250 bums-on-seats, 250 pairs of blinking eyes, 250 texting thumbs

So my personal genomics module was fun - it was a very small class of co-operative students who are used to asking and answering questions and doing the occasional activity.  I'll write more on how it went once I've surfaced from the avalanche of work that has buried me for the last few weeks.  In the meantime, I'm freaking out about the prospect of herding 250 students through some pretty complex activities.

My departmental FIRST IV Buddy (let's call him F1B) took the first class in a similarly-sized section last week, and of course did a fabulous job, including presenting the results of their natural selection pre-test (some questions from the CINS and the dinosaur question) as a introduction to the misconceptions we will be addressing.  However, the difficulties of 'parachuting in' a totally new learning mode for two weeks in the middle of a semester became obvious.  We can't create formal groups, and even if we could, we have no mechanism to introduce group accountability, because all the marks have to come from the exam or clicker questions. This also means that there is no grade incentive to actually engage in any of the activities, only the nebulous (to a stressed-out freshman) incentive of improved learning.  And I believe in grade incentives; they're the currency of teaching and learning.  We are assigning a value to the various pieces of work that students are asked to do, and the value we assign should reflect the importance of that work to achieving learning goals.  If I think it's so important to engage in a learning activity, then a grade tells students I really mean it.  At least, that's the way students talk about it (they're always complaining about unassessed work and 'optional' readings).

The obvious drawback to my opinion is that 250 bums-on-seats  eventually means 250 scrawled short answers or cramped concept maps/mini-maps/box-and-arrow-diagrams.  I know that Diane and some of our esteemed FIRST IV faculty use undergraduate teaching assistants to help with grading, but my university absolutely forbids us to do that.  So, the solution I've come up with this morning, which I'll ask F1B about today, is to have some clicker question marks tied to activities.  For instance, on Monday they'll be doing a Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium activity in which they'll have to do things like calculate allele frequencies and predict equilibrium genotype frequencies.  To encourage participation, we could get them to 'click-in' one of their answers (from 5 choices).  It seems lame, but otherwise I envisage one-half of the class bothering to join in and one-half not bothering.

Structure-Behaviour-Function-Questions?

The following is part of an email from Diane in response to the concept map post:

Keep in mind that concept maps are models -- all models have structure, behavior (what links two or more concepts) and function (of the model). 

A graph is a model, a picture is a model, a box and arrow diagram is a model, a concept map is a model.  The key for any model is the relationship between and among concepts.  We find the rules of concept maps (aka hierarchy) too constraining.

Working with students re:modelling any concept, system, relationship is extremely valuable.

On the topic of Structure-Behaviour-Function of models, I have heard much about this idea, but am still struggling to picture how it gets used in the classroom.  Does anyone have any examples?

I choose (b) concept maps

Last night, while I was whining like a baby posting about my difficulties writing multiple-choice questions, I had the germ of an idea that made me feel a bit better.  It involves concept maps, which are awesomeness (Fig. 1).  We are planning to include a concept mapping activity toward the end of the natural selection module. A concept map is made up of nodes that represent concepts, and links that represent the relationships between them.   Creating concept maps helps students structure their knowledge because it asks them to make decisions about the connections between concepts.  They are inherently hard to assess, because many different maps can be correctly constructed from the same terms, but they are apparently a good tool for discussion of the 'big picture' and we are keen to give them a go.  My nascent idea is that we can also broaden our narrow array of multiple-choice questions by including a couple based around concept maps.  I can imagine two sorts:

1) Choose the most accurate concept map from five (this is lower level, space-consuming, also time-consuming to read, but still possible).

2) Choose from five possible linking phrases to go between nodes in an 'unlinked' concept map (slightly higher level, slightly less space consuming)

Once we have tried this idea out, I'll post something on whether it worked out.

PS If you have ever wanted to make a concept map without exposing your horrible hand-tremor and blotchy penmanship, try the programme Cmap, which is incredibly straight-forward and also free.

 

Figure 1. Judge me only on artistic merit

Multiple-choice questions make me want to choose (e) Instant death

Like the majority of large enrollment freshman biology courses, the one I will be involved in teaching is assessed entirely by MCQs.  This may be because anyone who has to had to read 300 freshman biology essays is already dead, and therefore unable to write any more essay questions.  However, this also means that the only way that I can assess any of the learning objectives  I have been carefully assembling (with my teaching buddy and FIRST IV team member, who will take a parallel lecture section) is to ask for a choice between (a)-through-(e).  While I believe that MCQs can be profound and rich and fantastically high level, it turns out I just don't have the skills required to write them that way.  Let me elaborate:

a) To write good 'distractors' I need to have a good idea of what students' misconceptions are likely to be.  I don't.  I've never taught freshpeople before, and the published information I could find on this was only partly helpful.

b) There are some types of objectives that we just can't find a way to assess by MCQ:  For instance, you can kiss goodbye to objectives that contain verbs like explain, construct, model, diagram, interpret, conclude, criticize and countless more.

c)  With no ability to show working, even calculate objectives are nightmares to write, because calculators are banned.

d) Sometimes there just don't seem to be four additional plausible-sounding alternatives to the right answer.  Most of the time there is one, or maybe two.

e) Often, it seems like some questions are only harder because they require a higher level of reading comprehension (e.g. noticing the importance of certain words to sentence meaning, like because, always, might, only, therefore, required and so forth) which is obviously very important, but isn't the only learning objective I want to assess.

Ack.

Don't get your POGILs in a twist

I'll admit that I have on occasion struggled to tell my PBLs from my POGILs and my PLTLs.  Thankfully I found a paper in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education that compares these active learning approaches side-by-side in a handy table, while coining the staggeringly nerdy abbreviation "PX_nL".

How to address misconceptions about evolution in introductory biology

There's a nice article in Teaching Issues and Experiments in Ecology about how to best use the information gathered in misconception pre-tests.  Basically, the author shifted from using the misconception data as a measurement of whether students were making learning gains, to using it as a tool to address the misconceptions directly. 

Grant presented histograms of the results of the pre-tests in class and engaged the students in metacognitive discussion (thinking about their process of learning).  He then explicitly arranged the course content around the misconceptions identified.  Apparently this didn't affect the type of content addressed as much as the structure.

Practitioner Research Improved My Students’ Understanding of Evolution by Natural Selection in an Introductory Biology Course • Bruce W. Grant

and also a much longer version NAS/NRC Board of Science Education here.

Happy Darwin Day

So, like me, you're stuck in some American city where Creation isn't going to be showing.  Try this for a tear-jerker instead.

Personal Genomics and me

All the glossy magazines tell us that direct-to-consumer personal genomics is upon us and that our individual futures can now be predicted. Just because the science behind the predictions is (ahem) under-ripe does not mean that the whole venture is destined for extinction. Today’s undergraduates are highly likely to be consumers of information about their own genome and I hope they turn out to be informed ones. To this end, I’ll be integrating the topic of personal genomics into a two-class module on complex trait inheritance for a small introductory biology course. Next week.

So, yes, I’m feeling sleep deprived and jittery and I’m starting to dream about vanishing learning objectives, the way I used to dream about pushing electrons and sliding redox states as an undergrad. It’s only thanks to the mentoring of some helpful faculty members that I haven’t already burst into flames.

Assuming my lack of spontaneous combustion lasts until next Friday, this is what I’m thinking of trying:

Class I (2h minus break)
1) Social implications of disease testing – group disccusion of the reading
2) Huntington’s disease minilecture: Pedigrees, linkage and finding causative mutations by looking for markers physically linked to them
3) Activity drawing linked and unlinked alleles on chromosomes through the steps of meiosis and crossing over
4) Introduction to complex traits – examples of muliple genetic influences, environmental influences and gene x environment interactions
5) Brainstorm on ‘what is environment?’
6) Group activity on coming up with experimental designs to decide whether genetics or environment has more influence on a trait
7) Introduction to heritability
8) Think-pair-share on example of heritability misconception

Class II (2h minus break)

1) In-class quiz on homework problem set
2) Introduction to genome-wide association studies as a way to find linkage for complex traits and the current limitations on risks predicted from them.
3) In small groups, use the 23andMe demo genomes and answer guided questions to relate their existing knowledge of genes and alleles and loci and punnett squares and dominance relationships to the SNP genotypes on the screen. Group discussion of results.
4) Small groups each prepare a short genetic counselling session for either Lilly or Greg. Guided by fictional case notes for each that change the interpretation of the results.
5) Group synthesis of our interpretations of absolute vs. relative risk, genetic vs. environmental influences, actinable vs. non-actionable information.

Absurdly optimistic? Too dumbed down? I have no idea! Help!

You may notice that class II involves mostly footling around at the 23andMe website, looking at the demo genomes of ‘Lilly and Greg Mendel’ (not their real names). If you have never done this, I highly recommend it for late-night entertainment. The thing that bothered me at first was that my class could turn into a PR exercise, in which I tacitly endorse 23andMe by forcing my students to spend nearly 2 hours exposed to their advertising material. I’ve decided to go ahead with it anyway, because it's too nice an opportunity and I can at least summarise the uncertainties that hover around SNP risk estimates at the moment.

One last thing, I promise: I got a very interesting tip from the genetics lecturer in my department today. She said that she has struggled to get students to let go of the misconception that a complex trait is just a complicated one. The confusion is revealed when they always classify multi-allelic single gene traits as complex traits. It’s possible it would be easier for them if we jettisoned the term ‘complex’ and substituted ‘multifactorial’, but I still don’t know if there is some terminological difference between the definition of complex and multifactorial traits that I have missed.

Say no to taking notes.

I've always been vehemently against taking notes (I never did in college, but then again, I was asleep most of the time). So, the Chronicle of Higher Education says some boffins agree with me.

Learn.Genetics/Teach.Genetics

Learn.Genetics and Teach.Genetics are a pair of awesome websites from the Genetics Science Learning Center at the University of Utah. The project is described in an issue of Science last week, if you have access. Every month this year, Science will feature one of the 12 winners of the SPORE prize (Science Prize for Online Resources in Education).

Who died and left me in charge of teaching the mechanisms of evolution to a pack of gum-chewing, skinny-jeaned, re-tweeting 18-year olds?

How clever of me to dive (or belly flop) into the deep-end with my very first teaching experience. Sure, like all grad students, I led tutorials and I have inducted many shaky-handed undergraduate researchers into the world of the lab, but I never had the responsibility of figuring out what was supposed to be learned or how I would know that students had learned it. And now, the results of my first experiments in this area may determine whether or not some spotty kid believes in evolution or not. Oh, and did I mention I'll be videotaped for the purposes of critiquing my performance? No pressure.

Luckily I have the keenest and most massive roadcrew ever assembled to help a poor post-doc bumble their way through a teaching assignment. It’s called the FIRST IV network and it’s a

…national dissemination project designed to reform undergraduate science education through professional development of postdocs who will design an introductory biology course for a learner-centered classroom.

In addition to ‘disseminating’ their reform through me and my cohort of 100 elite-crime-fighting postdocs, FIRST IV intends to establish a formal network of next-gen biology teachers. We will be there to provide support and ideas to each other for the rest of our natural lives. Yes, I have joined a cult.