Introducing the new LS-CWSEI blog

Sharing the progress, reflections and teaching resources of the Life Sciences-Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative at UBC Biology

 

Welcome to our new blog and website! We are the Science Teaching and Learning Fellows (STLFs) of the LS-CWSEI; in addition to acronyms, we love working with UBC Biology faculty to develop and apply evidence-based best teaching practices in their classrooms. You can see our smiling faces here.

Our goal for the blog is to highlight progress and reflections from our work with the UBC Biology Program, as well as share teaching activities, literature and other resources. We plan to post at least two short articles a month. Today’s post gives a (very) brief summary of the roles and goals of an STLF and some of the specific projects we’ve pursued recently.

Roles and goals of a Science Teaching and Learning Fellow

Our job is to work directly with faculty to apply a scientific approach to teaching. We are post-doctoral fellows whose graduate work was in biology, but we also have university-level teaching experience and experience in science education methodology and research (CWSEI STLF training protocol here). We work directly with faculty and teaching teams (including course teaching assistants) to establish their goals for a given course and a concrete plan to achieve those goals, including how to:

  1. Establish what students are expected to learn in the course
  2. Measure what students are actually learning and taking away from class
  3. Adapt instructional methods and confirm they achieve the instructor’s desired learning goals

Currently, we are each assigned to a core course (100- and 200-level, some 300-level) in the UBC Biology Program and work primarily with its teaching team. However, we can and do work with any other interested faculty and also consult on department-wide curriculum reform. You can find out more general information about the LS-CWSEI here.

A summary of some recent work with courses in the Biology Program

1. Establish what students are expected to learn in a given course
  • Develop or revise testable learning goals, at whatever level needed (lecture, topic, course, etc.)
    • Implemented in BIOL 112: Biology of the Cell, BIOL 121: Genetics, Evolution, Ecology, BIOL 204: Vertebrate Structure and Function, BIOL 205: Comparative Invertebrate Zoology, BIOL 209: Non-Vascular Plants, BIOL 210: Vascular Plants, BIOL230: Fundamentals of Ecology, BIOL 234: Fundamentals of Genetics, BIOL 260: Fundamentals of Physiology, BIOL 336: Fundamentals of Evolution. Courses calendar here.
  • Align learning goals to course assessments (tests, projects, assignments, etc.)
    • BIOL 112, 121, 204, 205, 209, 210, 230, 234, 260, 336
    • Find CWSEI papers, examples and other resources on learning goals here.

2: Determine what students are actually learning and taking away from class
  • Provide quantitative observations of teaching and student behaviour during class to the instructor.
    • BIOL 112, 121, 204, 205, 230, 234, 209, 210, 260, 336, 455: Comparative Neurobiology
    • See the CWSEI Classroom Observation Protocol for Undergraduate Stem courses (COPUS) protocol here.
  • Develop and deploy pre-/post-instruction learning assessments such as a Concept Inventory
    • BIOL 112, 121, 230, 336
    • See the UBC Q4B (Questions For Biology), a concept inventory development team, here.
  • Create resources to teach and assess student problem solving skills
    • BIOL 234
    • See STLF Lisa McDonnell’s poster and blog post on this project.
  • Create resources to teach and assess students’ logical thinking and reasoning skills
    • BIOL 204, 260

 

3: Adapt instructional methods and confirm they achieve desired learning goals
  • Create or adapt course materials for “clickers” (student personal response system) in order to foster peer-to-peer instruction, generate predictions, assess how well a concept was learned, collect student feedback, etc.
    • BIOL 112, 121, 204, 205, 230, 234, 209, 210, 260, 336, 455
    • Find CWSEI clicker info and resources here.
  • Motivate more students to do their readings by converting traditionally large, chapter-long assignments to shorter “pre-readings” specific to the upcoming class or week, assessed by an short online quiz.
    • BIOL 112, 121, 205, 234, 260, 336
    • See the CWSEI pre-reading guide here.
    • See former STLF Mandy Banet’s poster on pre-readings here.
  • Convert class content traditionally taught as lecture to in-class worksheets in order to give students practice grappling with course concepts, skills and exam-style questions and the opportunity to receive formative feedback from their instructor or TA.
    • BIOL 112, 121, 230, 234, 260, 336
    • See the EOS-SEI (Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences equivalent of the LS-CWSEI) article on designing in-class group-based worksheets here.
  • Develop and implement “two-stage group exams”, a form of collaborative testing in which students write the first part of a test individually and then complete the same or similar questions with in a group.
    • BIOL 112, 121, 230, 234, 260
    • See the CWSEI group exam paper pdf (Gilley and Clarkston, 2014, J. College Science Teaching, 43: 83–91).
    • See the CWSEI two-stage exam videos here.
  • Provide Teaching Assistants training in Pedagogical-Content Knowledge—how to teach a given topic, the likely student preconceptions, misconceptions and how to address them—as well as teaching feedback.
    • BIOL 112, 121, 234, 336
    • See the CWSEI TA training resources here.

 

What’s next for the LS-CWSEI blog?

In our next (and in many subsequent) posts, we’ll focus on a single course and delve into the details of a specific project. Stay tuned!