cognitive vs emotional tension in the classroom: encourage the former, diffuse the latter

I was re-reading some notes I made during the 2016 Festival of Teaching 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.

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.

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.

third year biochemistry in fall 2020

Introduction

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 here.

AUBIO/AUCHE 381 - Intermediary Metabolism, is a course that I teach on the Augustana Campus of the University of Alberta. 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).

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.

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). 

Methods & Materials

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 ExamLock, 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. 

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.

I supported my students' independent learning for the RAP and subsequent Apps by preparing reading guides 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 video-recorded minilectures that I had prepared for them over the summer. PDFs of the slideshows used in the minilectures were also available for student viewing via our LMS.

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.

The course syllabus for the Fall 2020 iteration of AUBIO/AUCHE 381 is available at this link here. 

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 here. 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:

• 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?
• Please add any other comments that you would like to make about the course and/or instructor.

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.

Results

Generally, students highly rated my teaching and the course itself. I am very pleased that students responded positively to my instructional efforts.

The average SRI in Fall 2020 for the excellence of my instruction 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 with the exception of F2016 (α=0.05). 

The student comments corroborated the numerical ratings:

• The lectures are also helpful in understanding aspects not fully understood by the chapter readings.
• The prerecorded lectures were fantastically done and overall the class was very enjoyable.
• Dr.Haave has an amazing passion for this subject and is clearly very knowledgeable.
• 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 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.
• Great professor who has a lot of knowledge.
• 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!!

ANOVA detected significant differences among the cohorts regarding the quality of the course content. The Tukey-Kramer post-hoc test detected differences between the F2007 and W2011 cohorts (α=0.05).

Some student comments from Fall 2020:

• The content is generally interesting.
• The content of this course was really interesting, and I enjoyed this course way more than I was expecting to!
• I found this class to be both interesting and a challenge throughout the semester.

Although the spread in students rating the course as a positive learning experience 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. 

Student comments from Fall 2020 corroborate the numerical data:

• I like the team aspect of the course, I think it's very valuable.
• This has probably been one of my favourite courses I have taken so far!
• The lectures were very meticulously planned and thought out which translated into a very effective learning experience.
• Overall, this course was super enjoyable! Thank you Dr. Haave!
• Thanks for the great semester
• Thank you for a great semester!
• Overall, awesome course!

ANOVA did not detect any significant differences among the student cohorts regarding how well prepared I was as an instructor. The median and average for Fall 2020 were high at 5 and 4.9, respectively. 

The student comments from Fall 2020 again corroborate the numerical data:

• the reading guides were very clear and provides a good direction to go as we read the chapter.
• 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 appreciate his organization and structure to the course.
• I appreciate the effort he went through to make the transition to online learning smoother, particularly providing the video-recorded lectures
• You put a lot of work into designing this course remotely, Dr. Haave and it really paid off!
• 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!
• Dr.Haave made the transition to online very smooth, especially with his very organized schedule for the semester.
• I really liked the asynchronous style that Dr. Haave employed in his class.

In Fall 2020 students highly rated the effectiveness of how I used our in-class time with an average of 4.3 (in Fall 2020 in-class time was the synchronous meetings over Zoom). 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). 

Some sample student comments from Fall 2020:

• [...] 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 really like the aspects of team-based learning incorporated as it allows us to learn and collaborate.

Students have always highly rated my clarity of speech 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). 

One Fall 2020 student commented that: He also speaks very clearly and communicates well.

Students in Intermediary Metabolism have consistently highly rated the feedback I provide them throughout the course. Fall 2020 was no different with ANOVA not detecting any significant differences among the student cohorts. 

Some sample student comments from Fall 2020:

• 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.
• We were constantly tested throughout the term on all of the content, which helped reinforce it!
• 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.

The goals and objectives 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. 

One student commented that The online structure of this course was excellent! It provided students with a schedule but gave them the freedom to complete class work at [t]heir pace.

B/C 381 students have generally been motivated to learn more about Intermediary Metabolism with the Fall 2020 SRI average being 4.1. ANOVA did not detect any significant differences among the student cohorts. 

One student commented on the Fall 2020 SRI: [...] am hopeful to learn more about biochemistry in the future!

Intermediary Metabolism students have consistently highly rated my respectful treatment 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. 

None of the Fall 2020 student comments explicitly discussed how I treated them with respect but these selected comments do imply that:

• Dr. Haave is very passionate about teaching biochemistry to his students and you can tell that he really cares about his students.
• I also appreciated [sic] how Dr. Haave's had office hours.
• I'm glad the instructor was pretty flexible to our needs and usually gave us more time if it was required.

Students enrolled in B/C 381 have consistently indicated that they increased their knowledge 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. 

One Fall 2020 student commented that I learned a lot... 

Generally, students rate my courses (biochemistry, molecular cell biology, histology, biological function) among the most difficult that they complete with the highest workload. Intermediary Metabolism is no different. ANOVA did not detect any differences among the student cohorts regarding the difficulty or workload of Intermediary Metabolism. 

Some sample student comments regarding workload and difficulty of Intermediary Metabolism:

• 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.
• [...] it was extremely difficult, exceeding the level of difficulty of any other class I have taken including classes of a more advanced level.
• By far the hardest course I ve taken [sic] at university.
• This course is ridiculously difficult.
• [...] there is just a sheer volume of content that must be gone through and explained.
• The expectations in this course far exceed any other course at the same level.
• The course load requirements for this class are greater than the rest of my classes combined.
• We've learned so much in this course that it feels like an information overload.

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: 

• Honestly, none 
• N/A.

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: 

• I found the fact that we had a RAT every single week to be a bit much and overwhelming at times.

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: 

• 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. 

But others thought the online delivery as I implemented worked well: 

• [...] the online delivery was excellent.
  

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:

• I thought that sometimes the mini-lectures got too long as you couldn't complete them in the time usually allotted for the class.
• 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.

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.

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:

• The lecture videos were excellent, and the slideshows were very helpful! The reading guides and the textbook was also very useful.

Discussion

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 Centre for Teaching and Learning, or oCUBE, UBEA, ACUBE, COPLAC, STLHE, The TBL Collaborative, and The Teaching Professor 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Resources

Brookfield, S. (1998). Critically reflective practice. Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions, 18(4), 197–205. 

Freire, P. (2018). Pedagogy of the oppressed (50th anniv). Bloomsbury Academic. [The 30th anniversary edition is available online here.]

Petersen, C. I., Baepler, P., Beitz, A., Ching, P., Gorman, K. S., Neudauer, C. L., Rozaitis, W., Walker, J. D., & Wingert, D. (2020). The tyranny of content: “Content coverage” as a barrier to evidence-based teaching approaches and ways to overcome it. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 19(2), ar17.

Sibley, J. (2018). LearnTBL. https://learntbl.ca/

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.

first-year biology in fall 2020

Introduction

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 here.

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 Augustana Faculty of the University of Alberta located in Camrose, approximately 100 km southeast of Edmonton where the larger North Campus of our university is located. I have been teaching in the biology degree program of the Augustana Faculty for over 30 years.

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 O₂ and CO₂, 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. 

I have been teaching different versions of first-year biological function since I started teaching in 1990. Approximately nine years ago I implemented Team-Based Learning (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. 

Something that was newly implemented by me in AUBIO 111 during fall 2020 was the assignment of textbook quizzes through the Mastering Biology 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.

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).

Methods & Materials

I have posted these details in a previous blog post available at this link here.

The syllabus for the fall 2020 offering of AUBIO 111 is available at this link here. 

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. 

Results

My SRI scores for quality of the instructor 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).

Some sample student comments:

• 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.
• 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 [sic] where [sic] wrong and never judged us if they were. He would further explain the context making learning easy and fun.
• 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.
• Dr. Haave is a very engaging, knowledgeable professor.
• 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.
• Probably the best professor I’ve had this term!!
• He is an excellent instructor who genuinely cares about his students.

This same pattern of a nadir in SRI scores being lower between 2010 to 2017 is repeated for the next few graphs. 

ANOVA indicated differences among the cohorts in how students rated the course content. 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.

Some sample students comments from the 2020 cohorts:

• Overall the setup and execution of the course was done very well and the information that we were learning was interesting and benificial [sic].
• I thought this was a very interesting course, and I enjoyed my time in this class.

Similarly, ANOVA indicated differences among the cohorts in terms of how students rated the course as a positive learning experience 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.

Some sample student comments:

• 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.
• 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
• 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.
• He had all the lecture videos recorded ahead for us and always check [sic] 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.
• Dr. Haave is [a] very genuine person who is able to make connections with each of his students, making his class a more comfortable environment.
• Dr. Haave was always very cheerful and overall really lifted the mood of the classes.

This same pattern was observed in how students rated how well I was prepared to teach the course with ANOVA detecting differences among the cohorts. Tukey-Kramer analysis detected the following significant paired differences:

• section A1 in F2015 is different from each of the cohorts in 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2020
• section A1 in F2020 is different from the two cohorts in F2017
• section A2 in F2020 is different from section A1 in F2017.

Some sample student comments from the 2020 cohorts:

• The time and effort put in the course in respect to the content that was provided and produced was very evident.
• 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.
• The instructor was very organized and prepared, very easy going and laid back.
• The recorded mini lectures were amazing and helped a lot.
• Neil was fantastic! Very patient, helpful and well prepared

ANOVA detected differences among the cohorts regarding the quality of the feedback 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.

Some sample student comments:

• Provided great feedback and really explained concepts.
• 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.
• 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.

ANOVA detected statistical differences among the cohorts for how clearly students perceived the objectives and goals 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.

There were no student comments that addressed whether or not the course goals and objectives were clear.

There is a large spread in the data for the SRIs for students being motivated to learn 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.

Some sample student comments:

• 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 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.
• The course was great, I really enjoyed [it], definitely looking forward to learning more in the biology field.

Students have highly rated my ability to speak clearly 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).

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:

• Neil is very soft spoken which was difficult to understand at times.
• This professor was hard to listen too [sic]

Students have also consistently highly rated my respectful treatment 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).

Comments from the fall 2020 cohort corroborate the numerical ratings:

• The way he treated students with respect was outstanding and how he put in effort.
• Was very kind and respectful to each of his students and always treated each question that was asked of him respectfully

Students have always rated the courses that I teach as being among their most difficult and among those with the greatest workload. 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. 

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).

Some sample student comments:

• The applications were difficult but extremely helpful in understanding the material better.
• The workload of the the course is intimidating and overwhelming at times but he is very supportive and understanding.
• 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 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.
• Sometimes the tests and quizzes were extremely difficult when the lectures and homework were very easier [sic] and it was at times confusing for my group.

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:

• 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
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• Team quizzes and team apps improves my understanding of the course.
• Team quizzes and lectures were very useful.
• 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 [sic] the entire term so we could get to know our group mates better.
• I think that the individual and team quizzes were a great way to asses [sic] 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• I found the 2-stage quizzes and the apps most valuable.
• 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.
• 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.
• The concept of team quizzes and team apps is something I enjoyed a lot.
• 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 the same group throughout the semester also created more of a connection with peers (which is difficult to do online).
• [What aspects of the course and/or instructor did you find most valuable?] 
• Team based quizzes and applications.
• The quizes [sic] we got to work through as a group.
• team apps and quizzes. this motivated me to stay on top of my work so i [sic] could contribute in our discussions.
• The 2-stage quizzes and team apps. They tested our knowledge of the material in a low-stakes way.
• The in depth lecture videos, the class meetings for quizzes and team apps and the instructors availability for questions.
• Live zoom meetings, apps, quizzes-especially team ones.

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.

Although this was the first time I had assigned online homework via the Mastering Biology website, the student reception was very positive:

• We use mastering biology which helps me a lot
• Yes, the textbook and mastering biology was extremely beneficial. I found the dynamic study modules on mastering biology a great way to study for the quizzes and allowed me to see what I needed to study more and what I had down pact [sic].
• the study area in mastering biology as well as the homework assignments were invaluable.
• mastering biology HW and modules really helped solidify concepts
• The textbook was useful as well as the Mastering Biology website that was used throughout the course
• The Mastering Biology website was a great place to do practice questions and the homework assignments helped me dive deeper into the material.
• The textbook and the mastering biology homework was very helpful.
• 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.
• Textbook was very useful, as well as mastering biology. Both were used a lot.
• I really liked mastering biology for extra practice.
• Mastering biology was a great resource.
• Master [sic] biology was extremely helpful for practice and gaining a better understanding of the course work
• Love mastering biology, combination of theoretical knowledge and exercises to improve knowledge effectively, but some of the topics feel difficult.
• I liked the Mastering Biology online method, seemed easier to keep assignment[s] organized and know when there [sic] due
• Mastering biology homework assignments and team apps are a great study tool and resource.
• Mastering biology provides a great array of questions, that makes you really think about what the question is asking.
• I think the mastering biology homework assignments were very valuable as they helped me review key points.
• Mastering Biology was very helpful.
• The mastering biology website with its assignments and dynamic study modules were extremely helpful as well.
• The textbook and the assignments through my lab and mastering biology were very helpful in furthering my understanding in the course.
• The mastering biology was very helpful with the home work and dynamic learning.
• 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.
• Mastering biology and the dynamic study modules were great to have!
• [What aspects of the course and/or instructor did you find most valuable?] 
• The Mastering Biology homework
• The 2-stage quiz and the follow-up assignments in mastering biology.

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 "The mastering biology website

is also very slow, and not user friendly." 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. 

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., "The lecture videos were an excellent learning tool" and "I liked the set up videos given to us" and "The video recordings were nice to have and very helpful"). However, a couple of student comments indicated that having both video mini-lectures and assigned reading to be unnecessary. For example, "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."

Discussion

Despite the pandemic nightmares 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. 

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.

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 Centre for Teaching and Learning 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 ACUBE, oCUBE, UBEA, STLHE, COPLAC, and the Teaching Professor Conference, all of which helpfully delivered these as online virtual workshops during the pandemic. 

Zoom 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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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, ExamLock, 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.

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.

Resources

Carmichael, J. (2009). Team-based learning enhances performance in introductory biology. Journal of College Science Teaching, 38(4), 54–61.

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. Bioscene: Journal of College Biology Teaching, 47(2), 3–9. 

Lewis, D., & Estis, J. (2020). Improving mathematics content mastery and enhancing flexible problem solving through team-based inquiry learning. Teaching & Learning Inquiry, 8(2), 165–183. 

Mastering Biology. (n.d.). Pearson Education. Retrieved March 1, 2020, from https://mlm.pearson.com/northamerica/masteringbiology/

Mastering Biology: Efficacy research report. (2018). Pearson Education. Upper Saddle River, NJ. 

Michaelsen, L. K., & Sweet, M. (2008). The essential elements of team-based learning. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 2008(116), 7–27. 

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. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 2021(165), 91–105. 

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. Active Learning in Higher Education, 20(1), 39–50. 

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. Teaching of Psychology, 43(2), 99–107. 

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). Campbell Biology (Third Canadian Edition). Pearson Education, Inc.

History & Theory of Biology in W21: a capstone course

Introduction

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 here.

AUBIO 411 - History & Theory of Biology is the capstone course for the biology program in the Augustana Faculty of the University of Alberta. 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.

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.

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).

Methods and Materials

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.

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 here. 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.

You may view the syllabus for the Winter 2021 offering of AUBIO 411 at this link here.

Results

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 quality of my instruction. 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).

Student comments: 

• "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!"
• "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..."

Students highly rated the course content but not quite as high as the preceding couple of years. ANOVA did not detect any significant differences among the student cohorts.

Most students wrote that they were very appreciative of what they were learning in the course: 

• "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."
• "... 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."

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: 

• "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."

On the other hand, other students really valued their team experience.

• "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"

The rating of the course as a positive learning experience 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).

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."

I was gratified to see that my thorough preparation 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).

Student comment: "The instructor was always prepared and had a clear plan for every day clearly outlined in the syllabus."

Students have consistently highly rated my effective use of in-class time for the past few years. ANOVA did not detect significant differences among the student cohorts.

For the past few years, students have highly rated my ability to speak clearly. 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.

Since 2008, students have highly rated my feedback 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.

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."

For the last few years, students have found my objectives and goals to be clear. ANOVA did not detect significant differences among the student cohorts.

Students have always indicated that they are somewhat motivated to learn 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).

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!"

I am pleased that students recognize that I do respect 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).

Student comment: "I really appreciate how much he cares about his students, and he's willing to confront issues when they arise."

Students generally highly rate their increase in their knowledge of the subject. ANOVA did not detect any significant differences among the student cohorts.

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."

As indicated in the following two graphs, students have always rated the workload and difficulty 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.

Student comments:

• "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."
• "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."
• "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."

Discussion

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. 

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.

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?

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.

• "My teammates and I grew very close from having these periodic presentations and it made me a better leader and team player." 

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.

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.

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.

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 publically accessible website. 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. 

References

Anonymous. (n.d.). Universal Student Ratings of Instruction (USRI). University of Alberta. 

Haave, N. (2012). Integrating functional, developmental and evolutionary biology into biology curricula. Bioscene: Journal of College Biology Teaching, 38(2), 27–30.

Haave, N. (2014). Team-based learning: A high-impact educational strategy. The National Teaching and Learning Forum, 23(4), 1–5. 

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. 

Haave, N. (2015b). Developing students’ thinking by writing. The National Teaching & Learning Forum, 25(1), 5–7. 

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.