Cell Biology Education 

About: Cell Biology Education is an academic journal. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Science education & Curriculum. It has an ISSN identifier of 1536-7509. Over the lifetime, 151 publications have been published receiving 6404 citations.

Teaching More by Lecturing Less

Abstract: We carried out an experiment to determine whether student learning gains in a large, traditionally taught, upper-division lecture course in developmental biology could be increased by partially changing to a more interactive classroom format. In two successive semesters, we presented the same course syllabus using different teaching styles: in fall 2003, the traditional lecture format; and in spring 2004, decreased lecturing and addition of student participation and cooperative problem solving during class time, including frequent in-class assessment of understanding. We used performance on pretests and posttests, and on homework problems to estimate and compare student learning gains between the two semesters. Our results indicated significantly higher learning gains and better conceptual understanding in the more interactive course. To assess reproducibility of these effects, we repeated the interactive course in spring 2005 with similar results. Our findings parallel results of similar teaching-style comparisons made in other disciplines. On the basis of this evidence, we propose a general model for teaching large biology courses that incorporates interactive engagement and cooperative work in place of some lecturing, while retaining course content by demanding greater student responsibility for learning outside of class.

Survey of Undergraduate Research Experiences (SURE): first findings.

Abstract: In this study, I examined the hypothesis that undergraduate research enhances the educational experience of science undergraduates, attracts and retains talented students to careers in science, and acts as a pathway for minority students into science careers. Undergraduates from 41 institutions participated in an online survey on the benefits of undergraduate research experiences. Participants indicated gains on 20 potential benefits and reported on career plans. Over 83% of 1,135 participants began or continued to plan for postgraduate education in the sciences. A group of 51 students who discontinued their plans for postgraduate science education reported significantly lower gains than continuing students. Women and men reported similar levels of benefits and similar patterns of career plans. Ethnic groups did not significantly differ in reported levels of benefits or plans to continue with postgraduate education.

Assessing student learning.

Abstract: Biology education research has now reached a level of maturity where the expectation is that researchers will assess the effectiveness of their innovation on student learning. This may include an examination of affective outcomes, such as student attitudes and beliefs, as well as student understanding of discipline-based content. A variety of tools are available to generate assessment data, each with certain advantages and disadvantages. They include not only quantitative measures, which lend themselves to familiar statistical analyses, but also qualitative techniques that can provide a rich understanding of complex outcomes. This article describes some of the most commonly used assessment techniques, their advantages and disadvantages, and typical ways such information is reported.

Infusing Active Learning into the Large-enrollment Biology Class: Seven Strategies, from the Simple to Complex

Abstract: Science educators are urged (National Research Council [NRC], 1997, 2003; National Science Foundation, 1996) to adopt active-learning strategies and other alternatives to uninterrupted lecture to model the methods and mindsets at the heart of scientific inquiry, and to provide opportunities for students to connect abstract ideas to their real-world applications and acquire useful skills, and in doing so gain knowledge that persists beyond the course experience in which it was acquired. While these and other calls for reform dangle the carrot of promised cognitive gains before us (Bransford et al., 1999), the process of translating their message into the realities of practice in given classroom contexts remains a challenge of considerable magnitude. Perhaps because the inquiry-oriented methods that offer the most promise (Edgerton, 2001; Smith, K.A., et al., 2005) were often developed in small-class settings, the gap between promise and practice can seem almost impossible to close in the large-enrollment class environment that still predominates in the introductory course offerings of many colleges and universities. The conditions that led to creation of the large-enrollment class, particularly in research universities, are still with us (Edgerton, 2001) and are not likely to change in the foreseeable future. Thus, although the environment of a large class is not an easy one in which to thrive—either for the instructors who teach them (Carbone and Greenberg, 1998) or for the students who take them (Seymour and Hewitt, 1997; Tobias, 1990)—it is most probably here to stay. Unfortunately, traditional lecture-dominant methods often fail to motivate the meaningful intellectual engagement that is the central mission and hallmark of the college experience (Smith, K.A., et al., 2005) and that is a crucial factor in students’ personal and academic development (Light, 2001). In fact, when large class instructors rely solely on traditional forms of instruction, ‘‘. . . the individuals learning the most in this classroom are the professors. They have reserved for themselves the very conditions that promote learning: actively seeking new information, organizing it in a meaningful way, and having the chance to explain it to others’’ (Huba and Freed, 2000). But moving out from behind the relative safety of the lecture podium to adopt the types of active strategies that shift classroom emphasis away from teachers’ teaching toward students’ participation and learning is often an unsettling prospect, even in the small-class setting. Everyone has heard those real or apocryphal tales of hapless professors who responded to ‘‘the call,’’ then were laid low by the ironic onslaught of student anxiety, resistance, or downright anger when the students were presented with classroom activities that aimed to shift emphasis from memorization and recall to the building of critical thinking skills, and the skill and ability to conduct self-directed learning (Felder and Brent, 1996). Added to the difficulties inherent with instructor and student adjustment to new teaching and learning paradigms are the cogent and interrelated issues of resources and rewards (Boyer Commission on Educating Undergraduates in the Research University for the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1998). The faculty member using inquiry-oriented instruction is often facedwith the need to develop new curricula to supplement or replace a reliance on textbooks, a task for which she or he may have received little prior training. The organizational tasks and grading responsibilities inherent in large-class instruction may seem multiplied by an unmanageable order of magnitude when implementation of even the most basic of active-learning strategies is contemplated. It is no wonder that many college and university professors, often faced with the struggle to achieve effective practice in both the teaching and research arenas and thus considerable time constraints, choose the default position of the lecture, with its predictability and efficiency at imparting information. In effect, they may feel caught between a rock and a hard place when confronted with the increasingly more frequent and cogent calls for change in the way science is taught (NRC, 1997, 2003; National Science Foundation, 1996). Fortunately, the strategies for breaking down the roadblocks and realizing the promise of active learning and inquiry instruction in the large class are being tested and publicized (Handelsman et al., 2004). Educators who have addressed the multitude of issues that underlie implementation of active-learning strategies in large-enrollment settings are conscientiously spreading the word to the science education community by presenting at conferences or publishing in science education journals (Allen and Tanner, 2005). In previous columns we have discussed a few of the multitude of strategies encompassed by the term ‘‘active DOI: 10.1187 / cbe.05-08-0113 Address correspondence to: Deborah Allen (deallen@udel.edu). Cell Biology Education Vol. 4, 262–268, Winter 2005

From the National Academies

Abstract: Our nation turns to the National Academies—the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Research Council—for independent, objective advice on issues that involve one or more aspects of science or technology. Typical examples of the Academies' work are the initial study that formulated the Human Genome Project in 1988 (http://www.nap.edu/catalog/1097.html), the year 2000 report Enhancing the Postdoctoral Experience for Scientists and Engineers (http://www.nap.edu/catalog/9831.html), and the recent report Making the Nation Safer: The Role of Science and Technology in Countering Terrorism (http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10415.html).