b9tQ9deNrZPXGGN3x2_FkZkbrGCUg6bCVWL7JRUahlEABemcHDm99kPT6_9O-C5j/s1366/B381-prepared.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1366" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA1cVcL7qQenJxO9NJ0Z8h9O5BFNAzjmvGKbKZFautfzYBUxNzjOsRVXfzQmOfaZeVGQDRFMGX05JJMDIJDe1nqh37RmdPeKc7KHVFuEYR-PmWCossXRrw8gi5b9tQ9deNrZPXGGN3x2_FkZkbrGCUg6bCVWL7JRUahlEABemcHDm99kPT6_9O-C5j/w640-h212/B381-prepared.png" width="640" /></a></div>The student comments from Fall 2020 again corroborate the numerical data:<div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i>the reading guides were very clear and provides a good direction to go as we read the chapter.</i></li><li><i>THE PRE-RECORDED VIDEOS WERE AWESOME!!! You could even use them for in-person classes as like homework and use the other class times doing irats, trats and apps!</i></li><li><i>I appreciate his organization and structure to the course.</i></li><li><i>I appreciate the effort he went through to make the transition to online learning smoother, particularly providing the video-recorded lectures</i></li><li><i>You put a lot of work into designing this course remotely, Dr. Haave and it really paid off!</i></li><li><i>It was very evident that Dr. Haave put a ton of work into preparing the course for a virtual setting and it did not go unnoticed!</i></li><li><i>Dr.Haave made the transition to online very smooth, especially with his very organized schedule for the semester.</i><i></i></li><li><i><i>I really liked the asynchronous style that Dr. Haave employed in his class.</i></i></li></ul><div><br /></div><div>In Fall 2020 students highly rated the <i>effectiveness of how I used our in-class time</i> with an average of 4.3 (in Fall 2020 in-class time was the synchronous meetings over Zoom).<i> </i>ANOVA detected significant differences among the cohorts with the Tukey-Kramer post-hoc test detecting differences between the W2009 and F2016 cohorts (α=0.05). <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiYRJI07xV3lXIOYWAhbudz44CIxMuzgzJ4F67gKh2ZgvctX4HlreGKSJUO2-lmJXfibqtvMN6QwbmL1zoRZjZgJyMZjw6mSG2hO7Kf8GgAAT6mw5lz29DGhXnjxarkX9_H5wC-R300S1KpfJUE0UW3HrA5zGf2eOAKbtvQFuNGYIdZW9e4bihvljL/s1258/B381-class-time.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1258" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiYRJI07xV3lXIOYWAhbudz44CIxMuzgzJ4F67gKh2ZgvctX4HlreGKSJUO2-lmJXfibqtvMN6QwbmL1zoRZjZgJyMZjw6mSG2hO7Kf8GgAAT6mw5lz29DGhXnjxarkX9_H5wC-R300S1KpfJUE0UW3HrA5zGf2eOAKbtvQFuNGYIdZW9e4bihvljL/w640-h230/B381-class-time.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Some sample student comments from Fall 2020:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>[...] <i>I still found the team-based active learning style to be helpful for better understanding the content and forcing us to stay caught up.</i></li><li><i>I really like the aspects of team-based learning incorporated as it allows us to learn and collaborate.</i></li></ul></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Students have always highly rated my <i>clarity of speech</i> with Fall 2020 being no different. ANOVA did detect significant differences among the student cohorts with the Tukey-Kramer post-hoc test indicating that the F2007 cohort was significantly different from the W2009, W2011 & W2013 cohorts (α=0.05). </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaRiyshyAN0pUCA3LsD7wDWEvrxcfBHQ_gyba4CPJeB1KK3-L0j9wY2lR7FEsvu-uEvENEiv7VAfG4wTNdglq09_Hf24gtlFTOJUMNvkvADddBWo_WwAi6Gps6rPUMXHtwlSttLxAA4O0VxI6526R9XYlzckxa_l0WDDJZGdisNYU-8WDTV_TpuFri/s1348/B381-speech.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1348" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaRiyshyAN0pUCA3LsD7wDWEvrxcfBHQ_gyba4CPJeB1KK3-L0j9wY2lR7FEsvu-uEvENEiv7VAfG4wTNdglq09_Hf24gtlFTOJUMNvkvADddBWo_WwAi6Gps6rPUMXHtwlSttLxAA4O0VxI6526R9XYlzckxa_l0WDDJZGdisNYU-8WDTV_TpuFri/w640-h214/B381-speech.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">One Fall 2020 student commented that: <i>He also speaks very clearly and communicates well.</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Students in Intermediary Metabolism have consistently highly rated the <i>feedback I provide them throughout the course</i>. Fall 2020 was no different with ANOVA not detecting any significant differences among the student cohorts. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj51Pybl7ow6Su_T5tTmdS8A3KOkjwRiBtcF_gcSD146OYTcdf4pcjc0gyWpcxndlME0QvkcVBRZ7mLb96awJdYiEq8N-eYz03xIQRKYocbDDKYdEvVTSyBJoafru6-gZ8Hx9bFL4aJQSN64rtKVF4kTc0PhZtMwuGVkvYwZIZMgzIYZ8hJ-VN70Q75/s1386/B381-feedback.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1386" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj51Pybl7ow6Su_T5tTmdS8A3KOkjwRiBtcF_gcSD146OYTcdf4pcjc0gyWpcxndlME0QvkcVBRZ7mLb96awJdYiEq8N-eYz03xIQRKYocbDDKYdEvVTSyBJoafru6-gZ8Hx9bFL4aJQSN64rtKVF4kTc0PhZtMwuGVkvYwZIZMgzIYZ8hJ-VN70Q75/w640-h208/B381-feedback.png" width="640" /></a></div>Some sample student comments from Fall 2020:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i>The most valuable part of the course was that the lecture videos were very useful and all of the quizzes were helpful in understanding the material.</i></li><li><i>We were constantly tested throughout the term on all of the content, which helped reinforce it!</i></li><li><i>I found the two-stage quizzes and team applications to be the most valuable. This enabled me to collaborate with other students and work together to find the correct answers.</i></li></ul><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The <i>goals and objectives</i> I set for Intermediary Metabolism have consistently been rated as being clear by students over the last decade and a half. ANOVA did not detect any significant differences among the student cohorts. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRAucsyL3f5PPUwETmVET_IYH1eU8er5gIbvKPCYt6yjftUrLjk5LKmoHMe3dj8eHQkgr8pAzgkWFQAnJI9Au5hIhcXhXcWn_sooJjk2E74EJp3nRoriWKwspB5X53IJqgtfbKwX6VQIsp2zU26r6y6nFNqvU5WczJDinqVlN7FMf6L2ifF6n4Hy7i/s1326/B381-objectives.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1326" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRAucsyL3f5PPUwETmVET_IYH1eU8er5gIbvKPCYt6yjftUrLjk5LKmoHMe3dj8eHQkgr8pAzgkWFQAnJI9Au5hIhcXhXcWn_sooJjk2E74EJp3nRoriWKwspB5X53IJqgtfbKwX6VQIsp2zU26r6y6nFNqvU5WczJDinqVlN7FMf6L2ifF6n4Hy7i/w640-h218/B381-objectives.png" width="640" /></a></div>One student commented that <i>The online structure of this course was excellent! It provided students with a schedule but gave them the freedom to complete class work at </i>[t]<i>heir pace.</i></div><div><div><br /></div><div>B/C 381 students have generally been <i>motivated to learn </i>more about Intermediary Metabolism with the Fall 2020 SRI average being 4.1. ANOVA did not detect any significant differences among the student cohorts. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir6niVwAEwCWsGh5ciR7eo1eSuFGc836TYg9-TyBOpdoKA_EV-fxmLZGpQgYV4-s1K9B6M3L9P-yxMV9GTroLL3E3iSgO-2hjvt-6YYD7zz7JywnVCUpJ8v5AIR_-7HL3oMVaTT0ewkmapX7irgL0ifEIR2yl6FD6EshEiBWKi-uHpxdr377nWbOYo/s1420/B381-motivation.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1420" height="204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir6niVwAEwCWsGh5ciR7eo1eSuFGc836TYg9-TyBOpdoKA_EV-fxmLZGpQgYV4-s1K9B6M3L9P-yxMV9GTroLL3E3iSgO-2hjvt-6YYD7zz7JywnVCUpJ8v5AIR_-7HL3oMVaTT0ewkmapX7irgL0ifEIR2yl6FD6EshEiBWKi-uHpxdr377nWbOYo/w640-h204/B381-motivation.png" width="640" /></a></div>One student commented on the Fall 2020 SRI: [...] <i>am hopeful to learn more about biochemistry in the future!</i></div><div><br /></div><div>Intermediary Metabolism students have consistently highly rated my <i>respectful treatment</i> of them with the Fall 2020 median and average being 5 and 4.9, respectively. ANOVA did not detect any significant differences among the student cohorts. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgADqRo-9LW-IrjXMiJl2YAi2c6dAdPmlGIiys4yiCkVp1Hj7CeFWogxKj2mOBXJm8IqMZBuML1f4bvR02jRvGoa8S6pKuoKRaiWMNvgEUOiZXc4SCOC-7nSW87ruUQtcv9W-cCUp6hIIUxOsVKGG47_9IaNnnYwYkVL9poBN2l69E8HqK5W3J-VwRV/s1338/B381-respect.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1338" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgADqRo-9LW-IrjXMiJl2YAi2c6dAdPmlGIiys4yiCkVp1Hj7CeFWogxKj2mOBXJm8IqMZBuML1f4bvR02jRvGoa8S6pKuoKRaiWMNvgEUOiZXc4SCOC-7nSW87ruUQtcv9W-cCUp6hIIUxOsVKGG47_9IaNnnYwYkVL9poBN2l69E8HqK5W3J-VwRV/w640-h216/B381-respect.png" width="640" /></a></div>None of the Fall 2020 student comments explicitly discussed how I treated them with respect but these selected comments do imply that:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i>Dr. Haave is very passionate about teaching biochemistry to his students and you can tell that he really cares about his students.</i></li><li><i>I also appreciated </i>[sic]<i> how Dr. Haave's had office hours.</i></li><li><i>I'm glad the instructor was pretty flexible to our needs and usually gave us more time if it was required.</i></li></ul><div><br /></div><div>Students enrolled in B/C 381 have consistently indicated that they <i>increased their knowledge</i> of Intermediary Metabolism with the Fall 2020 SRI average being 4.6. ANOVA did detect significant differences among the cohorts (α=0.05) but the Tukey-Kramer post-hoc test did not detect any differences between cohort pairs. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaNKpQz1eFJ26c_WnFKtFpZ7-OUTncer4x0RKDjG65fgSdw82cGaxaac9xiQUWg7ME2Vwrm7CdIjnHkkjGLsgxOQ3snhF1HDNimGTY68WhMwHCOqhRp_61ceFxG1hx0eJ-uTc5HHR8Vkh0nh48ZbEUEB4Hk4RSbjZP_V8wEfSxqYW7n9ogiS8aZQIk/s1326/B381-knowledge.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1326" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaNKpQz1eFJ26c_WnFKtFpZ7-OUTncer4x0RKDjG65fgSdw82cGaxaac9xiQUWg7ME2Vwrm7CdIjnHkkjGLsgxOQ3snhF1HDNimGTY68WhMwHCOqhRp_61ceFxG1hx0eJ-uTc5HHR8Vkh0nh48ZbEUEB4Hk4RSbjZP_V8wEfSxqYW7n9ogiS8aZQIk/w640-h218/B381-knowledge.png" width="640" /></a></div><div>One Fall 2020 student commented that <i>I learned a lot...</i> </div><div><div><br /></div><div>Generally, students rate my courses (biochemistry, molecular cell biology, histology, biological function) among the most <i>difficult</i> that they complete with the highest <i>workload</i>. Intermediary Metabolism is no different. ANOVA did not detect any differences among the student cohorts regarding the difficulty or workload of Intermediary Metabolism. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0ymvAYBNx8ocW5M5pC7pHj8719SVmoCH8ZPTbFoYAChI_Xd3Y4UqdRy06Nd5IPc8AAQIb4Il1cMUxvIr8hGNWzw3pPTGfMxqeSK2zZn06CoAN_3mM8QUnPVxWUCMpXjdv3Eleh-ZOa13FL9Fjd_npwtmpBkaDMIf2Tr13EztlSNxOokAmwcrM0Ngk/s1260/B381-difficult.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1260" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0ymvAYBNx8ocW5M5pC7pHj8719SVmoCH8ZPTbFoYAChI_Xd3Y4UqdRy06Nd5IPc8AAQIb4Il1cMUxvIr8hGNWzw3pPTGfMxqeSK2zZn06CoAN_3mM8QUnPVxWUCMpXjdv3Eleh-ZOa13FL9Fjd_npwtmpBkaDMIf2Tr13EztlSNxOokAmwcrM0Ngk/w640-h230/B381-difficult.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8c-y_vvKKcH3hIZ8uHwoPR-lwyiTE2szv9Qf4f56qiVdOPP0DMyDVD-2OzFn9bDc3w4Z_ylqNtuAA-oOfFfhXQY-bv_eq1ceEAuX7tOPQN1TfgOMyibsf0-BxjH7QyZDaHuaXZwqeNM567JJd-zVaaYVGSTq5ddIuInwZ8Ba2J-1fNt1abJJ2USVY/s1436/B381-workload.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1436" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8c-y_vvKKcH3hIZ8uHwoPR-lwyiTE2szv9Qf4f56qiVdOPP0DMyDVD-2OzFn9bDc3w4Z_ylqNtuAA-oOfFfhXQY-bv_eq1ceEAuX7tOPQN1TfgOMyibsf0-BxjH7QyZDaHuaXZwqeNM567JJd-zVaaYVGSTq5ddIuInwZ8Ba2J-1fNt1abJJ2USVY/w640-h202/B381-workload.png" width="640" /></a></div>Some sample student comments regarding workload and difficulty of Intermediary Metabolism:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i>I think group work really helps with Dr. Haave's classes. His classes are always so difficult and I need help from my peers to see things from a different perspective.</i></li><li>[...] <i>it was extremely difficult, exceeding the level of difficulty of any other class I have taken including classes of a more advanced level.</i></li><li><i>By far the hardest course I ve taken </i>[sic]<i> at university.</i></li><li><i>This course is ridiculously difficult.</i></li><li><i>[...] there is just a sheer volume of content that must be gone through and explained.</i></li><li><i>The expectations in this course far exceed any other course at the same level.</i></li><li><i>The course load requirements for this class are greater than the rest of my classes combined.</i></li><li><i>We've learned so much in this course that it feels like an information overload.</i></li></ul><div>Many of these above criticisms of the workload and course difficulty were written in response to the open response question: "What aspects of the course and/or instructor did you find least valuable?" However, clearly, not everyone thought that the workload or difficulty of the course was overwhelming as exemplified by a couple of students who wrote in response to this open response question what did you find least valuable: </div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i>Honestly, none </i></li><li><i>N/A.</i></li></ul></div><div>Although many students appreciated the RATs and Apps as indicated in the comments above, there was at least one student who found it overwhelming to have these on a weekly basis: </div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i>I found the fact that we had a RAT every single week to be a bit much and overwhelming at times.</i></li></ul></div><div>While the team aspect of TBL was appreciated by many students as evidenced by the comments above (see feedback and class time), there were a couple of students who rightly identified the difficulty of completing group work in an online setting as a result of the pandemic: </div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i>I found the online format made communication with team members more challenging, as it was more difficult to receive social cues and contribute without completely interrupting others (and of course occasional internet connection problems!). While it was still beneficial to work as a team, these challenges made APPs take longer than I think they normally would, and/or not as well discussed. </i></li></ul>But others thought the online delivery as I implemented worked well: </div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>[...] <i>the online delivery was excellent.</i><br /></li></ul>Finally, although the majority of student comments regarding my video-recorded mini-lectures were very positive, there were a couple of students who indicated that they felt that they were too long in duration:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i>I thought that sometimes the mini-lectures got too long as you couldn't complete them in the time usually allotted for the class.</i></li><li><i>The only complaint is that the lectures were quite long, requiring a lot of time that needed to be dedicated to this course in particular, but I also understand that there is just a sheer volume of content that must be gone through and explained.</i></li></ul><div>Generally, my video recordings were each between 10 and 20 minutes in duration but each course topic had anywhere from five to seven video recordings available for student viewing.</div><div><br /></div>For the fourth open-ended question "How useful were the course textbook(s) and/or other learning support materials" all 15 student written responses were overwhelmingly positive. One sample comment illustrates this:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i>The lecture videos were excellent, and the slideshows were very helpful! The reading guides and the textbook was also very useful.</i></li></ul></div><h4 style="text-align: left;">Discussion</h4><p>The comments and ratings from my Fall 2020 cohort of B/C 381 students are very positive. In the Spring of 2020 when I realized that our university was going to be fully online for the 2020/21 academic year as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, I spent all of my available work time on retooling the five courses I was going to teach from being delivered fully F2F to fully online. This required a rethinking of how I would implement TBL in my courses and how I would best support my students learning as they worked from wherever they were living. Many of the teaching workshops that I attended hosted by the UofA's <a href="https://www.ualberta.ca/centre-for-teaching-and-learning/teaching-support/index.html" target="_blank">Centre for Teaching and Learning</a>, or <a href="https://www.ocube.ca/" target="_blank">oCUBE</a>, <a href="https://www.ubea.ca/home.html" target="_blank">UBEA</a>, <a href="https://www.acube.org/" target="_blank">ACUBE</a>, <a href="http://coplac.org/" target="_blank">COPLAC</a>, <a href="https://www.stlhe.ca/" target="_blank">STLHE</a>, <a href="https://www.teambasedlearning.org/" target="_blank">The TBL Collaborative</a>, and <a href="https://www.teachingprofessor.com/" target="_blank">The Teaching Professor</a> suggested that the best way to support students' online learning was to deliver our teaching with a mix of synchronous and asynchronous activities. I already had PDFs of my lecture slideshows available for students to use on their own, but the biggest take-home message I heard in all of these workshops was not to do live lecturing online and to instead pre-record short mini-lectures that students could watch on their own time and at their own pace. This is how I spent the bulk of my time during the Spring and Summer of 2020 with additional recording after classes began. This was an awful lot of work in planning, video recording, editing and posting the files in the proper format for sharing with our students through our university's LMS. I was unable to be actively engaged in my scholarship as a result until the Spring of 2021.</p><p>So, I am very gratified that my efforts were recognized by my students as evidenced by the SRIs I received from them. I am especially pleased by the positive comments I received about my pre-recorded video minilectures and the way that I implemented TBL in an online setting. Also, my experiment with using class time for office hours and encouraging students to join me on Zoom with their questions was well received by students. As a result, I feel that the time and effort I devoted to retooling my courses for online teaching and learning and the expense of my scholarship were justified.</p><p>The only thing that causes me concern is the difficulty and the workload that some (but not all) students found problematic which is an ongoing issue for the courses I teach. I am not sure what to do about this other than to carefully winnow the amount of material I teach in my courses which I have been doing for a number of years. Traditionally, a 3rd-year biochemistry course is a very challenging course at any university. I know for myself that my own undergraduate course in metabolism was an incredibly challenging yet fascinating course in my third year. Yet, I am concerned about the potential "tyranny of content" in this course (Petersen et al, 2020). I think of the tyranny of content in terms of how Paulo Freire considers the transmission of knowledge to be oppressive (his banking model of instruction). When there is too much content to be learned by students transmitted by instructors this limits students' ability to think and apply what they have learned. However, my implementation of TBL as the instructional strategy in my courses mitigates the oppressive nature of teaching by knowledge transmission. TBL mitigates the potential for the tyranny of content by explicitly making space to apply what they have learned and think about the implications of what they are learning. Freire (2018) advocates for problem-based learning as a liberating education because it encourages and supports students to think about what they are learning in their lived world. The framework of TBL ensures this occurs through the establishment of stable learning communities (teams) and well-implemented RAP and Apps. What I mean by well-implemented is that it is difficult for instructors to design appropriate RAPs and Apps that are within students' zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978). It is no easy task to design applications of learning that are difficult for students to solve on their own but are solvable within a team or learning community because this is so dependent upon the material being learned, the year level of the course, and students' own lived experience. But this is the work of any instructor.</p><p>I think this is why some students in B/C 381 expressed dismay at the workload and difficulty of the course whereas other students simply acknowledged that it was a challenge to be met. Students who have well-learned prerequisite material for Intermediary Metabolism will be well-positioned to meet the challenge. In contrast, students who have performed more poorly in prerequisite courses do accumulate a knowledge deficit that is difficult to overcome when they find themselves in a challenging course like biochemistry. On the other hand, it is incumbent upon the instructor to meet students where they are in their learning journey. This of course is best done in a one-on-one mentoring capacity. In contrast, when instructors are faced with a class of many students, they need to pitch their teaching to the majority of students; sadly some students' learning needs may not be met if they exceed the capacity of an instructor to meet them where they are in their learning journey given the constraints of instructor's own lived experience as a teacher, researcher, committee member, community member, and family member.</p><p>The other constraint on teachers is our professional responsibility to ensure that students meet the learning expectations of subsequent courses and professional programs. This consideration is significant in the courses I teach (biochemistry, molecular cell biology, histology) which are typically of interest in health science programs. Hence, it is my job to ensure that students in these courses achieve a certain mastery of the discipline which includes thinking in the disciplinary language. Thus, as an instructor, I am caught in the tension of meeting the professional expectations of my discipline with the learning expectations and needs of my students. I do get this balance right for most students, but disappointingly not for all students as indicated in some of the comments above. I take solace in the fact that I am well-meeting the learning needs of the majority of my students.</p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Resources</h4><p>Brookfield, S. (1998). <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/chp.1340180402" target="_blank">Critically reflective practice</a>. <i>Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions, 18</i>(4), 197–205. </p><p>Freire, P. (2018). Pedagogy of the oppressed (50th anniv). Bloomsbury Academic. [The 30th anniversary edition is available online <a href="chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/viewer.html?pdfurl=https%3A%2F%2Fenvs.ucsc.edu%2Finternships%2Finternship-readings%2Ffreire-pedagogy-of-the-oppressed.pdf&clen=5943959&chunk=true" target="_blank">here</a>.]</p><p>Petersen, C. I., Baepler, P., Beitz, A., Ching, P., Gorman, K. S., Neudauer, C. L., Rozaitis, W., Walker, J. D., & Wingert, D. (2020). <a href="https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.19-04-0079" target="_blank">The tyranny of content: “Content coverage” as a barrier to evidence-based teaching approaches and ways to overcome it</a>. <i>CBE—Life Sciences Education, 19</i>(2), ar17.</p><p>Sibley, J. (2018). <i>LearnTBL</i>. <a href="https://learntbl.ca/">https://learntbl.ca/</a></p><p>Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). <a href="https://innovation.umn.edu/igdi/wp-content/uploads/sites/37/2018/08/Interaction_Between_Learning_and_Development.pdf" target="_blank">Interaction between learning and development.</a> In M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner, & E. Souberman (Eds.), <i>Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes </i>(pp. 79–91). Harvard University Press.</p></div></div>Neil Haavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13952094460830822185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6414649070616166194.post-5940809105266285082022-03-08T16:57:00.013-07:002022-06-03T10:24:48.968-06:00first-year biology in fall 2020<h4 style="text-align: left;">Introduction</h4><p>This is the second instalment of my reflections on my experience with online teaching during the pandemic of the 2020/21 academic year. This reflection considers the course AUBIO 111 - Integrative Biology I which I taught in the fall term of 2021. Links to my other reflections may be found at this link <a href="https://activelylearning2teach.blogspot.com/2022/02/surviving-online-teaching-during.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</p><p>The University of Alberta is a multi-campus university consisting of five different campuses. Four of them are located in Edmonton, our province's capital. The fifth campus, the Augustana Campus is the university's rural liberal arts and science campus which houses the <a href="https://www.ualberta.ca/augustana/index.html" target="_blank">Augustana Faculty of the University of Alberta</a> located in Camrose, approximately 100 km southeast of Edmonton where the larger <a href="https://www.ualberta.ca/campus-life/our-campuses/north-campus.html" target="_blank">North Campus</a> of our university is located. I have been teaching in the biology degree program of the Augustana Faculty for over 30 years.</p><p>In the fall term of 2020 I taught two sections of first-year biology. At Augustana the course title is AUBIO 111 - Integrative Biology I. This course is basically functional biology starting with macromolecules and cell biology, working through energy conservation, photosynthesis, cell signaling and cloning (mitosis). The last half of the course places this cellular understanding of life in a whole organism context considering how organisms exchange gases, transport O<sub>2</sub> and CO<sub>2</sub>, and excrete nitrogen while maintaining water and salt balance. The different strategies that plants, animals, and single cell organisms implement to carry out these biological processes are compared. There is a lab attached to the course that uses the concepts being learned during class to train students to ask and investigate biological questions. Ultimately, the course is trying to teach students to think like a biologist in terms of how organisms work. The second term course, AUBIO 112 - The Evolution of Biological Diversity teaches students evolutionary biology. </p><p>I have been teaching different versions of first-year biological function since I started teaching in 1990. Approximately nine years ago I implemented <a href="http://www.teambasedlearning.org/" target="_blank">Team-Based Learning</a> (TBL) in AUBIO 111 (Michaelsen & Sweet, 2008). The first couple of iterations of TBL in first-year were rough but I am becoming more proficient at using this teaching strategy. The fall 2020 response from students was quite positive as you will see in the following analysis. This surprised me because fall 2020 was the first time I ever attempted implementing TBL in a course that was fully online due to the COVID19 pandemic. It worked well as a result of my ability to recreate synchronous small group meetings using the breakout rooms in Zoom. My online implementation of TBL was a little bit different that what others have reported (Parrish, Williams & Estis, 2021) in that all group work was synchronous using the breakout rooms in Zoom: both the initial two-stage quizzes and the subsequent apps (applications) were done synchronously over Zoom. All asynchronous portions of TBL (e.g., preparation for the two-stage quizzes, optional online quizzes) were activities that students could complete on their own. </p><p>Something that was newly implemented by me in AUBIO 111 during fall 2020 was the assignment of textbook quizzes through the <a href="https://mlm.pearson.com/northamerica/masteringbiology/" target="_blank">Mastering Biology</a> website. There were pre-class quizzes that could be attempted on Mastering Biology as often and whenever students wished that did not contribute to students' grades. In addition there were post-class homework assignments that were assigned from Mastering Biology after a particular course topic was completed. These quizzes contributed 5% towards students' final grades and were available to students for one week. Post-class quizzes could be opened and returned to for further work as many times as students wished during the week it was available and each question on the quiz could be attempted multiple times with each attempt worth a lesser amount (10% penalty for each incorrect attempt of an individual question). Students were able to submit their homework late but were administered a 10% penalty per day late.</p><p>This blog post is my reflection on the efficacy of my implementation of TBL in a first-year biology course in the online environment of fall 2020. My reflection is based on my own experience and students' feedback on the end of term student ratings of instruction (SRI).</p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Methods & Materials</h4><p>I have posted these details in a previous blog post available at this link <a href="https://activelylearning2teach.blogspot.com/2022/02/history-theory-of-biology-in-w21.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</p><p>The syllabus for the fall 2020 offering of AUBIO 111 is available at this link <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vSUxiB_chNB4lq32ZC7NA2SJPxvYTiVI/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">here</a>. </p><p>The figures in the following results section indicate the SRI scores from the first-year biology courses I have taught since 2006, the first year that the University of Alberta began collecting these data for Augustana. Each figure title begins with B1xx to indicate that these are all 100-level courses. However, from 2006 to 2013 the first-year biology course I taught focused on cell biology using physiology only to illustrate the role of particular cell functions (e.g., the mucociliary escalator in our respiratory tract as an example of the role of the cytoskeleton). Since 2015, the 100-level biology course I teach is Integrative Biology I which, as previously indicated in the introduction, teaches cell biology but also considers osmoregulation, excretion, gas exchange, and circulation. Another thing to note in the data below is that I implemented TBL as the teaching strategy in AUBIO 111 in 2013. </p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Results</h4><p>My SRI scores for <i>quality of the instructor</i> experienced a nadir when I began implementing TBL and when the course changed to include a greater focus on biological function in 2013 and 2105, respectively. However, in 2020 students rated my instructional abilities more similar to to what they were before 2010. ANOVA indicated differences among the student cohorts with Tukey-Kramer paired comparison tests indicating that the two sections from Fall 2020 are significantly different from the cohorts in 2013, 2015, & 2017 (α=0.05).</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjxkrXnSdDDyGkJo2xJ-LSnoDoUDOERIwylCn69hpxYgWdVyX6rGtucq2yUAEOS5gMFnXNIjktitGSXgZEslAlur76K9FB4PticotKx6VpiVLIukwJKnEVK5NA3auCMUoHCI_Bn_-yLME5h1Pd_Yqgkuh2_ZfJtMzhqFfLvT8AC5AnyJ_92qyfYyqxF=s1212" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1212" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjxkrXnSdDDyGkJo2xJ-LSnoDoUDOERIwylCn69hpxYgWdVyX6rGtucq2yUAEOS5gMFnXNIjktitGSXgZEslAlur76K9FB4PticotKx6VpiVLIukwJKnEVK5NA3auCMUoHCI_Bn_-yLME5h1Pd_Yqgkuh2_ZfJtMzhqFfLvT8AC5AnyJ_92qyfYyqxF=w640-h238" width="640" /></a></div><p>Some sample student comments:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i>I liked how caring and understanding the instructor was about our learning in this time. You could tell that he really was passionate about what he was teaching.</i></li><li><i>He is very experienced in this course making it easy to ask questions and be able to answer back with a clear answer. Encouraged us to speak even if our answeres </i>[sic]<i> where </i>[sic]<i> wrong and never judged us if they were. He would further explain the context making learning easy and fun.</i></li><li><i>Dr. Haave is a great person and was an excellent professor. The video recordings were nice to have and very helpful. Thank you for putting in the time to make such good lecture videos. I also enjoyed the in person class days where we would do quizzes or applications.</i></li><li><i>Dr. Haave is a very engaging, knowledgeable professor.</i></li><li><i>Dr. Haave loves biology and he makes students excited about biology too. His love and knowledge made all of the intensity of the course so much easier to bear and work through.</i></li><li><i>Probably the best professor I’ve had this term!!</i></li><li><i>He is an excellent instructor who genuinely cares about his students.</i></li></ul><p></p><p>This same pattern of a nadir in SRI scores being lower between 2010 to 2017 is repeated for the next few graphs. </p><p>ANOVA indicated differences among the cohorts in how students rated the <i>course content</i>. The Tukey-Kramer test (α=0.05) indicated that the W2013 cohort is different from the cohorts in 2006, 2008, 2009, 2020 and that the 2020 cohorts are different from the cohorts in 2015 and from section A1 in 2017. The Tukey-Kramer test also indicated that section A1 in F2015 is significantly different from the 2006 cohort.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgEfJO3a-P_41QaYqruMhbw-MNjyk1g3uQYeXlwH-LVX955gaP5epnLiYDj4H0o9USQFGZ1G4LEqjslXPVhjR1nKO4Qoj-DsvEo3hmHBZz_XtSrw5HWeNZ1cFAooXzbqwoRzQ2mhMn8PtnM7sV4Mt2O7l1wpxuI5eNL99x__z4a70BYbS6KMUMtYiDP=s1422" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1422" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgEfJO3a-P_41QaYqruMhbw-MNjyk1g3uQYeXlwH-LVX955gaP5epnLiYDj4H0o9USQFGZ1G4LEqjslXPVhjR1nKO4Qoj-DsvEo3hmHBZz_XtSrw5HWeNZ1cFAooXzbqwoRzQ2mhMn8PtnM7sV4Mt2O7l1wpxuI5eNL99x__z4a70BYbS6KMUMtYiDP=w640-h202" width="640" /></a></div>Some sample students comments from the 2020 cohorts:<div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i>Overall the setup and execution of the course was done very well and the information that we were learning was interesting and benificial</i> [sic].</li><li><i>I thought this was a very interesting course, and I enjoyed my time in this class.</i></li></ul><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">Similarly, ANOVA indicated differences among the cohorts in terms of how students rated the course as a </span><i style="text-align: left;">positive learning experience</i><span style="text-align: left;"> with the Tukey-Kramer test (α=0.05) indicating that the F2006, F2020 cohorts are different from the cohorts in 2013, 2015 & 2017. In addition Tukey-Kramer detected significant differences between section A1 from F2020 and the F2010 cohort and between the F2008 and W2013 cohorts.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhpnemzUc8gy2NihWJtZPP3dOb26PcgQB4_4amlK4f-ezu2eotBoCqqbnM3uff0zH8DXcwnx8_gX8yWAvhKpHTwME1G5yqpxzdrRTYCuXdZkEZNLe9sgjr7ve_asc3VPMxk9bR-_cqlbPWKzmS4ST60YUhi03dTwKNBDbeuGWjqel8sYPJfa2-ThxLA=s1294" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1294" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhpnemzUc8gy2NihWJtZPP3dOb26PcgQB4_4amlK4f-ezu2eotBoCqqbnM3uff0zH8DXcwnx8_gX8yWAvhKpHTwME1G5yqpxzdrRTYCuXdZkEZNLe9sgjr7ve_asc3VPMxk9bR-_cqlbPWKzmS4ST60YUhi03dTwKNBDbeuGWjqel8sYPJfa2-ThxLA=w640-h224" width="640" /></a></div><p>Some sample student comments:</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i>I really enjoyed this class. The instructor made sure to check in with students on a weekly basis and had learning apps where we could review the material we were learning about as a class.</i></li><li><i>Encourages us to ask questions, places us into groups to interact with others, open to discussing potentially unfair questions/ lost marks, goes through group work with class</i></li><li><i>He was very welcoming. Always open to questions and was happy to answer them. This course was the most safe working environment, in my opinion.</i></li><li><i>He had all the lecture videos recorded ahead for us and always check </i>[sic]<i> on students with care when we missed an assignment or haven't been attending classes. He talks very nicely and points out the important highlights in class and lecture videos very clearly. He always emails us about upcoming deadlines and responds to our questions quickly with instructions.</i></li><li><i>Dr. Haave is </i>[a]<i> very genuine person who is able to make connections with each of his students, making his class a more comfortable environment.</i></li><li><i>Dr. Haave was always very cheerful and overall really lifted the mood of the classes.</i><i></i></li></ul><p>This same pattern was observed in how students rated how well I was <i>prepared</i> to teach the course with ANOVA detecting differences among the cohorts. Tukey-Kramer analysis detected the following significant paired differences:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>section A1 in F2015 is different from each of the cohorts in 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2020</li><li>section A1 in F2020 is different from the two cohorts in F2017</li><li>section A2 in F2020 is different from section A1 in F2017.</li></ul><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjhLbBb0tQl2sPbUWNkY9pLSeD7IsayQE9K0EhkCrgEAz9YAtJQTziUQtIqBAg9ewwY0cVuXHPVSEsw1aO6K3d9Yd6n_EDwFVsQq4hLuSs5OZ96dIJEs9tL8-0cqaVaM1iLtnyOaRGmkhLxHwWcwRYRbfMAdag7Z9kQ9W2ZHzVoFVWIcMQHyp4zfPDk=s1212" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1212" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjhLbBb0tQl2sPbUWNkY9pLSeD7IsayQE9K0EhkCrgEAz9YAtJQTziUQtIqBAg9ewwY0cVuXHPVSEsw1aO6K3d9Yd6n_EDwFVsQq4hLuSs5OZ96dIJEs9tL8-0cqaVaM1iLtnyOaRGmkhLxHwWcwRYRbfMAdag7Z9kQ9W2ZHzVoFVWIcMQHyp4zfPDk=w640-h238" width="640" /></a></div>Some sample student comments from the 2020 cohorts:<div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i>The time and effort put in the course in respect to the content that was provided and produced was very evident.</i></li><li><i>Dr. Haave was very generous with the resources he gave us. The reading guides he made were very helpful in guiding us on what exactly to focus on.</i></li><li><i>The instructor was very organized and prepared, very easy going and laid back.</i></li><li><i>The recorded mini lectures were amazing and helped a lot.</i></li><li><i>Neil was fantastic! Very patient, helpful and well prepared</i></li></ul><p>ANOVA detected differences among the cohorts regarding the quality of the <i>feedback</i> I provided students. However, Tukey-Kramer analysis indicated that only F2015A1 is significantly different from W2013 and the two F2020 cohorts (α= 0.05). This appears to be due to the spread in the data.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgFX6AwDXuNzcpb_kVQT6h1na-0CjRyhiHOsAOCnstdyKWuNx1C8k0CSpWIhxFEJNrQ5Jx6K3unE-y7DuOtcHPosWZgI-KQH6KOZAydephGUQDQW9A-iOb0ah0YPcLCIeSVPbMy53_m1y98CFchHnFoDe6DIOYU_K19V8Dx1wd6qhGe8kTiLWLYTjZc=s1212" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1212" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgFX6AwDXuNzcpb_kVQT6h1na-0CjRyhiHOsAOCnstdyKWuNx1C8k0CSpWIhxFEJNrQ5Jx6K3unE-y7DuOtcHPosWZgI-KQH6KOZAydephGUQDQW9A-iOb0ah0YPcLCIeSVPbMy53_m1y98CFchHnFoDe6DIOYU_K19V8Dx1wd6qhGe8kTiLWLYTjZc=w640-h238" width="640" /></a></div><p>Some sample student comments:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i>Provided great feedback and really explained concepts.</i></li><li><i>I like how we went over the answers to application questions after we finished them in order to figure out how we should have reached the correct answer.</i></li><li><i>Team apps provided us a great tool to work on our communication and team work as well as live constructive feedback during this difficult time.</i></li></ul><p></p><p>ANOVA detected statistical differences among the cohorts for how clearly students perceived the <i>objectives and goals</i> of the course. Tukey-Kramer analysis (α=0.05) indicated that the 2020 cohorts were significantly different from the cohorts in 2013 and 2015 and that the cohort in 2008 was different from section A1 in 2015.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhG3TfwyQOUtUCnGm_qjJIlNWzMF--Y5TLVdm0-ibVydGRdZJXP4l4-wPShkWr1ewoQuqTFRq8FyGWAB4w8ZcIxrDppYxFLTdZL-xo_B0yPnLBLHkyYO-mlvgyZoRrLNG1LnZrUUpmms3fLMICuiyOaB4IsmyCJOCdfiQ_myqNGDJKAyyOhpdWR7V1U=s1422" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1422" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhG3TfwyQOUtUCnGm_qjJIlNWzMF--Y5TLVdm0-ibVydGRdZJXP4l4-wPShkWr1ewoQuqTFRq8FyGWAB4w8ZcIxrDppYxFLTdZL-xo_B0yPnLBLHkyYO-mlvgyZoRrLNG1LnZrUUpmms3fLMICuiyOaB4IsmyCJOCdfiQ_myqNGDJKAyyOhpdWR7V1U=w640-h202" width="640" /></a></div><p>There were no student comments that addressed whether or not the course goals and objectives were clear.</p><p>There is a large spread in the data for the SRIs for students being <i>motivated to learn</i> similar to the spread in the SRIs for feedback above. However, ANOVA did detect significant differences among the student cohorts. The Tukey-Kramer test (α=0.05) indicated that section A2 of the F2020 cohort was significantly different from the 2010 & 2015 cohorts.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg23In0vKpCVLcq8h2kSlsNI-yhFp1oMNRO9uVHYfPnvlkKTne5exolYwwi9viLncvbm-FQlkJv6FWE4I0NUMXh3Gu_zSjT7MjSUjtzlH6qVGlO85HxRg-fDx2Lo9pRNWdyGLEUhtpT5r9yLMPECLtZzI2AoTDcaTWbksQwPhDzl24CZwY1qw5ikwyG=s1422" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1422" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg23In0vKpCVLcq8h2kSlsNI-yhFp1oMNRO9uVHYfPnvlkKTne5exolYwwi9viLncvbm-FQlkJv6FWE4I0NUMXh3Gu_zSjT7MjSUjtzlH6qVGlO85HxRg-fDx2Lo9pRNWdyGLEUhtpT5r9yLMPECLtZzI2AoTDcaTWbksQwPhDzl24CZwY1qw5ikwyG=w640-h202" width="640" /></a></div><p>Some sample student comments:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i>The enthusiasm and passion Neil had for this course really made me interested in learning more about the course and kept me motivated to study because he was putting so much work and passion into it and I wanted to match that.</i></li><li><i>I appreciate the work you put into all the videos and the two stage quizzes and team apps. They were all well thought out and I felt like they challenged me enough in my knowledge to let me feel like "I know this" but still made me think on each question.</i></li><li><i>The course was great, I really enjoyed </i>[it]<i>, definitely looking forward to learning more in the biology field.</i></li></ul><p></p><p>Students have highly rated my ability to <i>speak clearly</i> consistently since 2006. ANOVA did detect significant differences among the cohorts with the Tukey-Kramer test indicating that section A2 of the F2017 cohort is significantly different from the F2006 and F2020 cohorts (α=0.05).</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj8pwCZJeqhHERHZqWkjaSQNY-az6pho-hPYvTBK2BkiLRg0gj13i6Z8u3H_nQQZ8tdIVgxIum_DSu0F9uzcVSYzQY0Zjzn28F4uGM7ngX_xwJl41XZu9alclYMv8tPtKHE7KjRQ4o-IKng3u-tMRPe-tTMNLYB0PrWi2p6hruKnJ7mtLhoQA_IJwzj=s1212" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1212" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj8pwCZJeqhHERHZqWkjaSQNY-az6pho-hPYvTBK2BkiLRg0gj13i6Z8u3H_nQQZ8tdIVgxIum_DSu0F9uzcVSYzQY0Zjzn28F4uGM7ngX_xwJl41XZu9alclYMv8tPtKHE7KjRQ4o-IKng3u-tMRPe-tTMNLYB0PrWi2p6hruKnJ7mtLhoQA_IJwzj=w640-h238" width="640" /></a></div>Although SRIs indicated that the majority of students thought I spoke clearly, there were a couple of students who commented that they had difficulty hearing me:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i>Neil is very soft spoken which was difficult to understand at times.</i></li><li><i>This professor was hard to listen too </i>[sic]</li></ul><p>Students have also consistently highly rated my <i>respectful treatment</i> of them. ANOVA did detect significant differences among the cohorts but the Tukey-Kramer test did not detect any significant differences among the pairs of cohorts (α=0.05).</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjd7CxMltzc1dpuCXmuFmJ1s4Oe3u5akXztnBgwH3jQxvPsBqzUYgOdJbrU6vfcx_G4dlJLfb-kp-8KOm8pOYcf0lSivrLyBckQ14MtOwaEHSGSOAjepA92DuVqy9h8PkqvChyBadW3aEy3PeeQGsrcJYvd4-9HZUGYDoCO-xYzdOV9gKz_O9q6hLbh=s1212" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1212" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjd7CxMltzc1dpuCXmuFmJ1s4Oe3u5akXztnBgwH3jQxvPsBqzUYgOdJbrU6vfcx_G4dlJLfb-kp-8KOm8pOYcf0lSivrLyBckQ14MtOwaEHSGSOAjepA92DuVqy9h8PkqvChyBadW3aEy3PeeQGsrcJYvd4-9HZUGYDoCO-xYzdOV9gKz_O9q6hLbh=w640-h238" width="640" /></a></div><div>Comments from the fall 2020 cohort corroborate the numerical ratings:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i>The way he treated students with respect was outstanding and how he put in effort.</i></li><li><i>Was very kind and respectful to each of his students and always treated each question that was asked of him respectfully</i></li></ul></div><div>Students have always rated the courses that I teach as being among their most <i>difficult </i>and among those with the greatest <i>workload</i>. First-year biology is no different. ANOVA did not detect any differences among the cohorts regarding the difficulty of the course but did detect significant differences among the cohorts rating the workload of the course. </div><div><br /><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj6x6ECAlZgPAdM06ERUOCCs7BP7zMP1u88YmfLxeRoioi4bGE-oTvuRNDW74SoDtasRVGV88gXDsxufXv5u8Y3ozj9Zvd9ikJIOQ7oWTMrGEvCt9hvYpauh0m_ipuUY-8GJUE_wv85U52z-iYaXjSZZYrc8HFEy6BacR7gzqBPYdgqNqgINTR9YG0l=s1322" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1322" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj6x6ECAlZgPAdM06ERUOCCs7BP7zMP1u88YmfLxeRoioi4bGE-oTvuRNDW74SoDtasRVGV88gXDsxufXv5u8Y3ozj9Zvd9ikJIOQ7oWTMrGEvCt9hvYpauh0m_ipuUY-8GJUE_wv85U52z-iYaXjSZZYrc8HFEy6BacR7gzqBPYdgqNqgINTR9YG0l=w640-h218" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>Regarding workload, the Tukey-Kramer test indicated that F2009 was significantly different from the Winter 2013 & F2017A1 cohorts F2020A1 was significantly different from the cohorts in 2013 & 2017 (α=0.05).</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiUWPa8PfvJLppKHrM0hKXBJnhrDNMns-HQVmUshdpKxHx7XMtpE2OYrx6kZbNgeNXjmhK38P5yzUiJWBiVw-APex5NjGJpT_Vl80VKLMebGeETNoeKm0BWw-w3n0yWhIh0ZUEjNn0S4ATVcDU6ogv6mHu2aVc5qe3pOJdrTpIALbLqcwHYiXrnjJPc=s1420" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1420" height="204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiUWPa8PfvJLppKHrM0hKXBJnhrDNMns-HQVmUshdpKxHx7XMtpE2OYrx6kZbNgeNXjmhK38P5yzUiJWBiVw-APex5NjGJpT_Vl80VKLMebGeETNoeKm0BWw-w3n0yWhIh0ZUEjNn0S4ATVcDU6ogv6mHu2aVc5qe3pOJdrTpIALbLqcwHYiXrnjJPc=w640-h204" width="640" /></a></div>Some sample student comments:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i>The applications were difficult but extremely helpful in understanding the material better.</i></li><li><i>The workload of the the course is intimidating and overwhelming at times but he is very supportive and understanding.</i></li><li><i>The applications were valuable don't get me wrong, they were probably good in the long run for my learning, I just found them way more difficult than the quizzes, which I guess makes sense since your actually applying the information</i></li><li><i>I struggled a lot with the course because the workload was very surprising to me and it took me awhile to be able to find a balance with everything. I didn't enjoy how much information we covered each week but I acknowledge that this is necessary and just how the course goes.</i></li><li><i>Sometimes the tests and quizzes were extremely difficult when the lectures and homework were very easier </i>[sic]<i> and it was at times confusing for my group.</i></li></ul><p>After the nadir in student ratings that I experienced when I started implementing TBL in this course in 2013 I was very pleased to read a number of student comments that explicitly expressed that this teaching strategy was received positively. The three aspects of TBL that most distinguish it from other teaching strategies are the teams that are stable for the entire term, two-stage pre-topic quizzes, and the subsequent applications (apps) that students noted as promoting their learning:</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i>The team quizzes were also really nice because it gave us a chance to learn and discuss things with other classmates, this is especially nice since we can't really talk to our classmates otherwise due to online learning</i></li><li><span style="font-style: italic;">The most valuable aspect of this course is that Dr. Haave had many zoom meetings for class lectures and quizzes and I found this very helpful in understanding the course material.</span></li><li><span style="font-style: italic;">The 2 stage quizzes were great since it gave an opportunity to go over questions with peers to share ideas and help one another out.</span></li><li><span style="font-style: italic;">I really enjoyed the format of the two-stage quizzes, and the team apps. They provided an opportunity to discuss with and learn from my peers. It was very beneficial to understanding the material.</span></li><li><span style="font-style: italic;">Team quizzes and team apps improves my understanding of the course.</span></li><li style="font-style: italic;">Team quizzes and lectures were very useful.</li><li><i>Most valuable part would be the 2-stage quizzes, these were very helpful. It was also valuable that we were placed in groups and stayed in those groups fro </i>[sic]<i> the entire term so we could get to know our group mates better.</i></li><li><span style="font-style: italic;">I think that the individual and team quizzes were a great way to asses </span><span>[sic]</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> learning, and then work through mistakes with others in my group. I found it very helpful and it provided contact with others when everyone is still quite isolated.</span></li><li><span style="font-style: italic;">I found the team applications and two stage quizzes to be very helpful. The collaboration helped my understanding of the course and made remote learning feel more normal and engaging.</span></li><li style="font-style: italic;">I found the two stage quizzes in this course to be very valuable since it allowed us to see where we went wrong and it gave us a chance to practice working collaboratively.</li><li><i>I found the 2-stage quizzes and the apps most valuable.</i></li><li><i>I found the team quizzes and apps very valuable to be able to work through things with other people; they were able to help you, and you were able to help them.</i></li><li><span style="font-style: italic;">Having two stage quizzes were valuable because it allowed you to gain more knowledge from other people. Also within the two stage quizzes if someone in your group did not completely understand having the opportunity to explain that topic to them provided yourself with the ability to further your understanding of the topic by having to explain the subject.</span></li><li style="font-style: italic;">The concept of team quizzes and team apps is something I enjoyed a lot.</li><li><i>Having a lot more team work than independent work was great. I also found the 2-stage quizzes to be helpful, specifically being able to discuss with team mates. Being with </i><i>the same group throughout the semester also created more of a connection with peers (which is difficult to do online).</i></li><li>[What aspects of the course and/or instructor did you find most valuable?] </li><ul><li><i>Team based quizzes and applications.</i></li><li><i><i>The quizes </i><span style="font-style: normal;">[sic]</span><i> we got to work through as a group.</i></i></li><li><i style="font-style: italic;">team apps and quizzes. this motivated me to stay on top of my work so i </i>[sic]<i style="font-style: italic;"> could contribute in our discussions.</i></li><li><i><i>The 2-stage quizzes and team apps. They tested our knowledge of the material in a low-stakes way.</i></i></li><li><i><i>The in depth lecture videos, the class meetings for quizzes and team apps and the instructors availability for questions.</i></i></li><li><i><i>Live zoom meetings, apps, quizzes-especially team ones.</i></i></li></ul></ul><div>There were a couple of student comments, however that expressed dissatisfaction with the team aspects of the course because this required them to login to Zoom at a particular time of day for the synchronous part of the course. In addition, one student commented that they found the group exercises to not be very valuable because they were shy and found it difficult to speak up when their team was discussing how to solve an assigned problem.</div><div><br /></div><div>Although this was the first time I had assigned online homework via the Mastering Biology website, the student reception was very positive:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i>We use mastering biology which helps me a lot</i></li><li><i>Yes, the textbook and mastering biology was extremely beneficial. </i><i>I found the dynamic study modules on mastering biology a great way to study for the quizzes and allowed </i><i>me to see what I needed to study more and what I had down pact </i>[sic]<i>.</i></li><li><i>the study area in mastering biology as well as the homework assignments were invaluable.</i></li><li><i>mastering biology HW and modules really helped solidify concepts</i></li><li><i>The textbook was useful as well as the Mastering Biology website that was used throughout the course</i></li><li><span style="font-style: italic;">The Mastering Biology website was a great place to do practice questions and the homework assignments helped me dive deeper into the material.</span></li><li style="font-style: italic;">The textbook and the mastering biology homework was very helpful.</li><li style="font-style: italic;">The Mastering Biology website was very useful for helping learn and understand material. I liked that it helped you improve on the areas you needed the most work on.</li><li style="font-style: italic;">Textbook was very useful, as well as mastering biology. Both were used a lot.</li><li style="font-style: italic;">I really liked mastering biology for extra practice.</li><li style="font-style: italic;">Mastering biology was a great resource.</li><li><span style="font-style: italic;">Master </span>[sic]<i> biology was extremely helpful for practice and gaining a better understanding of the course work</i></li><li style="font-style: italic;">Love mastering biology, combination of theoretical knowledge and exercises to improve knowledge effectively, but some of the topics feel difficult.</li><li><i>I liked the Mastering Biology online method, seemed easier to keep assignment</i>[s]<i> organized and know when there </i>[sic]<i> due</i></li><li><i>Mastering biology homework assignments and team apps are a great study tool and resource.</i></li><li><i>Mastering biology provides a great array of questions, that makes you really </i><i>think about what the question is asking.</i></li><li><i>I think the mastering biology homework assignments were very valuable as they helped me review key points.</i></li><li><i>Mastering Biology was very helpful.</i></li><li><i>The mastering biology website with its assignments and dynamic study modules were extremely helpful as well.</i></li><li><i>The textbook and the assignments through my lab and mastering biology were very helpful in furthering my understanding in the course.</i></li><li><i>The mastering biology was very helpful with the home work and dynamic learning.</i></li><li><i>the program mastering biology was wonderful because you have everything right there so you could not miss anything. The program also provided other study tools, like dynamic study module, which were another valuable resource for studying.</i><i></i></li><li><i>Mastering biology and the dynamic study modules were great to have!</i></li><li>[What aspects of the course and/or instructor did you find most valuable?] </li><ul><li><i>The Mastering Biology homework</i></li><li><i>The 2-stage quiz and the follow-up assignments in mastering biology.</i></li></ul></ul><div>However, there were a couple of student comments that indicated that the Mastering Biology website was not helpful to them. Only one explained further stating that "<i>The mastering biology website</i></div><div><i>is also very slow, and not user friendly</i>." There was also one student comment that indicated irritation with being required to purchase the textbook in order to obtain the code to access the online homework. </div></div><div><br /></div><div>Finally, this was the first time that I produced and made available to students video-recorded mini-lectures that I made available to students at the beginning of the course. Many students noted how much they appreciated these (e.g., "<i>The lecture videos were an excellent learning tool</i>" and "<i>I liked the set up videos given to us</i>" and "<i>The video recordings were nice to have and very helpful</i>"). However, a couple of student comments indicated that having both video mini-lectures and assigned reading to be unnecessary. For example, "<i>I felt as though the pre recorded lectures weren’t that useful as well, I usually ended up reading the textbook chapters and it didn’t make a difference if I watched the videos or not.</i>"</div><div><br /></div><h4 style="text-align: left;">Discussion</h4><p>Despite the <a href="https://activelylearning2teach.blogspot.com/2020/05/i-had-nightmare-last-night.html" target="_blank">pandemic nightmares</a> I had in anticipation of the 2020/21 academic year I was pleasantly surprised at how well this first-year biology course went in the fall term. I am certain that is because of the time I devoted to preparing video recorded minilectures and converting my 2-stage quizzes and apps from in-class to online synchronous activities. This is how I spent the summer of 2020 even though the time devoted to instructional preparation seriously impacted my scholarly productivity. </p><p>I am pleased that first-year students in fall 2020 responded well to my preparation and had the same good experience I had. The in-class (online over Zoom) activities went well and students seemed to be engaged and interested. This conclusion is borne out by both my own personal experience and the SRI feedback presented in the results above.</p><p>So what did I learn from this experience, my first experience of delivering a course completely online with no physical face-to-face (F2F) interaction? I learned that even though online learning is not the same experience as F2F it can still produce a quality learning experience. I also learned that short punchy video recorded minilectures are a good way to encourage students to prepare for class before class. This was done on the advice of the many different workshops I attended during summer 2020 that encouraged the preparation of videos. In particular, I want to give a shoutout to the University of Alberta's <a href="https://www.ualberta.ca/centre-for-teaching-and-learning/teaching-support/index.html" target="_blank">Centre for Teaching and Learning</a> and the online course on online teaching and learning. That short course was critical in my course preparation for online delivery. Other workshops that were incredibly helpful to me were hosted by <a href="https://www.acube.org/" target="_blank">ACUBE</a>, <a href="https://www.ocube.ca/" target="_blank">oCUBE</a>, <a href="https://www.ubea.ca/home.html" target="_blank">UBEA</a>, <a href="https://www.stlhe.ca/" target="_blank">STLHE</a>, <a href="http://coplac.org/" target="_blank">COPLAC</a>, and the <a href="https://www.magnapubs.com/teaching-professor-conference/" target="_blank">Teaching Professor Conference</a>, all of which helpfully delivered these as online virtual workshops during the pandemic. </p><p><a href="https://zoom.us/" target="_blank">Zoom</a> and the ability to send student teams into individual breakout rooms greatly facilitated the ability to continue with my implementation of TBL and as indicated by the students comments noted in the results section above enabled some semblance of community for learners. This is the power of TBL as a teaching and learning strategy: not only does it flip the classroom to enable active learning during synchronous class meetings, it also facilitates the development of learning communities through the creation of student teams that remain in place for the duration of the course (Michaelsen & Sweet, 2008; Parrish, Williams & Estis, 2021) which we know facilitates student resilience for learning (Lemelin et al., 2021).</p><p>Still, there were a couple of issues with how the course was run during this pandemic term. International students, I know had a difficult time getting out of bed in the middle of the night to attend the synchronous class meetings. I made an effort, however, to anticipate that by having some class meeting times devoted to office hours where I was available in our Zoom classroom to answer student questions. Students could choose to use that time to read the textbook or view the video recordings. Still, I did hear a couple of student complaints some of which are captured in the student comments in the results section above. It was made clear in the syllabus, however, that the course would be a hybrid of synchronous and asynchronous activities. I made this commitment to a hybrid or blended course (I am not sure which term would best apply to the course structure I implemented) because I knew, from experience, the efficacy of TBL for promoting student learning (Carmichael, 2009; Travis et al., 2016; Swanson et al., 2019; Lewis & Estis, 2020) and I could not figure out a way to do that without some synchronous class meetings.</p><p>I was also very pleased that students responded positively to my use of the Mastering Biology website that accompanies the textbook for this course, Campbell Biology. There was, unfortunately, some student confusion over which textbook was required for the course. I suspect that some students purchased a used copy of the textbook or purchased a copy from Amazon or other online retailer and so did not also obtain free access to the Mastering Biology website that normally accompanies the purchase of the textbook through our university bookstore. I suspect that students were unaware that they should purchase the textbook through our university to be eligible for this free resource. This despite the course syllabus indicating that the textbook with a Mastering Biology access code was a required resource for the course. In the future, I need to ensure that this is made more explicit on our bookstore website.</p><p>The dissatisfaction expressed by a couple of students over the Mastering Biology online assignments I suspect may have resulted from students taking the course in regions with poor internet access. This is unfortunate and I am unsure how this could be ameliorated when all learning resources are delivered online. I heard comments from students directly (not on the SRIs) that some students experienced similar internet lag issues during the synchronous Zoom sessions and may partly explain why some students never turned on their cameras over Zoom. The only thing that I can think of to do in the future is to ensure that students understand the sort of learning environment they would be experiencing. I know our university administration made this clear, but there were likely some students who had no other choice during the pandemic but to continue their education in an online environment.</p><p>The couple of students who were disappointed with the video recordings because they seemed to repeat what was already present in the textbook I found to be odd responses because throughout the course and on the course syllabus I had made it clear that I was making available to students a variety of learning resources and that they could use all or some or none of them as best suited the way that they were most comfortable learning. So I am not sure what to make of the student comment in the results above that indicated they were dissatisfied because it didn't make a difference whether they watched the video-recording or read the textbook. I receive this comment as an indication that my preparation of the video mini-lectures did what they were supposed to do: give students the choice of how they wished to learn.</p><p>However, the vast majority of students appreciated the course and learning materials although some students had hurdles to their learning that were not experienced by others.</p><p>Another thing that I learned from this online teaching experience is one that is embarrassing for me to admit. I need to claim naivete about what is available to students over the internet. Unbeknownst to me, is the fact that test banks and old exams quickly make their way to online "study" websites. While marking the final exam I was perplexed at a few student papers that had basically identical answers (correct, and more telling incorrect). Much to my chagrin, I learned while sleuthing these cases of potential academic dishonesty that many of the questions I had used were freely available to students online on websites such as Chegg. What fall 2022 taught me is that all questions used in an online exam must be pre-Googled and reworded until it is no longer possible to find a quick answer that is readily copied and pasted. This is what I did in the winter term: pre-Googled everything. Of course, this took an inordinate amount of time, but I do not know what alternative there is when dealing with a large enrolment class. </p><p>Many colleagues during the teaching workshops I attended in summer 2020 advocated for assessment alternatives to exams and I laud those efforts. However, those alternatives (e.g., projects, take-home essays) seem unwieldy to me for large enrolment classes. Until class sizes become more humanly sized, pre-Googling exam questions will be the pre-emptive solution I use to discourage academic dishonesty in an online learning environment. That, and using exam software that prevents students from copying answers found on the internet and pasting them into their exam. Doing this greatly ameliorated academic dishonesty in my winter 2021 courses. Please note that I am not advocating the use of exam software that uses facial recognition or monitoring of a student's physical workspace. The exam software that I used, <a href="https://www.ualberta.ca/information-services-and-technology/news/2020/examlock-opens-new-doors-ualberta.html" target="_blank">ExamLock</a>, was developed by our university's IT department and simply created an alert when students browsed away from their exam or opened another app or window on their computer. This seems to be sufficient when used along with pre-Googling exam questions. But that is a discussion for my winter 2021 courses.</p><p>When I look at the trajectory of student feedback from 2006 to 2021 it is clear that my teaching has been affected by trying new teaching strategies and course content. The nadir in SRI scores from 2010 to 2017 may be explained by my implementation of TBL in 2013 and modifying the course content in 2015. What is interesting is that some questions that students are asked on the SRIs seem to be more resistant to being impacted by pedagogical innovation than others: motivation to learn more, clarity of speech, respect for students, workload, and difficulty were less impacted than the other questions. In addition, the nadir seems to begin in 2010 not 2013. So what happened in 2010? I was appointed the Associate Dean (Teaching) for the Augustana Faculty in 2010 and managing the change in additional priorities, may have distracted me somewhat from attending to the needs of my students. I find that kind of ironic that holding an administrative position with a focus on teaching distracted me from teaching! Finally, an additional item that may have contributed to 2017 being part of the nadir in how students responded to my teaching is that 2017 is when Augustana changed from a traditional academic term consisting of five courses completed by students in 13 weeks (traditional for Canada) to an academic term consisting of a 3-week block in which students complete one course followed by an 11-week block in which students complete another four courses. On the other hand, the SRIs in 2017 seem to be improving over those from 2015 so maybe what is more significant is my better preparation for new course content plus beginning to master TBL as the implemented teaching strategy for this course. But as noted above, the majority of students really appreciated the learning resources on the Mastering Biology website and I am certain that this also contributed to my improved SRI scores from 2020 in AUBIO 111 - Integrative Biology I.</p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Resources</h4><div><a href="http://team3edtc6320.pbworks.com/f/clicker7.pdf" target="_blank">Carmichael, J. (2009). Team-based learning enhances performance in introductory biology. Journal of College Science Teaching, 38(4), 54–61.</a></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.acube.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Bioscene-December-2021-20.pdf" target="_blank">Lemelin, C., Gross, C. D., Bertholet, R., Gares, S., Hall, M., Henein, H., Kozlova, V., Spila, M., Villatoro, V., & Haave, N. (2021). Mitigating student resistance to active learning by constructing resilient classrooms. <i>Bioscene: Journal of College Biology Teaching, 47</i>(2), 3–9.</a> </div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://doi.org/10.20343/teachlearninqu.8.2.11" target="_blank">Lewis, D., & Estis, J. (2020). Improving mathematics content mastery and enhancing flexible problem solving through team-based inquiry learning. <i>Teaching & Learning Inquiry, 8</i>(2), 165–183.</a> </div><p><a href="https://mlm.pearson.com/northamerica/masteringbiology/" target="_blank"><i>Mastering Biology</i>. (n.d.). Pearson Education. Retrieved March 1, 2020, from https://mlm.pearson.com/northamerica/masteringbiology/</a></p><p><span style="color: #0000ee;"><span style="color: black;"><a href="https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED592506" target="_blank"><i>Mastering Biology: Efficacy research report</i>. (2018). Pearson Education. Upper Saddle River, NJ.</a> </span></span></p><p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/tl.330" target="_blank">Michaelsen, L. K., & Sweet, M. (2008). The essential elements of team-based learning. <i>New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 2008</i>(116), 7–27.</a> </p><p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/tl.20439" target="_blank">Parrish, C. W., Williams, D. S., & Estis, J. M. (2021). Integrated online team-based learning: Using synchronous engagement and asynchronous flexibility to implement TBL online. <i>New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 2021</i>(165), 91–105.</a> </p><p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1469787417731201" target="_blank">Swanson, E., McCulley, L. V., Osman, D. J., Scammacca Lewis, N., & Solis, M. (2019). The effect of team-based learning on content knowledge: A meta-analysis. <i>Active Learning in Higher Education, 20</i>(1), 39–50.</a> </p><p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0098628316636274" target="_blank">Travis, L. L., Hudson, N. W., Henricks-Lepp, G. M., Street, W. S., & Weidenbenner, J. (2016). Team-Based Learning Improves Course Outcomes in Introductory Psychology. <i>Teaching of Psychology, 43</i>(2), 99–107.</a> </p><p><a href="https://www.pearson.com/store/p/campbell-biology-third-canadian-edition/P100002223866/9780135223673" target="_blank">Urry, L. A., Cain, M. L., Wasserman, S. A., Minorsky, P. V, Reece, J. B., Rawle, F. E., Durnford, D. G., Moyes, C. D., & Scott, K. (2021). <i>Campbell Biology (Third Canadian Edition)</i>. Pearson Education, Inc.</a></p><p><br /></p></div></div></div></div>Neil Haavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13952094460830822185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6414649070616166194.post-84936311120781063382022-02-01T16:03:00.010-07:002022-07-20T16:51:16.763-06:00History & Theory of Biology in W21: a capstone course<h4 style="text-align: left;">Introduction</h4><p>This is the first instalment of my reflections on my experience with online teaching during the pandemic of the 2020/21 academic year. This reflection considers the course AUBIO 411 - History & Theory of Biology which I taught in the winter term of 2021. My other reflections for courses taught in 2020/21 may be found at this link <a href="https://activelylearning2teach.blogspot.com/2022/02/surviving-online-teaching-during.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</p><p>AUBIO 411 - History & Theory of Biology is the capstone course for the biology program in the <a href="https://www.ualberta.ca/augustana/index.html" target="_blank">Augustana Faculty of the University of Alberta</a>. I designed this course during my first sabbatical in 1996. I have been teaching it almost every year since it was first offered in 1998. The course has gone through different iterations but has settled on using the history of functional, developmental, and evolutionary biology to help students reflect on the previous years of their biology degree program (Haave, 2012). In addition to the history of biology, this course also asks students to consider the theoretical foundations of biology which requires an introduction to the philosophy of science and biology. Generally, students complete this course in the last year of their 4-yr degree program.</p><p>In addition to prompting students to reflect on their biology major, the course is also designed to facilitate students' writing and speaking skills (Haave, 2015a). In addition, I use a form of team-based learning (TBL) as the instructional strategy for the course (Haave, 2014). Typically, TBL involves students being held accountable for their pre-class preparation with a two-stage quiz with subsequent classes involving students applying their learning to solve instructor assigned problems with their teams. With this capstone course, the two-stage quiz is replaced with a learning portfolio that has some attributes of an e-portfolio (Haave, 2016) in the sense that it is an online workspace for students to engage with the course material placing it in the larger context of their other courses and lived experience.</p><p>In the middle of the winter term of 2020 I had to change the delivery of this course from face-to-face (F2F) to online delivery due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For winter 2021 AUBIO 411 was designed to be delivered online for the entirety of the term. This blog post reflects on this pandemic experience in light of student feedback in the form of end of term student ratings of instruction (SRI).</p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Methods and Materials</h4><div><br /></div><div>The Augustana Campus became a faculty of the University of Alberta (U/A) in 2004 while I was on sabbatical. Thus, the first time for which U/A SRI data are available for this course is in the fall term of 2006. SRI data was collected when our campus was a private university college but because the SRI questions were a little different, the data prior to 2006 are not included in this analysis. SRIs were collected on paper during class time up until 2014 after which all SRI data was entered online by students. Another change to note is that the term structure at the Augustana Campus changed in 2017. Prior to 2017 Augustana had a typical semester structure in which students were enrolled in five courses for 13 weeks in a Fall and again in a subsequent Winter term. In 2017 Augustana implemented a new term structure in which both the Fall and Winter terms were subdivided into an initial three-week block followed by an 11-week block. Students typically complete one course during the three-week block and then complete another four courses during the subsequent 11-week block.</div><div><br /></div><div>The SRI survey consists of 10 standard Likert style questions plus one open response question. The details may be found on the U/A website at this link <a href="https://www.ualberta.ca/information-services-and-technology/services/test-scoring-questionnaire-services/universal-student-ratings-instruction.html">here</a>. Augustana has added a couple of extra Likert questions (difficulty, workload, and learning experience as noted in the figure titles in the results below) plus four instead of the standard one open response question (i.e., What aspects of the course and/or instructor did you find most valuable? What aspects of the course and/or instructor did you find least valuable? How useful were the course textbook(s) and/or other learning support materials? in addition to the universal question, Please add any other comments that you would like to make about the course and/or instructor.). Numerical data are presented as box and whisker plots which depict the 2nd and 3rd quartiles as grey boxes with the intervening line indicating the median. The whiskers depict the limits of the 1st and 4th quartiles. The X within each box indicates the mean. The class enrolment for each year is indicated by the N with the percentage of each class responding to the SRI survey indicated below the N value. Salient student comments are quoted to flesh out the numerical data.</div><div><br /></div><div>You may view the syllabus for the Winter 2021 offering of AUBIO 411 at this link <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/14GcokISyhp3r6iUmywlrW06wGX-WeTEI/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">here</a>.</div><div><br /></div><h4 style="text-align: left;">Results</h4><p>I have been relatively successful with the course for the last few years as indicated by the data in the first graph below with students rating me between four and five for the <i>quality of my instruction</i>. One-way analysis of variance indicated differences among the student cohorts. Tukey-Kramer pair-wise comparisons indicated that the Fall 2007 cohort was different from all of the others (α = 0.05).</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg6mQz-CvrdZTL1rMK9snfpm3FT-WaaCbohO4z9y8PpjL44F268y7pYtEa7t1CkqaMeIR4LEM6MLPhjLDNNeq0ASvstG1BhiyFVjSqKCQMlDYKLH3I5taoirbUbjFW5dsEakwChXIE5J_lo2Vdd2oEz04zEywY5OptBlrpzh6wAe0ThtMDHBMOGfCEE=s1098" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1098" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg6mQz-CvrdZTL1rMK9snfpm3FT-WaaCbohO4z9y8PpjL44F268y7pYtEa7t1CkqaMeIR4LEM6MLPhjLDNNeq0ASvstG1BhiyFVjSqKCQMlDYKLH3I5taoirbUbjFW5dsEakwChXIE5J_lo2Vdd2oEz04zEywY5OptBlrpzh6wAe0ThtMDHBMOGfCEE=w640-h262" width="640" /></a></div>Student comments: <div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>"I think we all know that you're a professor who expects a lot from their students because you believe in us but at the same time that can be intimidating for people who just want an easy credit. I really enjoyed my time with the class this semester and with Dr. Haave who is such an incredible thinker - I think you are a wise man Dr. Haave!"</li><li>"I cannot say enough positive things about Dr. Haave and this class. His willingness to share with students and to engage with their learning in such a dynamic manner makes his courses more engaging, meaningful learning environments..."</li></ul></div><div><div>Students highly rated the <i>course content</i> but not quite as high as the preceding couple of years. ANOVA did not detect any significant differences among the student cohorts.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj9Qr39KH4SiBnrSDaV23OMLxR-40Y5WPUn8S-eSjIIzd-c0NkAvCwJ3LjjcRihyq8ack0zVuGsgXhEuKWttYRjYLw4r6I9cN4NE_ts58nLnftnDMl_lsx6d_eSj-XhtE-qOkqlR8acUH4ekyCkYXaUOgnpy_ppRdVXx1g-kykUpvYpHktOB9xFlpTu=s1098" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1098" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj9Qr39KH4SiBnrSDaV23OMLxR-40Y5WPUn8S-eSjIIzd-c0NkAvCwJ3LjjcRihyq8ack0zVuGsgXhEuKWttYRjYLw4r6I9cN4NE_ts58nLnftnDMl_lsx6d_eSj-XhtE-qOkqlR8acUH4ekyCkYXaUOgnpy_ppRdVXx1g-kykUpvYpHktOB9xFlpTu=w640-h262" width="640" /></a></div>Most students wrote that they were very appreciative of what they were learning in the course: </div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>"I found the topics we explored in this course very valuable and fulfilling. I was pleasantly surprised by the content in this course, it was not what I was expecting at all, but it made me see biology from many different perspectives and I now completely understand why this was our capstone course for our biology degree."</li><li>"... I walk away having learned content I will remember long after so much of what I've learned in other classes is forgotten. This course was the highlight of my degree."</li></ul></div><div><div>But the data is not as tight as the previous two years which may be a result of one of the five teams having some inter-personal issues as indicated by this student comment: </div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>"I found all the teamwork to be the least valuable aspect of the course because there was an individual on my team who treated me very poorly. This really interfered with my learning, because I found that I couldn't express myself freely, for I was always being judged."</li></ul><div>On the other hand, other students really valued their team experience.</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>"In the course, I really felt like having the teams (even though we were still online) were really valuable to me. It was comforting to know that I had those four people behind my back, and to have a comfortable place to be vulnerable and express how I felt about the readings or anything in the course was really nice. They definitely were valuable in my learning throughout this course"</li></ul></div><div>The rating of the course as a <i>positive learning experience</i> has been fairly stable since 2015. One-way analysis of variance indicated differences among the student cohorts. Tukey-Kramer pair-wise comparisons indicated that the Fall 2007 cohort was different from the cohorts in Fall 2006, Winter 2016, and Fall 2016 (α = 0.05).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhEsCCaH0L5RDTcbgyKDutWmn3h6CirIyse81cWL4afDy8dTqpYYP-WGpiXBdjTKSKIt9omAn7XeVKdJTsnjjyJpV2Mz9bwt6XObdKQBNJby1AGGcRwKGL3syEXmYg2siPUJ_o0i0mO0FbPqi1Ja2uw1XOy9Y8miBBx2D5e91z82i1vQakzrrZ0ZpFL=s1098" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1098" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhEsCCaH0L5RDTcbgyKDutWmn3h6CirIyse81cWL4afDy8dTqpYYP-WGpiXBdjTKSKIt9omAn7XeVKdJTsnjjyJpV2Mz9bwt6XObdKQBNJby1AGGcRwKGL3syEXmYg2siPUJ_o0i0mO0FbPqi1Ja2uw1XOy9Y8miBBx2D5e91z82i1vQakzrrZ0ZpFL=w640-h262" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Student comment: "The team meetings in class to discuss questions was great. Allowed for discussion of other ideas, while not being judged by the whole class."</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I was gratified to see that my thorough <i>preparation</i> for going online with this course was noticed by students. One-way analysis of variance indicated differences among the student cohorts. Tukey-Kramer pair-wise comparisons indicated that the Fall 2007 cohort was significantly different from F2009, W2015, W2016, F2016 & W2021 (α = 0.05).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjGpQiGhLhHw-kdf-ZckgWaIrPXBn6Y64st4JL2vf1r8f_zOpxMe30jJMLqruqMl3njF83TSTOj73MNVUGu3Q4Y6atG38BcIamqJd7JMELue7GxGMpwIQIOOV9L4JXjLFiPIgAXLex_KAsGz-ge8aAc14mUdjbr6onPNGS-dj--TTum5zIIQWEfoQXB=s1098" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1098" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjGpQiGhLhHw-kdf-ZckgWaIrPXBn6Y64st4JL2vf1r8f_zOpxMe30jJMLqruqMl3njF83TSTOj73MNVUGu3Q4Y6atG38BcIamqJd7JMELue7GxGMpwIQIOOV9L4JXjLFiPIgAXLex_KAsGz-ge8aAc14mUdjbr6onPNGS-dj--TTum5zIIQWEfoQXB=w640-h262" width="640" /></a></div><div>Student comment: "The instructor was always prepared and had a clear plan for every day clearly outlined in the syllabus."</div><div><br /></div><div>Students have consistently highly rated my <i>effective use of in-class time</i> for the past few years. ANOVA did not detect significant differences among the student cohorts.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgnKuJ1eDcEV38znSiTM0flVs-DgnMdVjVyQeWXJ-BEtVkc6pLFjYlfOfJkemkMmpBDsYjllXHybSl64X36KsRqWEu-Fy1ROxKZpSuHd7HQF9ZVEeh3o-yFyDZ9BDwpqVltH6T1C6bamCMsMPpIJUaI7u5g-JSTzmO5XZnEO6u2CBK_zDzEwr4_8r-M=s1098" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1098" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgnKuJ1eDcEV38znSiTM0flVs-DgnMdVjVyQeWXJ-BEtVkc6pLFjYlfOfJkemkMmpBDsYjllXHybSl64X36KsRqWEu-Fy1ROxKZpSuHd7HQF9ZVEeh3o-yFyDZ9BDwpqVltH6T1C6bamCMsMPpIJUaI7u5g-JSTzmO5XZnEO6u2CBK_zDzEwr4_8r-M=w640-h262" width="640" /></a></div></div><div><br /></div><div>For the past few years, students have highly rated my ability to <i>speak clearly</i>. Because of the ambiguity of the question (e.g., do students take into account the accent of a particular instructor?) this question was changed this year to effective communication. One-way analysis of variance indicated differences among the student cohorts. Tukey-Kramer pair-wise comparisons (α = 0.05) indicated the following differences among cohorts: F2006 vs W2015, F2007 vs F2009, and F2007 vs W2015.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiqJZh_hzVo7bFCBRhSfAoCEsw_wx3JD9UXJ0HUI_iZs14bZefYiO6dZpEIYQlKz315rJtN7LewZX8YTqYM-mepL85IGssBJDXDl_ubS0WDtFFdcV33kuMO4aL6rA5_XuYf49y11OazhaT-eVZ5PQKqhOh14kJKsuOg1Nk9kC_yYk1o5pRrAkgquLcw=s1098" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1098" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiqJZh_hzVo7bFCBRhSfAoCEsw_wx3JD9UXJ0HUI_iZs14bZefYiO6dZpEIYQlKz315rJtN7LewZX8YTqYM-mepL85IGssBJDXDl_ubS0WDtFFdcV33kuMO4aL6rA5_XuYf49y11OazhaT-eVZ5PQKqhOh14kJKsuOg1Nk9kC_yYk1o5pRrAkgquLcw=w640-h262" width="640" /></a></div>Since 2008, students have highly rated my <i>feedback</i> for this course. One-way ANOVA indicated differences among the student cohorts but the Tukey-Kramer test could not detect any differences between the different pairs at an α =0.05.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhQ_54GLknoKulT5gL3dZS6eHcYhguw95fr-a9AhpBBhT2R5PJMIISt738OWwYtSiXMYM_2Dtauh_KK0xAcqeQbXQOnm8maLGYotFiLUhlSSVr7Go7cP7e_ZsrFic13wnymG_ZeRx4kZumzkLhruD3PMTocULkLJbie8IM-BWyqjZ7iy2SqTk1NFwji=s1098" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1098" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhQ_54GLknoKulT5gL3dZS6eHcYhguw95fr-a9AhpBBhT2R5PJMIISt738OWwYtSiXMYM_2Dtauh_KK0xAcqeQbXQOnm8maLGYotFiLUhlSSVr7Go7cP7e_ZsrFic13wnymG_ZeRx4kZumzkLhruD3PMTocULkLJbie8IM-BWyqjZ7iy2SqTk1NFwji=w640-h262" width="640" /></a></div>Student comment: "The reflection journal was an amazing opportunity to develop my thoughts while having you personally guide my thinking in an atmosphere where outside connection is not possible with online learning."</div><div><br /></div><div>For the last few years, students have found my <i>objectives and goals</i> to be clear. ANOVA did not detect significant differences among the student cohorts.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhB7wdUgqeZIjHC8Y_dumnGVoDTR9U8S6yLue8MkL8rBNR6QHiLBFg2Ny7RMxlpqV7ufxBAguxSxNndCHJT0SSX3wccvGm4idv_4OfdevNjTgY1kRlqXxz5MWDKHNZ479z9W6OlDQpsApE4b_pThDUamlweXAVEBZ0Fq9KJDvEMt5dksIIJGwQpqar8=s1098" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1098" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhB7wdUgqeZIjHC8Y_dumnGVoDTR9U8S6yLue8MkL8rBNR6QHiLBFg2Ny7RMxlpqV7ufxBAguxSxNndCHJT0SSX3wccvGm4idv_4OfdevNjTgY1kRlqXxz5MWDKHNZ479z9W6OlDQpsApE4b_pThDUamlweXAVEBZ0Fq9KJDvEMt5dksIIJGwQpqar8=w640-h262" width="640" /></a></div>Students have always indicated that they are somewhat <i>motivated to learn</i> about the subject areas but the ratings are not as high relative to other aspects queried by the SRI instrument. ANOVA detected differences among the student cohorts. However, the Tukey-Kramer test did not reveal any significant differences among the pairs of cohorts (α = 0.05).<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiymZSZtgsKIFc2Rw12bzhcLsNYrA3ooYSNlEtgaOJhx1SSltWDNm36XTX5rmQNjYmHH4lNdpMHfdDlIU8vbGhuWHp36jJUyFr-iLaJW9p17ul0DVhsQ7R-RKvFluLU0TJPvPfFGbuFphUje9mVcHkOxfE6kk9E2bZNmaDcyheCa0w1kq0Fn709M_-l=s1098" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1098" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiymZSZtgsKIFc2Rw12bzhcLsNYrA3ooYSNlEtgaOJhx1SSltWDNm36XTX5rmQNjYmHH4lNdpMHfdDlIU8vbGhuWHp36jJUyFr-iLaJW9p17ul0DVhsQ7R-RKvFluLU0TJPvPfFGbuFphUje9mVcHkOxfE6kk9E2bZNmaDcyheCa0w1kq0Fn709M_-l=w640-h262" width="640" /></a></div>I know students did think about the course discussions after class because of the emails, LMS forum posts, and student Zoom meetings I read and experienced. One student wrote: "After each class I always had a lot to think about. I am very grateful for this course - it was an excellent way to wrap up my degree!"</div><div><br /></div><div>I am pleased that students recognize that I do <i>respect</i> them. ANOVA indicated differences among the student cohorts. Tukey-Kramer pairwise comparison again found that the Fall 2007 cohort is different from all other cohorts except for F2008 and W2020 (α = 0.05).<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgLnow6IFQBukIr_uahJcswv1jp3r7PcLvSQZkNgq65Nlnk07sI3dQfoBSIFgFHdmJLnX28YGJ49lcUFFR_2rsZVc6KsGVFYo8Sg11DdiSff8fn5hd_rBiBulBHktBr-LmmPwXVwjksmw-zMFWj4VKgEmbZz0-JQjQdyLCMS2X_1RXOz92lLaYIYtkt=s1098" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1098" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgLnow6IFQBukIr_uahJcswv1jp3r7PcLvSQZkNgq65Nlnk07sI3dQfoBSIFgFHdmJLnX28YGJ49lcUFFR_2rsZVc6KsGVFYo8Sg11DdiSff8fn5hd_rBiBulBHktBr-LmmPwXVwjksmw-zMFWj4VKgEmbZz0-JQjQdyLCMS2X_1RXOz92lLaYIYtkt=w640-h262" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Student comment: "I really appreciate how much he cares about his students, and he's willing to confront issues when they arise."</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Students generally highly rate their <i>increase in their knowledge of the subject</i>. ANOVA did not detect any significant differences among the student cohorts.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgrs0DjOqLFt7N5puqAXkA2yrsgj2BuB0LSrt0gfzeZIXlwjEhC0xnBJ533oYzM6wI2hITgUQ46ct9oKljWxEA-lvC73TkTPdw8Zcr_MtCrpvtCVu5ODoVHKspVe3ERLFl885aG3vyDS4YWfqNJJe3E5F16YWm3s7z21NCW8aEE-FptF3B7REd_BhFW=s1098" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1098" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgrs0DjOqLFt7N5puqAXkA2yrsgj2BuB0LSrt0gfzeZIXlwjEhC0xnBJ533oYzM6wI2hITgUQ46ct9oKljWxEA-lvC73TkTPdw8Zcr_MtCrpvtCVu5ODoVHKspVe3ERLFl885aG3vyDS4YWfqNJJe3E5F16YWm3s7z21NCW8aEE-FptF3B7REd_BhFW=w640-h262" width="640" /></a></div>Student comment: "This course challenged previous views and encouraged me to develop new ways of approaching my degree as well as the world around me."</div><div><br /></div><div>As indicated in the following two graphs, students have always rated the <i>workload and difficulty</i> of AUBIO 411 higher than their other courses at the 4th-year level. I have been consciously trying to address this and am pleased that in the last few years it appears that students are not rating this course as unduly difficult or heavy. ANOVA detected differences among the student cohorts for the workload. Tukey-Kramer analysis revealed that the Winter 2019 cohort was significantly different from the student cohorts from Fall 2006 to Fall 2009 and also from Winter 2015 (α = 0.05). However, ANOVA did not detect significant differences among the student cohorts for difficulty although there does seem to be a trend with the 3rd and 4th quartiles moving from between 4 and 5 to between 3 and 4 since the Winter 2016 term.</div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhMa9a00qIi9rCyNxjGWRiMyfZMOUwhUCFxcYCSbNJ9u-WnlXOfeZLyIfg3FrBAIeZk4SKIM8-5mGRnbFkF0i914do4yvk035W4rBiBbaWDNZhv4x90Jpkah73iZ9H1-qpePgnfLY37atRPlQwppJbVBW0XhxEWWZnK1ZWNSV2ycgrzmmWG3jETEUp8=s1098" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1098" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhMa9a00qIi9rCyNxjGWRiMyfZMOUwhUCFxcYCSbNJ9u-WnlXOfeZLyIfg3FrBAIeZk4SKIM8-5mGRnbFkF0i914do4yvk035W4rBiBbaWDNZhv4x90Jpkah73iZ9H1-qpePgnfLY37atRPlQwppJbVBW0XhxEWWZnK1ZWNSV2ycgrzmmWG3jETEUp8=w640-h262" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgm-iXsujg6gs1SpmbeIABzVGuVhFbOi8Sbrb6miJ7hFdYqYNB4HM3bE4GAIq4PWNbbl4bMSMSruGfj1tl6HXT7fIhyVXcqMQmqIRScAqpSaVM9XKf06GCYvGWrxDhVyVbMQoifoDi-Jwr5ui1PEmgItazJTy9LHr4cAkWRDP-Zccg5HsZa7ymwK8g9=s1098" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1098" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgm-iXsujg6gs1SpmbeIABzVGuVhFbOi8Sbrb6miJ7hFdYqYNB4HM3bE4GAIq4PWNbbl4bMSMSruGfj1tl6HXT7fIhyVXcqMQmqIRScAqpSaVM9XKf06GCYvGWrxDhVyVbMQoifoDi-Jwr5ui1PEmgItazJTy9LHr4cAkWRDP-Zccg5HsZa7ymwK8g9=w640-h262" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Student comments:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>"This course was really valuable to me in a sense that despite its high workload (even though that is expected for a senior level biology course), it really opened my eyes to the importance of taking all perspectives into account."</li><li>"I found the course load to be challenging but manageable. It was by no means easy and the material took a lot of time to think through, but I didn't have to sacrifice sleep to get everything done on time, which I really appreciated."</li><li>"I think we all know that you're a professor who expects a lot from their students because you believe in us but at the same time that can be intimidating for people who just want an easy credit."</li></ul></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><h4 style="text-align: left;">Discussion</h4><p>Overall, I am pleased with the results of this course in Winter 2021. Students were engaged with lively discussion occurring in the Zoom breakout rooms and also when I gathered students back in the main Zoom virtual classroom. Although students have historically found AUBIO 411 to be a very difficult course and seems to have a reputation as such, many students expressed their surprise that it was not as difficult or time-consuming as they had been led to believe by previous cohorts of students. </p><p>Statistical analysis revealed some interesting differences among the student cohorts. The most interesting for me is that students seem to perceive the workload to be less heavy after Fall 2016. Looking over my course syllabi, Fall 2016 is the last year that I had students complete a formal e-portfolio as a website. After this, I started asking students to complete it as a learning portfolio in Word or Google Docs. I wonder if the workload of setting up an e-portfolio as a graphically pleasing website was too much work for students? On the other hand, the e-portfolio was an optional assignment: Students could choose to complete an e-portfolio in exchange for their final exam to have lower weighting toward their final grade. I know I have been continuing to adjust students' workload in this course in response to this item always being rated quite strong relative to their other courses. Something I started doing in Winter 2021 to address student workload is that their learning portfolio was no longer a formal reading summary and response but much more reflective in nature requiring only a couple of paragraphs before and after our class meetings (four paragraphs in all per class meeting). Students responded well to this last year. I write more about this below.</p><p>Fall 2007 seems to have been a year that students were more dissatisfied with my teaching and this course than other years. That 2007 cohort rated my instructional ability significantly lower than all of the other cohorts. In addition, the Fall 2007 cohort was also significantly different relative to other cohorts giving a lower rating for the course as a learning experience, my preparation, my clarity of speech, and my respect for students. I am still digging through my notes for that 2007 course offering but so far nothing stands out as being significant to me. Was there something else outside of the course that impacted students' learning in 2007?</p><p>One of the skills not explicitly addressed by me in this course but develops naturally as a result of the TBL instructional design is that students do learn to work as a member of a team and develop leadership skills.</p><p></p><ul><li>"My teammates and I grew very close from having these periodic presentations and it made me a better leader and team player." </li></ul><p></p><p>However, not all teams will work as well as they could at all times. Sometimes there are intra-team difficulties that need to be addressed by the instructor. I was concerned about the one student comment I highlighted in the results section above in which they reported that they felt judged and intimidated by one of their teammates. I knew this was the case because a student approached me at midterm to discuss the situation with me. After talking it through with them and offering solutions the student decided to deal with it themselves and the matter seemed to be resolved over the next couple of weeks. However, I was alerted during the last week of class that this particular team was again experiencing inter-personal strife. Again, I offered to intervene but the student decided that it was best just to get through the last couple of class meetings.</p><p>This is the first time I have had a team that became so dysfunctional using the TBL teaching strategy. Sometimes teams do experience personality clashes but until last year, I had always found a way to diffuse the tension. I think the problem with this particular team developed last year because the course was delivered online. This prevented me from eavesdropping on the discussions within student teams. In the physical classroom, we are able to do a global scan of how student teams are collaborating and are able to intervene if things get heated or if teams reach an impasse. Although I popped into the Zoom breakout rooms at least once a class last year, this did not allow me to catch inter-personal difficulties as I was not able to be like a fly on the wall during intra-team discussions for the entire class; I had to circulate to the other breakout rooms. This is a limitation of using Zoom for intra-team discussions. It could be addressed if Zoom enabled instructors to view different breakout rooms simultaneously. I am not sure how that would be done. It would certainly require instructors to be equipped with more than one monitor.</p><p>I have always had students write a response to their assigned reading and graded a random sampling as part of their writing portfolio. However, students commonly became distressed about writing well and ensuring they produced a complete summary of the article they read. This is not what I want. What I am trying to achieve with students' writing is to prompt their thinking. I think that writing is thinking and thus rather than having students think about what they will write I want students to write to enable their thinking (Haave, 2015b). In an attempt to decrease student anxiety, last year I had students instead write in a reading journal or learning portfolio (a growing Word doc they shared with me through Google Drive) in which they wrote a couple of paragraphs responding to the reading before class and then a couple of paragraphs responding to our class discussion after class. This seemed to work very well. I was able to provide weekly feedback to students' pre and post-class reflections. Some students did such a great job that at midterm I gave students the choice of either writing the final exam or having their reflective online learning portfolio graded. A little less than half the class choose the learning portfolio over the final exam. My students and I were very pleased with the result in terms of giving students some control over how they were assessed.</p><p>Another innovation for me in this course last year was the marginalized biologist assignment. I asked students to identify a marginalized biologist and then based on their research explain why and how they were marginalized placing their research results in a <a href="https://sites.google.com/ualberta.ca/marginalizedbiologistaugustana/home" target="_blank">publically accessible website</a>. All student teams choose to use Google Sites and the results were excellent and feedback from the students were encouraging. "I love the marginalized biologist assignment. It's a great initiative and I'm excited that these websites will be around for more years to come (rather than just having us write a term paper)." I will certainly use this assignment again in the future. It gave students an outlet in which to explore the issues of racism and sexism that became blatantly apparent to them in the aftermath of 2020. I'll be writing about this some more in the future. </p><p><br /></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">References</h4><p><a href="https://www.ualberta.ca/information-services-and-technology/services/test-scoring-questionnaire-services/universal-student-ratings-instruction.html" target="_blank">Anonymous. (n.d.). Universal Student Ratings of Instruction (USRI). University of Alberta.</a> </p><p><a href="https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1002148">Haave, N. (2012). Integrating functional, developmental and evolutionary biology into biology curricula. Bioscene: Journal of College Biology Teaching, 38(2), 27–30.</a></p><p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ntlf.20015" target="_blank">Haave, N. (2014). Team-based learning: A high-impact educational strategy. The National Teaching and Learning Forum, 23(4), 1–5.</a> </p><p><a href="https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1086524" target="_blank">Haave, N. C. (2015a). Survey of biology capstone courses in American and Canadian higher education: Requirement, content, and skills. Bioscene: Journal of College Biology Teaching, 41(2), 19–26.</a> </p><p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ntlf.30050" target="_blank">Haave, N. (2015b). Developing students’ thinking by writing. The National Teaching & Learning Forum, 25(1), 5–7.</a> </p><p><a href="https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1103781" target="_blank">Haave, N. (2016). E-portfolios rescue biology students from a poorer final exam result: Promoting student metacognition. Bioscene: Journal of College Biology Teaching, 42(1), 8–15.</a> </p></div></div>Neil Haavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13952094460830822185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6414649070616166194.post-59343737883749080972022-02-01T12:59:00.011-07:002022-06-07T14:11:32.865-06:00surviving online teaching during the pandemic: what do the SRIs say?<p>Since the pandemic began a couple of years ago I have seriously curtailed my blogging. This was primarily the result of having to convert my courses to online delivery in 2020. Converting five lecture courses into online courses was a tall order that needed to be completed in just a couple of months. Thank goodness I was awarded a sabbatical for 2021/22 during which I have been recovering from that intense "pivot". Did we really pivot from in-class to online? It feels more like I just struggled to survive.</p><p>Anyways, for the remainder of 2021, I simply rested and tried to recover. One of the consequences of the "pivot" was that I neglected my scholarship. Now, I am trying to re-enter a scholarly life.</p><p>For this blog, first up is an assessment, a critical self-reflection of what happened last year in each of my courses. I'll use my student ratings of instruction (SRI's) as one source of data plus my own recollection of what happened last year. I am going to attempt to write each course up as a short paper for this blog in an attempt to see what it would be like if we assessed our teaching similar to how we assess our research (<a href="https://doi.org/10.22329/celt.v10i0.4910" target="_blank">Haave, 2017</a>).</p><p>Following this introductory blog post look for subsequent posts on the courses I taught in 2020/21:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://activelylearning2teach.blogspot.com/2022/02/history-theory-of-biology-in-w21.html" target="_blank">AUBIO 411 - History and Theory of Biology</a></li><li><a href="https://activelylearning2teach.blogspot.com/2022/04/third-year-biochemistry-in-fall-2020.html" target="_blank">AUBIO/AUCHE 381 - Biochemistry: Intermediary Metabolism</a></li><li><a href="https://activelylearning2teach.blogspot.com/2022/06/2nd-year-biochemistry-in-winter-2021.html" target="_blank">AUBIO/AUCHE 280 - Biochemistry: Proteins, Enzymes & Energy</a></li><li><a href="https://activelylearning2teach.blogspot.com/2022/05/2nd-year-molecular-cell-biology-in-fall.html" target="_blank">AUBIO 230 - Molecular Cell Biology</a></li><li><a href="https://activelylearning2teach.blogspot.com/2022/03/first-year-biology-in-fall-2020.html" target="_blank">AUBIO 111 - Integrative Biology I</a></li></ul><div><br /></div><h4 style="text-align: left;">Resources</h4><div><a href="https://doi.org/10.22329/celt.v10i0.4910" target="_blank">Haave, N. (2017). Assessing teaching to empower learning. <i>Collected Essays on Learning and Teaching, 10</i>, iii–ix.</a> </div><p></p>Neil Haavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13952094460830822185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6414649070616166194.post-4101179214713961592022-01-18T12:38:00.003-07:002022-01-18T12:38:22.416-07:00distressing pedagogy?<p><br /></p><p>The title of Tompkins' article, Pedagogy of the distressed is a take-off of <a href="https://envs.ucsc.edu/internships/internship-readings/freire-pedagogy-of-the-oppressed.pdf" target="_blank">Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed</a>. Basically, she describes her response to feeling burned out by giving more responsibility for the classroom to her students. It emulates her understanding of who she is and what kind of change she wishes for her students. The article is an assertion that the politics of the classroom are the politics of the teacher. So, how do we wish to be considered? Is it more important how we perform for our students illustrating to them how knowledgeable and talented we are? Or is the point to give students the opportunity to practice so that they are able to gain some mastery over what they are learning?</p><p>It sounds similar to what I do in Augustana's biology capstone course, AUBIO 411 - History and Theory of Biology, except that I believe that Jane Tompkins gives her students greater free reign in how they lead the class. I wonder if I am up for that? Sort of similar to my question of how I implement TBL in my classroom. I set up the structure and then I am a slave to it rather than being responsive to students' needs.</p><p>Hmmm... It is difficult to be responsive because it means that you cannot always be prepared for what students need. As a seasoned instructor, I must trust that the preparation is there as a result of the years of training and experience that I already have. And really, it is not about me. It is about the students being given the opportunity to become.</p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Resources</h4><div>Freire, P. (2018). Pedagogy of the oppressed (50th anniv). Bloomsbury Academic. (A PDF of the 30th-anniversary edition is available <a href="https://envs.ucsc.edu/internships/internship-readings/freire-pedagogy-of-the-oppressed.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>.)</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/378032" target="_blank">Tompkins, J. (1990). Pedagogy of the distressed. College English, 52(6), 653–660.</a></div>Neil Haavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13952094460830822185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6414649070616166194.post-23639633572094185052021-10-25T10:42:00.001-06:002022-01-18T12:34:08.110-07:00questions and active learning<p>A while ago I met up for a coffee with a former student of mine. We discussed how med school was going but also ended up discussing how they learn and how they viewed my teaching while a student at Augustana. Granted this may not be a candid assessment but it is interesting how they said that it was my way of asking the class questions during my lectures that made the material become significant for them and made it stick in their understanding. They were so pleased that in the previous term they were able to map out the explanation for the acetone scent on the breath of diabetics. It just flowed out of their head and mouth while they explained the concept and how it was relevant to their team problem on metabolic acidosis.</p><p>So, a nice example of what I am trying to achieve in my teaching: deep learning.</p><p>This made me think about my own efforts to master team-based learning (TBL) and make my classroom more actively engaged. According to my former student, my classes are already engaging with my questions, but I know that this is not the perception of all of my students. So, I wonder if what I really need to do is not lose what I already do well - asking questions that highlight the relevance of what I am teaching - but mix it up with other active learning strategies.</p><p>Students have been indicating this on the end of term student ratings of instruction for those courses in which I implemented TBL. Many students suggest that either a little less or a little more TBL (depending upon the course and degree I implemented TBL) mixed in with the questioning style of lecturing I have used in the past might be good.</p><p>So maybe I simply need to identify in my courses those topics that would best benefit students as a TBL module would be a better way to go rather than being a slave to the TBL teaching strategy? One of my English colleagues does this in her literature courses; she ensures that the TBL process is peppered with mini-lectures. I have been trying to ensure this happens to a greater extent instead of relying on student feedback to inform me what they need help with. But many students are reluctant to provide this sort of feedback. This results in me needing to be a mind reader of my students' strengths and weaknesses and intervene when I identify weaknesses. </p><p>Difficult, but necessary. As novices, students have difficulty identifying what they do and do not understand. I need to find strategies that help us identify those areas for both myself and my students. Better designed quizzes would help - but also going back through the decades of experience I have will also help identify those areas.</p><p><a href="https://www.teachingprofessor.com/topics/teaching.strategies/participation.discussion/the_art_of_asking_questions/">Maryellen Weimer has a nice article</a> that discusses an <a href="https://www.lifescied.org/doi/10.1187/cbe.02-07-0021" target="_blank">article by Allen and Tanner</a> about asking questions. The Allen and Tanner article focuses on using Bloom's taxonomy of learning to assess the quality of our questions and notes. Similar to <a href="https://mazur.harvard.edu/presentations/why-you-can-pass-tests-and-still-fail-real-world-7">Eric Mazur</a>, Allen and Tanner suggest that students will study for the types of questions being asked on assessments. We may wish to have students engaged in analysis and evaluation - application of the material being taught. But if we only ask factual recall questions, then students will realize that is all they need to study for and the opportunity for deeper learning will be lost. Mazur advocates that our assessments must be authentic and that if they are, that will drive how we teach and how our students learn.</p><p>So, if an excellent student such as the one I had coffee with tells me that my questioning during class compelled them to consider the deeper significance of what they were learning while learning it and that this led to long-lasting understanding, then I must be doing something right with my questioning approach during class. I think I could do better if I were more conscious about the kinds of questions I ask.</p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Resources</h4><div><a href="https://www.lifescied.org/doi/10.1187/cbe.02-07-0021" target="_blank">Allen D, Tanner K. 2002. Approaches to Cell Biology Teaching: Questions about Questions. Cell Biol Educ 1(2): 63-67.</a> </div><p><a href="https://mazur.harvard.edu/presentations/why-you-can-pass-tests-and-still-fail-real-world-7" target="_blank">Mazur E. 2014. Why you can pass tests and still fail in the real world. 2014 Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Annual Conference, Queen's University (Kingston, ON, Canada). June 18.</a></p><p><a href="https://www.teachingprofessor.com/topics/teaching.strategies/participation.discussion/the_art_of_asking_questions/" target="_blank">Weimer M. 2013. The Art of Asking Questions. The Teaching Professor 27(3): 5.</a> </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p> </p>Neil Haavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13952094460830822185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6414649070616166194.post-50287782034126367812021-09-08T10:10:00.004-06:002021-09-16T19:14:05.055-06:00faculty misunderstanding of Teaching Squares<p>Teaching squares are a faculty development tool that I have used in the past when I was Associate Dean (Teaching) at the Augustana Campus of the University of Alberta. I have published a short description of this tool as have others (Haave 2014, Rhem2003, Berry 2011, Oberlies et al 2020). Teaching Squares was developed by Anne Wessely at St. Louis Community College and has been used by many colleges and universities. You can read the details of how to set it up in any of the articles listed in the resources below. </p><p>The key to implementing Teaching Squares to develop the teaching praxis of post-secondary faculty is that it is a tool with which faculty reflect on their own teaching. Thus, the point is not to critique the teaching you are observing in a colleague's class. This includes critiquing both the negative and positive aspects of your colleague's teaching. The point is for Teaching Squares participants to reflect on their own teaching praxis. Thus, when participants see something different in a colleagues' class that should prompt them to think "hmmm... how would I do that in my class?" Or a participant might ask themselves "I wonder if how my colleague is engaging in their class would work in my class?" Or "I don't think I would feel comfortable doing that in my class. I wonder why?"</p><p>As you can see from the sample reflective questions above, it is not at all about critiquing (positive or negative) your colleagues' classes but rather Teaching Squares is a means to prompt critiquing your own class and your own approach to teaching. Thus, after participants in a Teaching Square have visited each other's classes at least once and they get together to debrief the experience, they discuss what they have started thinking about their own teaching, not about their colleagues' teaching. </p><p>Unfortunately, many Teaching Squares participants make the mistake of using the after-class group meeting to discuss what they think their colleagues are doing well or correctly in their teaching. Hence, it is disappointing to read a recently published article that perpetuates this mistake stating that in the Teaching Squares debriefing discussion my article (Haave 2014) is cited as advocating that "Observations exclusively focus on positive features in the teaching sessions" (Lemus-Martinez et al 2021). I suspect that the authors misunderstood the statement in my article "The intention of the square is not to criticize each other’s teaching" to mean that only positive aspects of the observed teaching are discussed. A good critique involves a robust discussion of both the strong and weak aspects of whatever is being criticized. I wish that Lemus-Martinez et al (2021) had instead focused on the subsequent sentence in my Teaching Professor article that states "Rather, it’s an opportunity for faculty to reflect on their own teaching in light of colleagues’ teaching examples."</p><p>Hopefully, the authors read this blog and can correct their misunderstanding going forward as they continue to use the effective faculty development tool of Teaching Squares.</p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Resources</h4><p>Berenson, C. (2017). Teaching squares: Observe and reflect on teaching and learning. Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning Guide Series, Calgary, AB. <a href="https://taylorinstitute.ucalgary.ca/resources/teaching-squares-observe-and-reflect-teaching-and-learning">https://taylorinstitute.ucalgary.ca/resources/teaching-squares-observe-and-reflect-teaching-and-learning</a></p><p>Berry, D. (2011). Learning by observing our peers. <i>Collected Essays on Learning and Teaching, 1</i>, 99. <a href="https://doi.org/10.22329/celt.v1i0.3186">https://doi.org/10.22329/celt.v1i0.3186</a></p><p>CTLT. (ND). Teaching squares. Centre for Teaching, Learning & Technology, University of British Columbia. <a href="https://wiki.ubc.ca/images/c/c5/Teaching-squares.pdf">https://wiki.ubc.ca/images/c/c5/Teaching-squares.pdf</a></p><p>Haave, N. (2014). Teaching squares: A teaching development tool. <i>The Teaching Professor, 28</i>(10), 1. <a href="https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/faculty-development/teaching-squares-cross-disciplinary-perspectives/">https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/faculty-development/teaching-squares-cross-disciplinary-perspectives/</a></p><p>Lemus-Martinez, S. M., Weiler, T., Schneider, G. W., Moulik, S., & Athauda, G. (2021). “Teaching squares”: A grassroots approach to engaging medical educators in faculty development. <i>Medical Teacher, 43</i>(8), 910–911. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/0142159X.2021.1929903">https://doi.org/10.1080/0142159X.2021.1929903</a></p><p>Oberlies, M. K., Buxton, K., & Zeidman-Karpinski, A. (2020). Adapting evidence-based practices to improve library instruction: Using customized tools to support peer mentoring and observation. <i>New Review of Academic Librarianship, 26</i>(1), 6–30. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13614533.2019.1628078">https://doi.org/10.1080/13614533.2019.1628078</a></p><p>Rhem, J. (2003). Teaching squares. <i>National Teaching and Learning Forum, 13</i>(1), 1–3. <a href="https://tomprof.stanford.edu/posting/535">https://tomprof.stanford.edu/posting/535</a></p><p>Berenson, C. (2017). Teaching squares: Observe and reflect on teaching and learning. Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning Guide Series, Calgary, AB. <a href="https://taylorinstitute.ucalgary.ca/resources/teaching-squares-observe-and-reflect-teaching-and-learning">https://taylorinstitute.ucalgary.ca/resources/teaching-squares-observe-and-reflect-teaching-and-learning</a></p><p><br /></p>Neil Haavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13952094460830822185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6414649070616166194.post-59494439287729320392020-07-02T14:48:00.002-06:002020-07-02T14:48:55.457-06:00promoting educationally rich discussion<br /><div><a href="https://www.lifescied.org/doi/10.1187/cbe.19-06-0112">This paper</a> by Leupen et al (2020) was of great interest to me because this is something that I struggle with in my own teaching: how to promote educationally-rich discussion among students? In this study, the authors recorded the conversation of a few teams a couple of times during the semester when student teams were discussing the solution to an in-class instructor assigned problem. The results are not much of a surprise to me. Students had deeper conceptual conversations when the questions assigned asked students to consider course material at a higher level of Bloom's taxonomy. </div><div><br /></div><div>If the results are unsurprising to me, why do I find the study interesting? I find it interesting because it validates my own suspicions that to promote students' critical thinking requires asking students to take course material and apply it to significant situations. </div><div><br /></div><div>The physiology course under investigation in this paper used the instructional strategy of team-based learning (TBL), a flipped-classroom approach to teaching and learning that I use in my own courses. What the authors identify, and I agree with them from my own experience, is that one of the reasons that students may have engaged at a deeper level with higher-order cognitive questions in their study may be because 1. student teams were stable throughout the term and thus students may feel more comfortable with each other in querying each other about their thinking; 2. the pre-class preparation inherent in TBL makes lower-order cognitive questions trivial because the students already know the rote-learning for which they were held accountable before the in-class applications of their learning; 3. that any student may be called upon during the inter-team discussion to explain the rationale for their answer.</div><div><br /></div><div>I have difficulties doing this well. The difficulty for me is finding the right balance between posing a significant non-trivial problem to students that is difficult for them to solve on their own but is possible to solve as a team. This is Vygotsky's zone of proximal developing in which the potential for learning is rich. But finding that Goldilocks point for any given cohort of students or any given course year-level is difficult. Sometimes I get it right, but many times I make it too easy (trivial) or too difficult.</div><div><br /></div><div>Regardless of the difficulty of teaching, it is good to hear in this article that the effort seems to be worth it.</div><div><br /></div><div><font size="5">Resouces</font></div><div><a href="https://www.lifescied.org/doi/10.1187/cbe.19-06-0112" target="_blank">Leupen, S. M., Kephart, K. L., & Hodges, L. C. (2020). Factors influencing quality of team discussion Discourse analysis in an undergraduate team-based learning biology course. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 19(1), ar7.</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Interaction between learning and development. In M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner, & E. Souberman (Eds.), Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes (pp. 79–91). Harvard University Press. </div>Neil Haavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13952094460830822185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6414649070616166194.post-6956367360918455692020-05-27T14:49:00.002-06:002020-05-27T15:13:17.687-06:00i had a nightmare last night...My family and I enter the hotel lobby after a day of sightseeing. It is a largish hotel with approximately six elevators. Four of the six are out of order. We wait for a while and one finally opens up but the elevator is jammed full - no room for us. So it leaves and we wait for another. A little while later the other working elevator opens its doors. It is full, but there is sufficient room for the three of us to squeeze in the front while the doors close behind us. I push the button for the sixth floor. <div><br /></div><div>The elevator goes down instead.</div><div><br /></div><div>The doors open and we are pushed out with the other passengers in the elevator car into what appears to be the utility room. My family and I are pushed out as everyone else exits far enough away that we are unable to reach the elevator doors in time to ride back up.</div><div><br /></div><div>We wait a while for the elevator to return.</div><div><br /></div><div>It finally arrives and we are able to enter the elevator in time after everyone else exits. Where are all of these hotel patrons going to in the basement utility room? I don't know - its a dream.</div><div><br /></div><div>We ride up to the lobby where more people board. I check to ensure that the floor six button has been pushed - it has - it is alight. </div><div><br /></div><div>The elevator goes up past the 6th floor. On floor 8 people exit. The floor 6 button is still glowing. Why didn't it stop on the 6th floor? The elevator continues up and stops periodically letting more people off on their floor. This continues until my spouse, daughter and I are the only three in the elevator car. The elevator continues to go up past the 18th floor. I thought there were only 18 floors in this hotel...</div><div><br /></div><div>The elevator continues to rise and then from above, walls come down into the elevator car separating my spouse, daughter and I into separate cars. I am now alone in my own personal elevator.</div><div><br /></div><div>As the elevator continues its ascent, the car starts to slowly tip on its side. Slowly enough that I am able to adjust where I am standing so that now I stand on the wall of the car. The car continues to tip until what was up is now down - I am standing on what was the ceiling of the car while the elevator gathers speed until I am riding down and doing loops as if I am on an amusement park roller-coaster. This continues (I do not up-chuck my lunch! how is that possible with this ride? I don't know - its a dream) until the elevator slows down and stops. The doors open, I step outside into the lobby where I started. </div><div><br /></div><div>I am alone. Now five of the six elevators are out of order. I look around but do not see my family. The one remaining working elevator opens its doors and I step inside and press floor six. I am the only occupant. The elevator again ascends past floor six. I continue to rise as the elevator gathers speed. The walls of the elevator start to close in around me. I am being squished thin like bread dough is kneaded into a long thin baguette. I am getting thinner - stretched out. I am being squished. I can't breathe. I can't...</div><div><br /></div><div>I wake up.</div><div><br /></div><div>I just finished a term in which I had to hastily switch from teaching my courses face-to-face using team-based learning to remotely teaching online. I continued to use team-based learning online using the breakout rooms in Zoom to facilitate my teams working on groups tests and applications of their learning which involved me simultaneously navigating between different breakout rooms, team quizzes on our LMS, and various Google Docs or Google Slides depending upon the in-class activity. On top of that, I acceded to student requests to record our synchronous mini-lectures and learned how to edit and post those online through Zoom. By the end of the term, I was getting nauseated at the thought of moderating another multi-modal synchronous class meeting. I was suffering from the stimulus and cognitive overload in terms of managing a class that was set up for F2F and now was trying to be replicated online. </div><div><br /></div><div>As soon as my course grades were submitted at the beginning of May and the term put to bed, I was required to jump in and consider revisions to our core curriculum and degree programs. Revisions that we had been planning for the last year or more but had finally come to the final push to get the details down on paper: which courses were revised? which new courses introduced? Which courses dropped? How does that affect the prerequisite structure of the program? Map our learning outcomes to the constellation of required courses. Think through those learning outcomes to ensure they make sense. Consider how our program changes affected the requirements of other programs. Go back and revise in response to the moving target that is campus-wide curriculum renewal.</div><div><br /></div><div>Finally, we had our Faculty Council meeting and the necessary motions were passed.</div><div><br /></div><div>It is now the end of May and I am faced with managing to re-think my courses so that they may be delivered well as an online course for Fall 2020. I am being charged to do this well this time rather than the triage of remote delivery (in contrast to online delivery I am told). I have two courses assigned to me in the fall that require restructuring for online delivery. How do I do that? How is that different from the triage that I just finished of remotely delivering my F2F courses? I have never done online teaching before. Here, I am told is an online course that will get me up to speed. Expect to take some time to complete this online course on online teaching. Becoming an online instructor does not happen overnight. I am told that normally it takes 12-18 months to produce one good online course. I have three months remaining (it is the end of May) to prepare two online courses.</div><div><br /></div><div>In Alberta, our provincial government has made drastic cuts to education in response to the decline in oil revenues. All budgets, all departments at my university are being cut... drastically. My seconded part-time position as Assoc Director of our CTL is being closed at the end of June. As a result, I am asked to pick up a third course to teach online for the fall term. Ok, I say, I'll prepare one course per month: June, July, August. But don't forget to keep up with your research and by the way, would you also please help your colleagues think through how to transition to online learning (not remote delivery). Sure, I can do that.</div><div><br /></div><div>So, first-year biology will be done in June, 2nd-year Molecular Cell Biology I can convert in July, and then I will try and squeeze in a revisioning of my 3rd yr biochemistry course in August. I can do that. </div><div><br /></div><div>But wait! It looks like there is a very good chance that we will still be online in the winter term. I am told to prepare for that contingency. So that is two more courses to prepare for the winter after the fall is completed. But wait! there is no time between the end of the fall term and the beginning of the winter term to restructure two more courses for online delivery. I'll have to do those courses also during the three remaining summer months. </div><div><br /></div><div>Ok, ok, 3 months times 4 weeks each equals 12 weeks. So five courses divided into 12 weeks equals a little more than 2 weeks time to prepare each of those 5 courses. Phew! can I do this? Oh sure you can, just use your graduate students to help you. My campus is an undergraduate campus - I don't have graduate students. Oh, that's ok, just employ your TAs to give you a hand. No, we don't have TAs, I just told you that we are an undergraduate campus. Oh, that's ok, we are certain that your CTL can give you a hand converting your F2F courses to online courses. No, I told you before that our CTL is experiencing drastic budget and personnel cuts just like everywhere else across the university in response to Jason Kenney's cuts to education. Oh, it appears you will just need to make the transition on your own. But you will be empowered to do that once you complete the online course that teaches you how to teach online.</div><div><br /></div><div>Oh, but by the way, you will need to pick up a 6th course in the winter term. Remember that our campus has a teaching load of three courses per term and because you are no longer Assoc Director you need to make that up with an extra course in the fall (ok, got that one - first-year BIO), plus another one in the winter. Ok... if that is what I need to do. What are you going to assign me?</div><div><br /></div><div>Biological Diversity is what we have left for you: first-year biodiversity. But I am a biochemist. Sorry, that's what we have available for you. Thanks for helping us to decrease our sessional instructor budget. But I haven't taken general biological diversity since 1978 when I was in grade 11. I took an invertebrate survey course once as an undergrad but that is all. No problem, you are an experienced teacher you can do this. But I have never taught this course before. I have never taught online before.</div><div><br /></div><div>No problem, just take this online course that will teach you how to teach online and you will be fine.</div><div><br /></div><div>But...</div><div><br /></div><div>I wake up.</div><div><br /></div>Neil Haavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13952094460830822185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6414649070616166194.post-9469407170301072332020-04-09T12:46:00.000-06:002020-04-09T12:46:27.016-06:00active learning as social justice<a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1916903117" target="_blank">This</a> is an interesting paper recently published in PNAS. Their meta-analysis of active learning studies that disaggregated under-represented from over-represented student groups suggests that active learning has a disproportionate impact on UR STEM students in terms of both passing a course and exam performance. I cannot specifically speak to the stats used in their analysis, but as far as I can tell it appears to me that the authors have tried to take a robust approach to their statistical analysis.<br />
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What I found interesting is that they suggest that implementation of active learning that is "high intensity" had greater benefits on UR students; there was less of an achievement gap between UR and OR students. What is high-intensity active learning? High-intensity active learning is simply courses in which a greater proportion of class time is devoted to active learning activities. The greater amount of class time during which students are engaged in the application of their learning, the narrower the achievement gap between UR and OR students in STEM courses. The question is, does this mean that 100% of the time in active learning activities is the best? I don't think so. There is certainly a Goldilocks balance between the instructor orienting students toward a new concept (lecturing) vs having students discover the skill and knowledge themselves through pre-class assignments and in-class application. And this balance will be different for different teaching and learning contexts: year-level, discipline, student cohort. The master teacher will know how to gauge their particular context and how to balance lecturing with active learning to best meet the learning needs of their students.<br />
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So, we know that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1319030111" target="_blank">active learning can improve students' learning overall</a>. And now it appears that under-represented students may benefit disproportionally when active learning is implemented in their classroom. As with all social issues and culture changes, there will be push back from those students who will learn well no matter what type of instructional strategy is implemented in their classroom. In addition, active learning did not erase the achievement gap between UR and OR students it only decreased the gap. Active learning clearly does not address all of the issues influencing students ability to be successful. But implementing active learning appears to be one way of addressing EDI issues in our classrooms.<br />
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<img src="https://www.theinclusionsolution.me/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Equity-Equality-Graphic-blog.jpg" /><br />
<a href="http://www.theinclusionsolution.me/equity-vs-equality-eliminating-opportunity-gaps-education/">http://www.theinclusionsolution.me/equity-vs-equality-eliminating-opportunity-gaps-education/</a><br />
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Resources</h4>
Freeman, S., Eddy, S. L., McDonough, M., Smith, M. K., Okoroafor, N., Jordt, H., & Wenderoth, M. P. (2014). Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 111(23), 8410–8415. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1319030111">https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1319030111</a><br />
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Theobald, E. J., Hill, M. J., Tran, E., Agrawal, S., Arroyo, E. N., Behling, S., … Freeman, S. (2020). Active learning narrows achievement gaps for underrepresented students in undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and math. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(12), 6476–6483. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1916903117">https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1916903117</a><br />
<br />Neil Haavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13952094460830822185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6414649070616166194.post-28608977020404488262019-12-11T13:38:00.002-07:002019-12-11T13:38:46.273-07:00last class of the termI just finished teaching my last molecular cell biology class for the fall term and I am feeling out of sorts. Out of sorts because I don't know what to do with myself. For three months my energy has been focused on preparing in-class activities and reading quizzes for each and every class meeting. Team-Based Learning, a highly structured version of the flipped classroom, requires preparation for every class. Activities and questions that worked last year, don't necessarily work for the subsequent cohort of students. So for the last three months, I have been probing my students trying to get a sense of what they do and do not know so that I can provide learning experiences to address their knowledge and skill gap and trying to hold a mirror up to them so that students know what they do and do not know.<br />
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Now the class is over, the students are completing the end of term student rating of instruction. And I am at a loss over what to do with myself.<br />
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Yes, I have service committees that need my attention, I have papers that need writing and revising, I have reviews that need to be typed. But those were always completed in the background while teaching has been foremost in my mind. Now that is over for the term, I feel disoriented - I no longer have the lodestone of instructing my students to set the priorities for my day. Can I actually take the time to read that article, to browse that recent journal issue, to walk down the hall and say hello to my colleague?<br />
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Strangely, I feel guilty about even taking the time to consider going for a coffee with a colleague. This is how all-encompassing the teaching term is for me.<br />
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It didn't always use to be this way.<br />
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Certainly, when I first started teaching I was always running to stand still. But after a few years and being successfully tenured, the pace became reasonable. I was able to tweak and re-use previous lectures and received great student reviews for my efforts.<br />
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Then, about eight years ago, I became bored with the sound of my own voice and experienced the revelation that good lecturing doesn't necessarily equate with good learning. In 2012, I began experimenting with implementing active learning in my classes culminating with most of my classes being reworked with team-based learning. And then the realization inherent with learner-centred teaching that each cohort of students is different; that to be able to meet the needs of each student cohort, each student, required that I continually formatively assess my students in order to understand and meet their learning needs.<br />
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That is difficult exhausting work. But such rewarding work! After my last class today, a few students came up and thanked me for my efforts. One student expressed gratitude for my class structure that facilitated their ability to learn from the assigned readings. The reading guides are doing their work. My preparation efforts were well-received.<br />
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So now I am sitting in my office wondering what to do with myself. I have decided to sit quietly for a moment and enjoy the fruits of my labour: student learning and gratitude. The teaching and learning experience is fleeting. Just allow me a few minutes to enjoy it before it fades into the ether.Neil Haavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13952094460830822185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6414649070616166194.post-26708610044299356942019-10-06T11:15:00.002-06:002019-10-07T10:33:32.748-06:00student perceptions of active learning (3)Before I discuss this paper, let me make it clear that I think the balance between lecture and active learning is completely dependent upon the class context. This is not an either/or situation. Teaching involves careful consideration of what our students need to learn and how to best support their learning efforts. Sometimes this will involve telling students something to clear up a misconception. Sometimes this will involve having our students apply or discuss their learning in order to make their learning stick by having them realize that they have not yet deeply learned a concept. I liken the situation to tuning the dial of a radio tuner.<br />
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<br />
Thus, whenever someone asks me how much active learning they should introduce into their classroom I answer: it depends. It depends upon the student cohort (their experiences and preparation), the year level of the course, the discipline of the course, whether the course is heavy on learning theory, or producing an assignment, what the learning culture is of the particular campus on which you find yourself teaching. All of these things will influence the right balance of lecturing and active learning that happens in your class. What I can say is that if only one is happening in class, then likely not enough of the other is occurring.<br />
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Having said that, I really liked this paper (<a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1821936116" target="_blank">Deslauriers et al 2019</a>). It seems to me to be a well-controlled and thoughtful paper. The authors used a randomized, cross-over design to determine whether students' feeling of learning (FOL) correlate with their actual learning (as assessed with a test of learning - TOL) in an intro physics course taught with active learning vs lecture. <br />
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The results clearly indicate that students' FOL was greater when lecture was used whereas their TOL was greater in the active learning environment. This agrees with the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.77.6.1121" target="_blank">Dunning-Kruger effect</a> which suggests that novices have poor metacognition with which to assess their own learning. Their results also agree with other published results which show that students do not appreciate active learning (<a href="https://doi.org/10.14434/josotl.v16i2.19216" target="_blank">van Sickle 2016</a>; <a href="https://josotl.indiana.edu/article/view/1808/1805" target="_blank">Smith et al 2011</a>) despite active learning producing better learning outcomes (<a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1319030111" target="_blank">Freeman et al 2014</a>).<br />
<br />
The FOL survey used in this study allowed the authors to also consider the impact of lecture fluency and they found that FOL was positively impacted by fluency. The literature suggests that fluency can inflate students' perceptions of learning as cited in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1821936116" target="_blank">Deslauriers et al (2019</a>).<br />
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In a good mixed-methods design, the researchers followed up a subset of the participating students with interviews and they found that students' perceptions of learning were negatively impacted by the struggle required with active learning. When it was pointed out to them that studies show that cognitive effort positively impacts learning, students suggested that knowledge would influence their perception of learning in active learning courses.<br />
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So what is impacting the disconnect among novice students' perceptions of their own learning? As suggested above, one is that novices do not have well-developed metacognition. They have difficulties recognizing good judgement and, as a result, have difficulties judging their own learning. In addition, lecture fluency can mislead students into thinking they have learned something when in fact they have not. Finally, students unfamiliar with the cognitive effort required for active learning may resent the effort required to master a body of knowledge.<br />
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This resonates with my own teaching experience. Before I implemented active learning in my own classrooms a number of years ago, I was perplexed when students informed me of their frustration with their own learning because I explained things so well in class that they thought they understood what I was teaching but that perception did not translate into good exam performance. It was that student feedback that compelled me to look for other ways of teaching that would make it explicit to students what they did and did not know, what they had and had not learned. <a href="http://www.teambasedlearning.org/" target="_blank">Team-based learning</a> is the active learning structure I have implemented in my courses and it works well by hitting a number of the known factors by which active learning promotes student learning (<a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-ca/How+Learning+Works%3A+Seven+Research+Based+Principles+for+Smart+Teaching-p-9780470484104" target="_blank">Ambrose et al 2010</a>; <a href="https://makeitstick.net/" target="_blank">Brown et al 2014</a>; <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1168927" target="_blank">Mazur 2009</a>): pre-class preparation, attempting new problems in class, interacting with peers to practice their understanding of what they have learned. What these strategies do is make apparent to students what they do and do not know thereby enabling them to follow up and address the points of misunderstanding they have. In addition, being able to teach each other is a powerful way to cement their learning and create a robust knowledge structure and mental model of what they are learning that integrates with their existing understanding of their world.<br />
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So what are we to do to help students accept and embrace active learning despite the cognitive effort required with this teaching strategy? The authors conclude their paper by reporting on the results of an intervention they ran after receiving their study results. They spent time at the beginning of a subsequent term to show students the results of the research and explain how cognitive effort leads to increased learning. This was a 20-minute presentation of the results of the impact of active learning on learning gains and the influence of fluency on perceptions of learning. The researchers observed that students in the Q&A following the presentation were most interested in the idea that FOL and fluency can mislead their judgement about how their learning is progressing. A student survey showed that most students had a more favourable view of active learning as a result of the initial intervention.<br />
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These results agree with the earlier <a href="https://www.nsta.org/store/product_detail.aspx?id=10.2505/4/jcst18_047_05_80" target="_blank">Finelli et al (2018) study</a> that suggested that how instructors prepare students for active learning (explain why they are using a particular active learning strategy) goes a long way to mitigate students' resistance to active learning. More significantly in my mind is that the same Finelli study found that how instructors facilitated an active learning activity played a more important role in students response to active learning: being engaged with students during the activity promoted students' perceptions that active learning was enabling their learning.<br />
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Please notice, that as I stated above, in both the Finelli and Deslauriers papers it is not that lecturing is completely absent. Read carefully their papers and you will read that they note that mini-lectures were used as necessary. Similar to how I opened this blog post, it is not that lecturing is bad. It is that the injudicious use of lecture is bad. But of course, this can also be applied to active learning. Active learning will not fix bad teaching. Good teachers will be judicious about their use of lecture and active learning and implement either as the context dictates. Having students engaged in active learning for the sake of active learning is not the lesson here. The lesson here is that good instructors will implement lecturing and active learning as required by the particular context and that this will change from year to year, cohort to cohort, class to class, minute to minute.<br />
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This is what makes teaching such an interesting challenge as we support our students' learning efforts.<br />
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<h4>
Resources</h4>
<a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-ca/How+Learning+Works%3A+Seven+Research+Based+Principles+for+Smart+Teaching-p-9780470484104" target="_blank">Ambrose, S. A., Bridges, M. W., DiPietro, M., Lovett, M. C., Norman, M. K., & Mayer, R. E. (2010). How learning works: Seven research-based principles for smart teaching (1st ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.</a><br />
<br />
<a href="https://makeitstick.net/" target="_blank">Brown, P. C., McDaniel, M. A., & Roediger, H. L. (2014). Make it stick: The science of successful learning. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.</a><br />
<br />
<a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1821936116" target="_blank">Deslauriers, L., McCarty, L. S., Miller, K., Callaghan, K., & Kestin, G. (2019). Measuring actual learning versus feeling of learning in response to being actively engaged in the classroom. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 201821936.</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.nsta.org/store/product_detail.aspx?id=10.2505/4/jcst18_047_05_80" target="_blank">Finelli, B. C. J., Nguyen, K., Demonbrun, M., Borrego, M., Prince, M., Husman, J., … Waters, C. K. (2018). Reducing student resistance to active learning: Strategies for instructors. Journal of College Science Teaching, 47(5), 80–91.</a> A PDF of this paper is available from Harvard <a href="https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/41212/files/6460075/download?verifier=XYlwX8PoHNstoWSpJpoz00WG03E6OhRn5AW7Dele&wrap=1" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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<a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1319030111" target="_blank">Freeman, S., Eddy, S. L., McDonough, M., Smith, M. K., Okoroafor, N., Jordt, H., & Wenderoth, M. P. (2014). Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 111(23), 8410–8415.</a><br />
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<a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.77.6.1121" target="_blank">Kruger, J., & Dunning, D. (1999). Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing one’s own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 77(6), 1121–1134.</a><br />
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<a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1168927" target="_blank">Mazur, E. (2009). Farewell, Lecture? Science, 323(5910), 50–51.</a><br />
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<a href="https://josotl.indiana.edu/article/view/1808/1805" target="_blank">Smith, C. V, & Cardaciotto, L. (2011). Is active learning like broccoli? Student perceptions of active learning in large lecture classes. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning, 11(1), 53–61.</a><br />
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<a href="https://doi.org/10.14434/josotl.v16i2.19216" target="_blank">Van Sickle, J. R. (2016). Discrepancies between student perception and achievement of learning outcomes in a flipped classroom. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 16(2), 29–38.</a>Neil Haavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13952094460830822185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6414649070616166194.post-21179073934046392052019-10-01T09:18:00.001-06:002019-10-01T09:18:03.832-06:00student perceptions of active learning (2)This study <a href="https://josotl.indiana.edu/article/view/1808/1805" target="_blank">(Smith & Cardaciotto, 2011)</a> is similar to the more recent study published by <a href="https://doi.org/10.14434/josotl.v16i2.19216" target="_blank">Jenna Van Sickle</a>. Both studies report positive student outcomes with active learning but that students rated the active experience as less positive than the more passive learning experience. So it is interesting that although there is ample evidence to suggest that active learning is good for students, students do not appreciate the experience. The authors liken this to telling children to eat their broccoli because it is good for them.<br />
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The Van Sickle study considered a math course whereas the Smith & Cardaciotto broccoli study considered introductory psychology. Smith & Cardaciotto state at the end that active learning activities need to be embedded in sound pedagogy and not simply involve students “doing” something. I am not sure why they tacked this on at the end of their paper as their study design did not address this at all. It is an important consideration, but their study design has nothing to say about this.<br />
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A limitation of this study in terms of it being integrated with other active learning studies is that the authors interpreted active learning as any activity that engaged the students cognitively. Thus, their active learning activities were done outside of class rather than the more typical understanding that active learning involves transforming what happens in the traditional didactic lecture - the activities happen inside of the classroom. They make the comparison that what they are doing is similar to the sciences which have a didactic lecture associated with an active lab or tutorial. What is interesting is that most of the published research suggests that active learning in science classes regardless of an active lab or tutorial will promote student learning outcomes. This broccoli study is odd this way thinking that active learning outside of class will do the trick. And even their two-course modules on brain and behaviour showed no differences between the content review and the active learning conditions which they suggest is because those course sections use more active learning during class meetings.<br />
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Another limitation is that they did not specifically consider student learning outcomes but rather only student perceptions of their own learning. They acknowledge this and request that subsequent studies specifically consider student learning outcomes as exam or grade results. They cite literature that indicates that students self-reports of learning correlates with actual learning outcomes and so can indicate an impact on student learning. But still, this study did not specifically study this. The reason they give is that the different instructors administered different exams and thus were not comparable.<br />
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What I find odd is that the authors make the assumption that students can accurately assess their learning and thus student perception surveys can indicate student learning outcomes to some extent though they do explain that this needs to be studied directly. The reason that I find this odd is that although the authors cite a study indicating the reliability of student perception reports of their learning, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.77.6.1121" target="_blank">the Dunning-Kruger effect</a> suggests that weak students over-estimate their learning whereas good students under-estimate their learning. So it does not suggest that student self-reports are reliable measures of their own learning.<br />
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More recent students (e.g. Finelli et al, 2018) suggest that the manner in which instructors explain and facilitate the learning activities in their classroom can go a long way to mitigate students' resistance to learning<br />
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<h4>
Resources</h4>
Finelli, B. C. J., Nguyen, K., Demonbrun, M., Borrego, M., Prince, M., Husman, J., … Waters, C. K. (2018). Reducing student resistance to active learning: Strategies for instructors. Journal of College Science Teaching, 47(5), 80–91.<br />
<br />
Kruger, J., & Dunning, D. (1999). Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing one’s own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 77(6), 1121–1134. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.77.6.1121">https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.77.6.1121</a><br />
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Smith, C. V, & Cardaciotto, L. (2011). Is active learning like broccoli? Student perceptions of active learning in large lecture classes. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning, 11(1), 53–61. Retrieved from <a href="https://josotl.indiana.edu/article/view/1808/1805">https://josotl.indiana.edu/article/view/1808/1805</a><br />
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Van Sickle, J. R. (2016). Discrepancies between student perception and achievement of learning outcomes in a flipped classroom. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 16(2), 29–38. <a href="https://doi.org/10.14434/josotl.v16i2.19216">https://doi.org/10.14434/josotl.v16i2.19216</a><br />
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Wieman, C. E. (2014). Large-scale comparison of science teaching methods sends clear message. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 111(23), 8319–8320. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1407304111">https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1407304111</a>Neil Haavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13952094460830822185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6414649070616166194.post-64457308101223557202019-09-27T09:01:00.000-06:002019-09-27T09:54:26.715-06:00student perceptions of active learning (1)This <a href="https://doi.org/10.14434/josotl.v16i2.19216" target="_blank">paper</a> (Van Sickle, 2016) articulates what I have been experiencing in my TBL courses: student engagement and learning has been raised, but students do not like the process. Learning is being enhanced, but students do not like how it has been achieved.<br />
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One of the implications of this study is that students’ self-reports are not accurate indicators of their learning: students are not able to accurately assess the quality of their own learning. In this study, students performed better in the flipped classroom (as indicated by exam scores) yet they rated the learning experience as less effective than a traditional lecture.<br />
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Jenna Van Sickle unpacks this discrepancy with five possibilities:<br />
<ol>
<li>Learning is messy and hard and students resent experiencing this reality.</li>
<li>Less equitable student-instructor interaction in the flipped classroom. It increases markedly for some and none for others whereas in the traditional lecture everyone receives the same interaction. I don’t think I agree with this because most traditional lectures, I think, will involve some Q&A between instructor and student, but typically this will be with the same students willing to raise their hands. But note this in the context of Anna Risannen’s findings in their blended learning Science courses on the North Campus - it seems that the instructor has the greatest impact (on student learning or on student perceptions of learning?). </li>
<li>First time experience with active learning. Students understanding of teaching may involve the teacher telling them what to learn whereas flipped requires students to take responsibility for this.</li>
<li>Not all students will have done the pre-class assignment and thus feel ill-equipped to attend to the in-class assignments. Although this is their choice and responsibility when they assess the class with SETs they may remember that they felt uncomfortable in class and this is what influences their SET rating of the class.</li>
<li>Finally, Jenna suggests that a class culture of being ok to be wrong may be uncomfortable for students. This kind of learning environment requires students to take risks in order to benefit from the active learning opportunities. Many students will, but some students may feel uncomfortable doing this. Instructors can mitigate this by giving feedback often in a manner that praises effort rather than ability (promoting a growth mindset). Teaching is cultivating the development of ability which requires focus, effort, and time on task. These are the attributes on which instructors need to be giving feedback because these are what produce learning. In contrast, in a lecture-based class, students will not have to risk a wrong answer. There is inevitably embarrassment with a public wrong answer and this will colour students’ perception of the class. Yet, this is exactly what I am trying to do with my use of TBL - I want students to realize when they do not know something. I want to prevent students from fooling themselves that they have learned something - students may resent my holding a mirror to their learning.</li>
</ol>
The difficulty of a learner-centred classroom eliciting negative student perceptions, especially in first-year introductory courses for majors, is that it may impact retention and recruitment into the discipline. Van Sickle does make clear, however, that it is important to cognitively prepare students for subsequent courses in the major/discipline. But like me, she wonders if there is a way to do that, actively, without producing the negative affect in students.<br />
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Note the difference in study design between this and those that study student perception-outcome dichotomy. This study looked at aggregate scores for perceptions and outcomes and compared those. In contrast, Dunning-Kruger analyses consider each students' perception of their own learning and compares that to their actual learning outcome. That is, a regression among the individual points between perception and outcome is assessed. This is a more accurate way to look at this dichotomy. So a follow-up study would be to do this same regression analysis among active learning and lecture classes to see if there is a difference in perception correlation with student learning outcomes.<br />
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<h4>
Resources</h4>
Kruger, J., & Dunning, D. (1999). Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing one’s own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 77(6), 1121–1134.<br />
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Van Sickle, J. R. (2016). Discrepancies between student perception and achievement of learning outcomes in a flipped classroom. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 16(2), 29–38. https://doi.org/10.14434/josotl.v16i2.19216Neil Haavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13952094460830822185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6414649070616166194.post-35474764280756690352019-06-18T09:14:00.001-06:002019-06-18T09:14:21.109-06:00the Goldilocks point between lecture and active learning: 20-60%<a href="https://doi.org/10.1119/1.5065907" target="_blank">This paper by Henderson et al (2018)</a> suggests that most students will not penalize instructors who use active learning with low student evaluations of teaching. Interestingly, those instructors who used lecture more than 60% of the time reported no change in their student ratings of instruction (SRIs) whereas those who reported using lecture less than 20% of class time reported decreased SRIs. Those instructors whose implementation of active learning was between 20 to 60% typically reported an increase in SRIs.<br />
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A limitation that the authors fully acknowledge is that these data were collected by surveying faculty who had completed their four-day new professor workshop (NPW) during the first couple of years of their academic appointment. Their NPW has the goal to develop in new professors the capacity to implement active learning strategies. However! These are self-reports. SRIs were not actually enumerated and statistically analyzed. This is an issue for this study. Are instructors remembering their SRIs differently? How do they interpret their SRIs? Is a median above three (assuming a 5-point Likert scale) considered good to them? Is a median below four considered bad? There are differences in institutional culture as exemplified among the departments at my university.<br />
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Despite this major limitation, this is the beginning of gathering real evidence for how students respond to active learning. <br />
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Note that the authors clearly explain their position on the use of SRIs - that they should be interpreted carefully and only be one aspect of triangulating teaching efficacy. They suggest, however, that SRIs probably don’t even assess teaching efficacy and that other aspects of multi-faceted evaluation of teaching are necessary to actually assess teaching efficacy.<br />
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In addition, I appreciate that the authors clearly explain that the correlations between the amount of lecturing and SRIs are not set in stone. There were some instructors in their study who lectured less than 20% of the time who reported improved SRIs while there were also those in the Goldilocks region of 20-60% that reported decreases in SRIs. They make the important point that how active learning is received by students is heavily influenced by how instructors set up and facilitate the active learning activity in addition to the particular instructional/department/program context/culture. These all influence student expectations for instruction and learning and if the educational experience does not match students’ expectations, that is when students will award poor SRIs.<br />
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Teaching and learning are context dependent. The answer to how much active learning should be implemented in any particular class is... it depends.<br />
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<h4>
Resources</h4>
<a href="http://www.ideaedu.org/Portals/0/Uploads/Documents/Challenging_Misconceptions_About_Student_Ratings_of_Instruction.pdf" target="_blank">Benton, S. L., & Ryalls, K. R. (2016). Challenging misconceptions about student ratings of instruction. IDEA Paper, 58(April), 1–22.</a><br />
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<a href="https://doi.org/10.1119/1.5065907" target="_blank">Henderson, C., Khan, R., & Dancy, M. (2018). Will my student evaluations decrease if I adopt an active learning instructional strategy? American Journal of Physics, 86(12), 934–942.</a>Neil Haavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13952094460830822185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6414649070616166194.post-33822868809732455112019-06-13T12:22:00.000-06:002019-09-27T10:26:50.380-06:00what is the thesis of your course?<br />
Two online articles spoke to me today spurring me to articulate how I approach my courses. The one by <a href="https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/beautiful-questions-how-humans-learn-and-the-future-of-education/" target="_blank">Ryan Boyd</a> is an essay review of Josh Eyler's recent book <i><a href="https://wvupressonline.com/node/758" target="_blank">How Humans Learn</a></i> and the other by <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/How-to-Fix-the-Dreaded-Survey/246252" target="_blank">Kevin Gannon</a> considers how to manage survey courses. Both consider what interferes with student learning and suggest that part of the issue is how some university courses are taught: large passive lectures with too much content. I am finally reading Paolo Freire's book <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedagogy_of_the_Oppressed" target="_blank">Pedagogy of the Oppressed</a></i>, a book I have been meaning to read for many years, in which one of the sources of oppression he suggests is the volume of content that is found in some courses. This is what Gannon refers to as the fire hose approach to teaching and learning: students open their brains wide and teachers rapidly pour the content in. I think this is akin to Freire's articulation of the banking model of education in which teachers transmit the information and students receive it banking it for later use in their brains. What Freire articulates in his book is that this is a form of oppression because it prevents students from thinking, it represses their ability to develop their cognition.<br />
<br />
A few of weeks ago at the University of Alberta's <a href="https://www.ualberta.ca/centre-for-teaching-and-learning/events/festival-of-teaching" target="_blank">Festival of Teaching and Learning</a>, <a href="https://www.ualberta.ca/centre-for-teaching-and-learning/events/festival-of-teaching/keynote-2019" target="_blank">Dr Jeanette Norden</a> gave the keynote address in which she advocated educators to teach less, better. (Notice the key placement of the comma in that phrase: it reminds me of <i><a href="https://www.lynnetruss.com/books/eats-shoots-leaves/" target="_blank">Eats, Shoots & Leaves</a></i>.) She urged educators to teach less content but to support students' learning of that content to a deeper level.<br />
<br />
All of these recent sources that I have been thinking about suggest the same thing: in our courses, give students the room to think about what they are learning. Otherwise, students will only learn what we are teaching on a superficial level. Content heavy courses will not nurture our students' cognitive abilities.<br />
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Now, granted, there is a continuum here that is dependent upon how advanced a course is, students' previous experiences, and the goal of the course. Some courses will be more content heavy than others depending upon this constellation of factors. So how do we design our courses to take this into account?<br />
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The way I do it is similar to how I orient my overall assessment of a students' essay: what is the thesis of this paper and is that thesis well supported and articulated? The same question can be applied to any course we teach: what is the thesis of my course and does its design support that thesis? When approached this way, we are encouraged to curate the course content as suggested by Gannon - no longer is a fire hose needed to deliver an abundance of course content if only a few examples will support the course's thesis. Similarly, if we well articulate our thesis, then, as suggested by Boyd, we can begin to ask the salient questions that our course seeks to answer in order to resolve or support the thesis.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Resources</h4>
<a href="https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/beautiful-questions-how-humans-learn-and-the-future-of-education/" target="_blank">Boyd, R. (2019). Beautiful questions: “How Humans Learn” and the future of education. <i>Los Angeles Review of Books</i>. May 27.</a><br />
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Freire, P. (2018). <a href="https://www.amazon.ca/Pedagogy-Oppressed-Anniversary-Paulo-Freire/dp/1501314130/ref=dp_ob_title_bk" target="_blank"><i>Pedagogy of the oppressed</i> (50th anniv)</a>. New York, NY: Bloomsbury Academic.<br />
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<a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/How-to-Fix-the-Dreaded-Survey/246252" target="_blank">Gannon, K. (2019). How to Fix the Dreaded Survey Course. <i>The Chronicle of Higher Education</i>. May 7.</a>Neil Haavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13952094460830822185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6414649070616166194.post-25277026774385960722019-06-03T08:19:00.000-06:002019-06-03T08:19:54.940-06:002 hrs outside of class for every hr spent inside of classThis is the advice I learned as a student and the advice that many academic deans gave to our Augustana students since I started teaching in 1990. It has always generally been assumed that for students to be academically successful at college/university, they had to spend a minimum (yes, a minimum) of two hours studying outside of class for every hour spent inside of the class. If the typical academic program is 5 courses per term and each of those courses is meeting for three hours per week that sums to a minimum of 45 hrs per week (15 in class, 30 outside of class) learning academic skills and course material. I have always thought as a student and as a teacher, that a full-time undergraduate program of study is more than a full-time job.<br />
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Yes, this means that students in programs that require more than 15 hrs of class time per week (e.g. art studio, science courses with labs, engineering) expect/assume more time on task. This may not be that different from the Arts in which students have to read multiple novels or monographs for a given course. This is why I advocate for lab work during the 1st two years of students' undergraduate programs to be self-contained and not require any homework other than preparation for the lab. For more senior labs, these should be lab courses, not lec-lab courses. Otherwise, the expectations for students to spend time on coursework becomes unreasonable.<br />
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So why am I bringing this up now? A couple of years ago, I remember reading on my end of term student ratings of instruction a couple of comments responding to my start of term advice that to do well students should be spending a minimum of two hours studying outside of class for every hour spent inside of class. The comments amounted to shock and horror that an instructor, that an educational institution would have such expectations of their students. That such expectations were unreasonable because students had a life outside of school. When I discussed this with my colleagues, the more recent ones to the teaching profession shared the students' shock and horror - a 2:1 ratio of outside:inside course work was clearly unreasonable.<br />
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When did this change? When did the understanding change that learning does not require time on task? All of the evidence I have read suggests that academic success depends upon time on task and that one of the best things that instructors can do for their students is to encourage their time on task on educationally purposeful activities. This includes doing homework (reading the text, doing practice problems), discussing class material in a study group, preparing lab reports, conducting research for term papers, spending time in the studio painting or drawing, spending time rehearsing lines, doing the grunt work of memorizing vocabulary and grammatical rules for language acquisition, memorizing the chemical formulae for functional groups, practicing conversing in the language of the discipline.<br />
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Does anyone think that three hours per week in-class is sufficient to master their coursework? Where is this resistance to the sage advice of two hours outside of class for every hour inside of class coming from? Who thinks that students do not need to spend time doing the hard messy work of learning on their own time outside of class?<br />
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In the resources below it seems like the 2:1 adage is still prevalent. But I do like Lolita Paff's Faculty Focus article and the USU estimate study hours worksheet to be a much better-nuanced consideration of this issue. Bottom line from those two resources is that it depends upon the type and difficulty of the course. But it still looks to me that it ends up being approximately 2:1 but that the hours outside of class may be differentially allocated depending upon the constellation of courses in which a student is enrolled for a given term. Something that we can do to circumvent the student complaint that they did not perform as they thought they would on an exam given the amount of time spent studying for the exam is to discuss efficient vs weak study/learning strategies. Many students still use passive learning strategies (e.g. reading over their notes, using flashcards, reading the text with a highlighter in hand) rather than active learning strategies (e.g. rewriting/reorganizing their notes, engaging in retrieval practice, reading the text with pencil and paper in hand, spacing rather than massing their study, and mixing their study time by attending to different courses). I have found that having this conversation and having students think about their approach to studying often transforms a mediocre student into a high-performing student. Many students have found the book <a href="https://makeitstick.net/" target="_blank">Make It Stick</a> to be an invaluable resource.<br />
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<h4>
Resources</h4>
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<a href="https://makeitstick.net/" target="_blank">Brown, P. C., McDaniel, M. A., & Roediger, H. L. (2014). Make it stick: The science of successful learning. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.</a></div>
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Course_credit" target="_blank">Course credit. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved June 3, 2019.</a></div>
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<a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci8010034" target="_blank">Lutes, L., & Davies, R. (2018). Comparison of workload for university core courses taught in regular semester and time-compressed term formats. Education Sciences, 8(1), art 34.</a></div>
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<a href="https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-and-learning/questioning-two-hour-rule-studying/" target="_blank">Paff, L. (2017, August 28). Questioning the two-hour rule for studying. Faculty Focus.</a></div>
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University website resources</div>
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<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.umflint.edu/advising/surviving_college">https://www.umflint.edu/advising/surviving_college</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.cliffsnotes.com/cliffsnotes/subjects/college/how-much-outside-class-study-time-is-recommended-for-every-hour-of-class-time-for-college-freshmen">https://www.cliffsnotes.com/cliffsnotes/subjects/college/how-much-outside-class-study-time-is-recommended-for-every-hour-of-class-time-for-college-freshmen</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.usu.edu/asc/assistance/pdf/estimate_study_hours.pdf">https://www.usu.edu/asc/assistance/pdf/estimate_study_hours.pdf</a></li>
<li><a href="https://wellness.ucsd.edu/CAPS/Documents/tx_forms/koch/college_success/college_success.pdf">https://wellness.ucsd.edu/CAPS/Documents/tx_forms/koch/college_success/college_success.pdf</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.astrosociety.org/education/hints-on-how-to-succeed-in-college-classes/">https://www.astrosociety.org/education/hints-on-how-to-succeed-in-college-classes/</a></li>
<li><a href="https://courses.lumenlearning.com/waymaker-collegesuccess/chapter/text-class-time-to-study-time-ratio/">https://courses.lumenlearning.com/waymaker-collegesuccess/chapter/text-class-time-to-study-time-ratio/</a></li>
<li><a href="https://dus.psu.edu/academicsuccess/explanation.html">https://dus.psu.edu/academicsuccess/explanation.html</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.maryville.edu/academicaffairs/credit-hourcontact-hour-guidelines/">https://www.maryville.edu/academicaffairs/credit-hourcontact-hour-guidelines/</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.college.columbia.edu/coursepoints">https://www.college.columbia.edu/coursepoints</a></li>
<li><a href="http://cte.rice.edu/blogarchive/2016/07/11/workload">http://cte.rice.edu/blogarchive/2016/07/11/workload</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.mcgill.ca/science/student/general/advising/skills">https://www.mcgill.ca/science/student/general/advising/skills</a></li>
</ul>
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<br />Neil Haavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13952094460830822185noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6414649070616166194.post-60654711747583006182019-02-06T14:39:00.002-07:002019-02-06T14:40:07.678-07:00responding to students' resistance to active learningOur SoTL journal club at Augustana recently met to discuss an interesting article by Finelli, et al 2018 (<i>Reducing student resistance to active learning: Strategies for instructors</i> published in the J Coll Sci Teaching - see reference below). This paper reports the use of a student survey of instructional and facilitation practices and correlated these with students' self-reports of engagement and value of the active learning activities. Interestingly, the study also surveyed instructor’s self-reports of their teaching and facilitation efforts/activities and the study found no difference - teachers and students both perceived the educational setting similarly.<br />
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What was interesting to me is that the study found that student resistance to active learning was not high - most students appreciated and engaged in the active learning activities. The difficulty for many instructors working in an environment in which student evaluation of teaching (SET) is used to assess teaching ability, Likert ratings below 4 may be considered to be low. However, this paper reminds us that a SET rating above 3 means that most students appreciate the experience. But excellent teachers may be accustomed to the vast majority of students appreciating the learning experience, not just most students. So maybe a significant finding of this research is that teachers need to be satisfied - find solace - in the fact that active learning reaches most students.<br />
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The other interesting finding is that students noted that instructors typically use explanations to alleviate resistance to active learning. That is, that instructors explain to students what is expected of them for the activity and how it will benefit their learning. The statistical analysis in this paper, however, indicates that facilitation efforts may be more effective at reducing student resistance. Facilitation strategies include instructor demeanor toward the students and the activity, inviting students to ask questions about the activity, walking around the room to assist student teams, soliciting student feedback on the activity, and confronting students unengaged in the activity. The last two seemed to have the lowest impact on alleviating student resistance.<br />
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So, some good advice backed by evidence for responding to student resistance to active learning: facilitate student engagement with the activities by engaging with the students during the activity and being interested/happy/excited about the activity and how students are interacting with the activity.<br />
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There are limitations to the study and I appreciate the authors clearly indicating these. The participating classes were self-selected. The participating classes were not observed by a third party to corroborate the student and instructor ratings of the nature of the class environment. But the authors correctly indicate that some of the key aspects of the study would not have been caught by this triangulation as it is difficult to know/observe/measure students internal environment regarding how they value or emotionally respond to a learning activity. In addition, the low number of classes and student enrollment means that there is the concern of variability within the class being greater than the variability between classes. But this is also difficult to address because different students will perceive the course differently - not all students will observe how the instructor is facilitating their peers’ learning because they themselves are engaged with the learning activity. I am not sure what could have been done to address these limitations except to choose from a wider pool of volunteer classes to try and avoid participant bias. But even then, it is the ones that don’t want to participate that will solve this limitation but you can’t make someone participate in research if they don’t want to.<br />
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One set of questions raised by our journal club was should a SET rating of 3 be sufficient to persist with an active learning strategy? Should SETs dictate the learning strategy we implement? Should SETs dictate how faculty evaluation committees reward good teaching? These questions remind me of a large meta-analysis of SETs which concluded with a scathing indictment that I think deserves quoting in full:<br />
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<i>In turn, our findings indicate that depending on their institutional focus, universities and colleges may need to give appropriate weight to SET ratings when evaluating their professors. Universities and colleges focused on student learning may need to give minimal or no weight to SET ratings. In contrast, universities and colleges focused on students' perceptions or satisfaction rather than learning may want to evaluate their faculty's teaching using primarily or exclusively SET ratings, emphasize to their faculty members the need to obtain as high SET ratings as possible (i.e., preferably the perfect ratings), and systematically terminate those faculty members who do not meet the standards. For example, they may need to terminate all faculty members who do not exceed the average SET ratings of the department or the university, the standard of satisfactory teaching used in some departments and universities today despite common sense objections that not every faculty member can be above the average. </i>(Uttl, White & Gonzalez, 2017)<br />
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We also distinguished between how we, as instructors explain an activity to our students vs facilitating the activity and considered why facilitation might be more effective at reducing student resistance to active learning than explanation? I wonder if this is the difference between attending to the cognitive vs the affective domain of learning? Explaining why a particular activity is good for students gets at their rational side. But resistance, I think, is rarely rational. In contrast, facilitating an active learning experience allows students to directly interact with the instructor and may alleviate any tension or fear that students might have toward publically performing the activity. Facilitating the activity is a way for instructors to join students in the messy business of learning. And I think joining the students in learning rather than standing aloof while they carry out the activity may be critical to students feeling better about risking failure in front of their peers.<br />
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Our discussion ended with acknowledging that studies have shown that student engagement promotes student learning outcomes, but oftentimes students are internally engaged with the ideas/content. It is difficult (impossible?) to assess this level of engagement in contrast to the more easily assessed degree of classroom noise. One aspect that instructors who implement active learning need to be careful with is assuming that talking during the activity indicates student engagement and therefore that learning is occurring. Sometimes that noise is actually a discussion of who won the hockey game the night before or which Netflix show is currently being binge-watched. Instructors need to remember that sometimes the best engagement with learning occurs when the class is quiet as a result of students thinking about the implications of what was just discussed.<br />
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Like all teaching and learning, context matters.<br />
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<h4>
Resources</h4>
Finelli, B. C. J., Nguyen, K., Demonbrun, M., Borrego, M., Prince, M., Husman, J., … Waters, C. K. (2018). Reducing student resistance to active learning: Strategies for instructors. Journal of College Science Teaching, 47(5), 80–91.<br />
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Uttl, B., White, C. A., & Gonzalez, D. W. (2017). Meta-analysis of faculty’s teaching effectiveness: Student evaluation of teaching ratings and student learning are not related. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 54, 22–42. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.stueduc.2016.08.007<br />
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Neil Haavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13952094460830822185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6414649070616166194.post-38755126757736664582018-09-18T08:05:00.001-06:002018-09-18T08:05:36.791-06:00incorporating social media and back-channel communicationI am beginning to be less and less concerned with online learning. Before I used to consider it to be inferior to what was happening face-to-face. But now, I think it is just a different mode of the educational medium. As Brookfield suggests in this 11th chapter, the F2F classes rarely live up to the billing or potential. Classroom teaching can be executed well or poorly. Online teaching is the same. But I do wonder if the best online learning experience can be favourably compared to the best F2F learning environment? Perhaps the issue is that it is so context dependent being affected by the skills and inclinations of the teacher, the student cohort, and discipline being studied.<br />
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Regardless, Brookfield, similar to Bowen, suggests that we make use of whatever educational tools are at our disposal if they make sense in terms of facilitating student learning. For Brookfield, social media and back-channel communication is a teaching tool that can facilitate democratization of the classroom by enabling quieter students to provide input toward the educational environment. In addition, it provides a conduit to instructors for the lens of students’ voices when critically reflecting on our teaching. The advantage here is that it can happen in real time as we are teaching. Critical to its success in conveying students’ voices is that students be permitted to log in with an anonymous name/handle/identifier. I am not sure how I feel about that. I tire of the social irresponsibility that happens with anonymous posting to blogs and online articles. I think we need to take personal responsibility for our expressed thoughts. I understand that Brookfield is making the case that anonymity is crucial for enabling students to feel safe in voicing their concerns or confusion but I have witnessed so many examples of online conversations descending to <i>ad hominem</i>. On the other hand, the classroom environment may have sufficient social constraints that students will regulate themselves. There will be those who want to learn rather than read vulgarity or needless harassment of other students or the instructor. Brookfield does assert that it is necessary to lay the ground rules for using social media as a back-channel to the instructor for questions/issues. Some of the examples he cites I have seen used well in instructional workshops: TodaysMeet, Twitter, PollEverywhere, among others. I wonder if my own LMS, Moodle has anything similar? The Forum module in Moodle is simply too slow/cumbersome to act as a back-channel. Are there other social media equivalents in Moodle?<br />
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Brookfield also makes the case that social media is good for the lens of our colleagues. We can allow our colleagues access to our online record or to even observe the social media feeds to get a taste of our teaching without the necessity of being physically in our classrooms.<br />
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I do wonder, however, if these teaching strategies and educational technology tools are as significant for my smaller classes? I think they could work well in my first-yr biology courses for which student enrolment is typically between 70-90 students. But in my more senior courses, the enrolment smaller: 30-50 in 2nd yr and 10-20 for 3rd and 4th year. Maybe in the 2nd year, but I don’t think it makes sense in my smaller enrolment courses at the 3rd and 4th yr. Also, using social media assumes that my classroom does not have many moments in which I am circulating among students as they work and discuss a problem. I can see social media use working very well when I am lecturing - it still happens often enough - but not when students are working in their groups. I get around to them when they have a confusion that needs clarification.<br />
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Bottom line, I think, is that social media can be a useful teaching and learning tool but that it requires judicious use that is context-dependent. I like Jose Bowen’s suggestion - ask the students what they want/need to support their own learning. Many of my students have indicated that they do not particularly like learning online. But I wonder if what they are really saying is that they do not like the work of learning - online teaching, done well, typically requires reading and deep processing. Or I wonder if what they are indicating is that they view their online world as their personal world and they desire to keep it separate from their more formal learning world?<br />
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Not sure…<br />
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<h4>
Resources</h4>
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<a href="http://teachingnaked.com/" target="_blank">Bowen, J. A. (2012). <i>Teaching naked: How moving technology out of your classroom will improve student learning</i>. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, an imprint of Wiley.</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.stephenbrookfield.com/books/" target="_blank">Brookfield, S. D. (2017). Incorporating social media and back-channel communication. In <i>Becoming a critically reflective teacher, 2nd ed</i>, p 189-205. San Francisco: CA, Jossey-Bass, A Wiley Brand. pp xvi, 286.</a></div>
Neil Haavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13952094460830822185noreply@blogger.com0