Enhancing theoretical understanding of a practical biology course using active and self-directed learning strategies

Laboratories are recognised as central in science education, allowing students to consolidate knowledge and master practical skills, however, their effectiveness has been questioned. Whilst laboratory practicals are useful for students’ learning of basic procedures, they have been shown to be less effective for developing conceptual understanding of the subject. Interactive lectures and bespoke digital resources were utilised in order to enhance theoretical understanding of laboratory practical molecular sessions, thus enabling students to take responsibility for and direct their own learning, encouraging inquiry-based learning. Providing easy to access additional learning resources offered students an opportunity to better prepare themselves for the laboratory, and consolidate their knowledge through subsequent review and self-testing in their own time. Grades before and after implementation of these active learning strategies were analysed to look at the impact on student learning and this study demonstrates that integrating these into a challenging practical biology course improved grades significantly with a concomitant increase in the number of ‘A’ grades attained. Feedback to evaluate use and perceptions of both interactive lectures and digital resources were also analysed. It has been shown here that these activities enhanced student experience and understanding of the course.     

Autonomic Adaption to Clinical Simulation in Psychology Students: Teaching Applications

Simulation is used to facilitate new learning in a variety of situations. One application of simulation could be to help therapists gain therapeutic skills prior to seeing clients. This particular study was interested in measuring changes in stress response by looking at subjective and objective measures of distress (as measured by SUDS, HR, and HRV) over three sessions of simulated therapy. 16 second year psychology students participated in three sessions, and had their HR and HRV measured by Polar watches. Over the three sessions, there was a decrease in perceived distress, as measured by SUDS ratings. During and between sessions, there was inconclusive change in physiological parameters.     

Understanding Current and Potential Consequences of Population Growth

In three semiguided inquiry lessons on population biology, students use models and simulations to examine population trends and make projections. They are guided to create and evaluate data and to use algebraic and geometric representations to examine biotic and logistic growth models as part of examining human population growth. As they recognize the relationship between population growth and resources, they explore and propose solutions for addressing complex socioscientific problems. The underlying mathematics and science concepts of these learning cycle lessons can help students understand the complexity of environmental issues and prepare them to reason in an informed manner when they encounter debates on population and environmental issues that are often voiced in political arenas.     

Who wants to be a physician? An educational tool for reviewing pulmonary physiology

Traditional review sessions are typically focused on instructor-based learning. However, experts in the field of higher education have long recommended teaching modalities that incorporate student-based active-learning strategies. Given this, we developed an educational game in pulmonary physiology for first-year medical students based loosely on the popular television game show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. The purpose of our game, Who Wants To Be A Physician, was to provide students with an educational tool by which to review material previously presented in class. Our goal in designing this game was to encourage students to be active participants in their own learning process. The Who Wants To Be A Physician game was constructed in the form of a manual consisting of a bank of questions in various areas of pulmonary physiology: basic concepts, pulmonary mechanics, ventilation, pulmonary blood flow, pulmonary gas exchange, gas transport, and control of ventilation. Detailed answers are included in the manual to assist the instructor or player in comprehension of the material. In addition, an evaluation instrument was used to assess the effectiveness of this instructional tool in an academic setting. Specifically, the evaluation instrument addressed five major components, including goals and objectives, participation, content, components and organization, and summary and recommendations. Students responded positively to our game and the concept of active learning. Moreover, we are confident that this educational tool has enhanced the students' learning process and their ability to understand and retain information.     

How do learning issues relate with content in a problem-based learning pathophysiology course?

The relation between learning process and content coverage is becoming increasingly important for the understanding of the effects of problem-based learning (PBL) on students' learning. In our medical school, PBL is used as a major educational strategy in the discipline of pathophysiology. A computer program was developed allowing students to register learning issues identified as needed during tutorial sessions and learning issues stated as covered during the individual study periods. In our study, we compared "planned" (learning issues identified during PBL sessions) and "accomplished" learning issues (covered after the independent study periods) identified by pathophysiology students from three consecutive years. We found that the planned learning issues raised during tutorial sessions related to the issues effectively accomplished during the independent study and that their number grew stepwise from basic to preclinical to clinical sciences. Pathophysiology was, globally, the most mentioned discipline. Moreover, the most mentioned disciplines from the basic, preclinical, and clinical areas were physiology, histopathology, and internal medicine, respectively. The single-discipline approach did not limit the student's capacity to identify and cover learning issues beyond the objectives of pathophysiology.     

Combination of didactic lecture with problem-based learning sessions in physiology teaching in a developing medical college in Nepal

Physiology teaching as an essential part of medical education faces tremendous criticism regarding curriculum design, methods of implementation, and application of knowledge in clinical practice. In the traditional method of medical education, physiology is taught in the first year and involves little interdisciplinary interaction. The Manipal College of Medical Sciences, Pokhara, Nepal (affiliated with the Kathmandu Univ.) started in 1994 and adopted an integrated curriculum drawn along the lines of the student-centered, problem-based, integrated, community-based, elective-oriented, and systematic (SPICES) medical curriculum. Here, physiology is taught for the first 2 yr of the 4.5-yr Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery course. Methodology adopted is as follows. For a particular topic, objectives are clearly defined and priority content areas are identified. An overview is given in a didactic lecture class to the entire batch of 100 students. Tutorial classes are conducted thereafter with smaller groups of students (25/batch) divided further into five subgroups of five students each. In these sessions, a problem is presented to the students as a focus for learning or as an example of what has just been taught. Each problem was accompanied with relevant questions to streamline the students' thought processes. A tutor is present throughout the session not as an instructor but as a facilitator of the learning process. A questionnaire sought students' opinion on the usefulness of this approach, relevance of the combination of problem-based learning (PBL) sessions and didactic lectures in understanding a particular topic and relating clinical conditions to basic mechanisms, and improvement of performance on the university final examination. The majority of the students opined that the combination of didactic lectures and PBL sessions was definitely beneficial regarding all the above-mentioned aspects of learning. The university results corroborated their opinion. Thus it may be considered that a judicious mixture of didactic lectures and PBL sessions is beneficial as a teaching module of physiology in medical schools.     

Botanical literacy: What and how should students learn about plants?

Botanists benefit from a scientifically literate society and an interested and botanically literate student population, and we have opportunities to promote literacy in our classes. Unfortunately, scientific illiteracy exists, in part, because students are technologically advanced but lack intellectual curiosity and rigor. Botanical illiteracy results from several interacting factors, including a lack of interest in plants and infrequent exposure to plant science before students reach college. If scientific or botanical literacy is a goal, we must understand what literacy means and how we can help students reach that goal. A model of biological literacy recognizes four levels; students enter courses at the lowest level possessing misconceptions about concepts; however, misconceptions can be used to our advantage, especially by using concept inventories. Inquiry-based instruction is advocated for all science courses, and learning theory supports inquiry. Seven principles of learning inform recommendations about how botanists should teach, including using themes and "thinking botanically" to illustrate all biological concepts. Overall, consideration of the botanical content taught is less critical than the methods used to teach that content. If botanists emphasize thinking and process skills with an understanding of concepts, we will prepare scientifically literate students and citizens and benefit from our efforts.     

Teaching cell biology in the large-enrollment classroom: methods to promote analytical thinking and assessment of their effectiveness

A large-enrollment, undergraduate cellular biology lecture course is described whose primary goal is to help students acquire skill in the interpretation of experimental data. The premise is that this kind of analytical reasoning is not intuitive for most people and, in the absence of hands-on laboratory experience, will not readily develop unless instructional methods and examinations specifically designed to foster it are employed. Promoting scientific thinking forces changes in the roles of both teacher and student. We describe didactic strategies that include directed practice of data analysis in a workshop format, active learning through verbal and written communication, visualization of abstractions diagrammatically, and the use of ancillary small-group mentoring sessions with faculty. The implications for a teacher in reducing the breadth and depth of coverage, becoming coach instead of lecturer, and helping students to diagnose cognitive weaknesses are discussed. In order to determine the efficacy of these strategies, we have carefully monitored student performance and have demonstrated a large gain in a pre- and posttest comparison of scores on identical problems, improved test scores on several successive midterm examinations when the statistical analysis accounts for the relative difficulty of the problems, and higher scores in comparison to students in a control course whose objective was information transfer, not acquisition of reasoning skills. A novel analytical index (student mobility profile) is described that demonstrates that this improvement was not random, but a systematic outcome of the teaching/learning strategies employed. An assessment of attitudes showed that, in spite of finding it difficult, students endorse this approach to learning, but also favor curricular changes that would introduce an analytical emphasis earlier in their training.     

Effectiveness of mobile apps in teaching field-based identification skills

It has been suggested that few students graduate with the skills required for many ecological careers, as field-based learning is said to be in decline in academic institutions. Here, we asked if mobile technology could improve field-based learning, using ability to identify birds as the study metric. We divided a class of ninety-one undergraduate students into two groups for field-based sessions where they were taught bird identification skills. The first group has access to a traditional identification book and the second group were provided with an identification app. We found no difference between the groups in the ability of students to identify birds after three field sessions. Furthermore, we found that students using the traditional book were significantly more likely to identify novel species. Therefore, we find no evidence that mobile technology improved students’ ability to retain what they experienced in the field; indeed, there is evidence that traditional field guides were more useful to students as they attempted to identify new species. Nevertheless, students felt positively about using their own smartphone devices for learning, highlighting that while apps did not lead to an improvement in bird identification ability, they gave greater accessibility to relevant information outside allocated teaching times.     

Children and Place: A Natural Connection

One of the main objectives of this activity is to introduce students to dissection, which is an important part of scientific discovery. The students not only gain an understanding of anatomy but also develop a sense of responsibility and respect for the animal that they are using as a learning tool. The students prepare and cook the edible parts of the squid to cut down on waste and to emphasize the importance of squid as a food source worldwide.     

小组学习促进《植物检疫》课程教学效果的探讨

本文介绍了一种小组学习方式提高《植物检疫》教学效果的方法。试验于2010-2014年在本科生中进行,每届学生被分为两批进行比较试验。借助互联网辅助小组学习和文献研读小组学习两种方式对学习效果的影响进行了研究。结果表明,两种教学方式均有效提高了学生的测验成绩,反馈问卷显示两种教学方式受到学生的欢迎并有助于激发他们的学习兴趣。小组学习的方式可作为《植物检疫》课程教学的重要辅助方式。     

科学典故在组织胚胎学教学中的应用

人体组织胚胎学是一门医学形态学课程,也是医学生进入人体奥秘大门的一把重要钥匙,但形态结构中繁多的记忆内容常常让学生感到学习枯燥,因而更需要授课教师通过不同形式的教学策略引导学生领会其中的乐趣和科学意义。在众多的教学方法和教学手段中,适当引用教学内容相关的科学典故和科学名人,能在潜移默化中培养学生的学习兴趣,理解相关的理论知识,改善教学效果。本文作者整理了一些组织胚胎学教学内容相关的科学典故及其在教学中的应用,供同行交流和医学生参考学习。     

The University of Alabama at Birmingham Center for Community OutReach Development Summer Science Institute Program: a 3-yr laboratory research experience for inner-city secondary-level students

This article describes and assesses the effectiveness of a 3-yr, laboratory-based summer science program to improve the academic performance of inner-city high school students. The program was designed to gradually introduce such students to increasingly more rigorous laboratory experiences in an attempt to interest them in and model what "real" science is like. The students are also exposed to scientific seminars and university tours as well as English and mathematics workshops designed to help them analyze their laboratory data and prepare for their closing ceremony presentations. Qualitative and quantitative analysis of student performance in these programs indicates that participants not only learn the vocabulary, facts, and concepts of science, but also develop a better appreciation of what it is like to be a "real" scientist. In addition, the college-bound 3-yr graduates of this program appear to be better prepared to successfully academically compete with graduates of other high schools; they also report learning useful job-related life skills. Finally, the critical conceptual components of this program are discussed so that science educators interested in using this model can modify it to fit the individual resources and strengths of their particular setting.     

Student responses to a hands-on kinesthetic lecture activity for learning about the oxygen carrying capacity of blood

This article describes a new hands-on, or "kinesthetic," activity for use in a physiology lecture hall to help students comprehend an important concept in cardiopulmonary physiology known as oxygen carrying capacity. One impetus for designing this activity was to address the needs of students who have a preference for kinesthetic learning and to help increase their understanding and engagement during lecture. This activity uses simple inexpensive materials, provides an effective model for demonstrating related pathophysiology, and helps promote active learning. The activity protocol and its implementation are described here in detail. We also report data obtained from student surveys and assessment tools to determine the effectiveness of the activity on student conceptual learning and perceptions. A brief multiple-choice pretest showed that although students had already been introduced to the relevant concepts in lecture, they had not yet mastered these concepts before performing the activity. Two postactivity assessments showed that student performance was significantly improved on the posttest compared with the pretest and that information was largely retained at the end of the course. Survey data showed that one-half of the students stated kinesthetic learning as among their learning preferences, yet nearly all students enjoyed and were engaged in this hands-on kinesthetic activity regardless of their preferences. Most students would recommend it to their peers and expressed a desire for more kinesthetic learning opportunities in the lecture curriculum.     

Teaching alveolar ventilation with simple, inexpensive models

When teaching and learning about alveolar ventilation with our class of 300 first-year medical students, we use four simple, inexpensive "models." The models, which encourage research-oriented learning and help our students to understand complex ideas, are distributed to the students before class. The students anticipate something new every day, and the models provide elements of surprise and physical examples and are designed to help students to understand 1) cohesive forces of the intrapleural space, 2) chest wall and lung dynamics, 3) alveolar volumes, and 4) regional differences in ventilation. Students are drawn into discussion by the power of learning that is associated with manipulating and thinking about objects. Specifically, the models encourage thinking about complex interactions, and the students appreciate manipulating objects and actually understanding how they work. Using models also allows us to show students how we think as well as what we know. Finally, students enjoy taking the models home to demonstrate to friends and family "how the body works" as well as use the models as future study aids.     

Student-generated instructional videos facilitate learning through positive emotions

The central focus of this study is a learning method in which university students produce instructional videos about the content matter as part of their learning process, combined with other learning assignments. The rationale for this is to promote a more multimodal pedagogy, and to provide students opportunities for a more learner-centred, motivating, active, engaging and productive role in their learning process. As such we designed a ‘video course’ where the students needed to produce an instructional video which could be used for university teaching. In addition to producing the video, the students needed to write a literature review of the topic of the video and a learning journal. At the end of the course the students filled a questionnaire regarding their learning and emotions during the project. Based on the students’ subjective answers, it appeared that producing a video, combined with writing the literature review can be an efficient way of learning. Most students found the project emotionally very positive and regarded it motivating to work on a video which they knew will have use in the future. This research suggests that a multimodal video project in a higher education setting enhances learning through increased motivation and positive emotions.     

Making sense with posters in biological science education

Posters make sense. They make sense as a means of communicating the results of scientific investigation quickly and effectively. They also make sense as a teaching-and-leaming exercise. This point is made in a number of studies that have explored the benefits of posters within biology courses. Whilst these studies illustrate the value of poster assignments as educational exercises, it is also evident that the success of those assignments depends, in part, on providing students with clear instruction on poster preparation. Despite the considerable merits of the existing literature on the use of posters in science education, there has been very little published that offers clear and simple guidance to students and teachers on poster production. One of the primary aims of this paper, therefore, is to help rectify this situation. We briefly review the purposes of posters in teaching biology before going on to provide some detailed instruction for students on how to prepare a good, effective poster.     

Teaching Synthetic Biology, Bioinformatics and Engineering to Undergraduates: The Interdisciplinary Build-a-Genome Course

A major challenge in undergraduate life science curricula is the continual evaluation and development of courses that reflect the constantly shifting face of contemporary biological research. Synthetic biology offers an excellent framework within which students may participate in cutting-edge interdisciplinary research and is therefore an attractive addition to the undergraduate biology curriculum. This new discipline offers the promise of a deeper understanding of gene function, gene order, and chromosome structure through the de novo synthesis of genetic information, much as synthetic approaches informed organic chemistry. While considerable progress has been achieved in the synthesis of entire viral and prokaryotic genomes, fabrication of eukaryotic genomes requires synthesis on a scale that is orders of magnitude higher. These high-throughput but labor-intensive projects serve as an ideal way to introduce undergraduates to hands-on synthetic biology research. We are pursuing synthesis of Saccharomyces cerevisiae chromosomes in an undergraduate laboratory setting, the Build-a-Genome course, thereby exposing students to the engineering of biology on a genomewide scale while focusing on a limited region of the genome. A synthetic chromosome III sequence was designed, ordered from commercial suppliers in the form of oligonucleotides, and subsequently assembled by students into ~750-bp fragments. Once trained in assembly of such DNA “building blocks” by PCR, the students accomplish high-yield gene synthesis, becoming not only technically proficient but also constructively critical and capable of adapting their protocols as independent researchers. Regular “lab meeting” sessions help prepare them for future roles in laboratory science.