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 | Rationale and proposal for changes to the Biol100 Lab Program for 200820 Based on my readings in the field of Biology Education (mainly in Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education, CBE—Life Sciences Education, Bioscene, Journal of College Science Teaching and American Biology Teacher), I have several suggestions as to how to improve the Biology 100 Labs. This isn’t to say that I agree with the idea the Biology 100 Labs are solely responsible for all our Departmental retention woes, rather that I recognise a need to change our pedagogy with regard to the labs (and the lectures, for that matter) at the First Year level to better reflect the learning styles and skill set of today’s students. The current lecture and display/cookbook style for introductory biology (Biol100) labs appears to be becoming less and less appropriate given the changing learning style and skill set of incoming students. Today’s incoming students lack the internal and individual motivation to “go out and look at dead stuff in jars”. I believe that focussing on a much more student-centred learning approach employing Collaborative Learning (CL) and a mixture of problem-based experimental, computer simulation and problem-based/case-based scenarios might be a better way to provide students with the opportunity to learn the skills needed for a future in science. Issues with the current slate of labs: Current Lab 1- Microscopy sub-exercise The more I think about this, the more I think we’re better off scaling this sub-experiment down, or omitting it entirely. We could have a guide to using a compound microscope in an appendix, but the actual “lab exercises” should employ the scope as a tool for learning only. Having the use of microscopes as an entity unto themselves fulfils none of our learning objectives, and in my experience with 220 students, most dodn’t learn how to use the microscope properly in 100/101 anyway. Current Lab 1- Scientific Method sub-exercise Cookbook style. Boring. Current Lab 2 to 4 – Taxonomy and Animal Diversity These labs are passive and use displays and rote learning in a manner that isn’t remotely engaging or relevant. This set of labs, more than any others, seems to bear the brunt of student negativity. Students now tend to lean more toward the “consumer side” than “scholar side” of learning, so seem to find these labs tedious, which leads to behaviour like leaving early (“I’ll just get if odd WebCT”). While some do take responsibility for their own education, many lack the maturity to take responsibility for their own learning at this point in their university careers. Current Lab 5 - Evolution The Gravel Divers exercise, while it employs group work, seems too “cookbooky” for the majority of the students to really understand the major concepts. The “Evidence for Evolution” displays are of the same rote learning style as Taxonomy, and therefore not engaging. A possible solution: From the calendar description of the course: “A survey of the kingdom Animalia and a range of topics including the origin of life, cell structure and function, the diversity of living forms, their ecology, evolution and reproduction”. I believe the key with the 100 labs is to change our pedagogical strategy and style and to refine our learning objectives such that we are helping the students learn what they need to learn by inquiry rather than by rote. Secondly, we need to change our labs in such a way that we foster as many of the “five tools” of science (content, research skills, literature interpretation, writing skills, speaking skills) as possible (Stover & Mabry, 2004). Proposed Lab Schedule for Biol100 in 200820:
Details of proposed program: Lab Orientation Ideally, this should be a short (<60 minute) slightly-more-personal-than-in-the-big-lecture-theatre introduction to the Department, to Biology 100, to their TAs and to collaborative learning. I’m in the process of talking to a dozen of our former students in various careers about putting together a short biography (what degree did they do, a blurb about their thoughts about the U of R, maybe a cool picture of them in their current occupation: Detroit zoo curator, New York science writer, Department of National Defence anti-bioterrorism expert,…) that we would put in the lab manual as divider pages. I think this will be good “advertising” for our department because it will show that there are many things one can do with a degree in Biology and it will give the students more insight into the fact that their TAs are people, too. During this time, the students will fill out cards with their name, gender, year in program, major, background in biology. I’ll use this information to set up the groups of 4 for the term, based on a well-defined set of criteria (Penwell et al., 2004). To introduce the students to what will likely be a completely new style of learning (in a completely new situation - the lab), it might be a good idea to use a practice study in CBL: “A Word to the Wise? Advising Freshmen” (Dudek et al., 2004). Lab 1 – The Scientific Method Group assignments are disclosed to the students. Experiments: 1. A reworked “Enzyme Lab” from years ago such that it becomes inquiry-based in design. Students will be given information about a number of ways in which to test for three of the four classes of macromolecules (carbohydrates, proteins and lipids), some control solutions (pure starch, glucose, maltose, albumin, vegetable oil) and the name of the enzyme that is available (amylase, which breaks down starch into glucose molecules). They will bring a food sample to test. As a group, they will create testable hypotheses, design and perform a simple experiment to test their hypotheses and present their results to the class (class input on whether their hypothesis was supported or refuted). It might be possible to use some of the strategies and techniques used in “Picture Perfect” from Waterman & Stanley’s Biological Inquiry – A Workbook of Investigative Cases (2005). I did another exercise from this book at a session run by Margaret and Ethel at ASMCUE 2005. It was incredible! or 2. Modifications of “Modelling the Process of Science: Investigating Sexual Dimorphism in Crayfish” (Mullen et al., 2003) CBL/PBL exercises: 1. A Strange Fish Indeed: The “Discovery” of a Living Fossil (Grant, 2005) or 2. The Search for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker (Stanger-Hall et al., 2007) I like this one because it is current and still under much debate. http://www.birds.cornell.edu/ivory/latest/0708underway/document_view Lab 2 – Microscopy and Cells Computer simulation: Osmobeaker (see review by Meir et al., 2005). Students could choose to run the simulation at home (the CD or download key would be part of the Lab Manual package) and / or run it in lab with their group on one of the 4 (I hope) lab computers. Experiment: Microscopy?? Still working on how to make this inquiry-based, rather than the cookbook “look at this cell then draw this cell” boring stuff. CBL/PBL exercises: Haven’t found anything completely appropriate yet. Maybe something based on cancer…? http://www.biology.arizona.edu/cell_bio/tutorials/cells/cells1/html Lab 3 – Animal Diversity in Saskatchewan (a.k.a. “The RSM lab”). Attached. This will be done off-campus at the RSM any time during the month of October. I will be encouraging the students to visit the RSM during what is their usual lab time and in their groups. The TAs will be available for questions at the RSM during regular lab time for the week of Oct. 20 -24 only, although given the accounts by Biol150 students in 200730, the TAs won’t have many questions asked of them. Lab 4 – Taxonomy of Animals The premise the students will be given is that they have landed on a strange island with every possible ecosystem curiously present on it. Their task will be to come up with a way to separate 20 unlabelled specimens they have “found” using a dichotomous key approach and observable characteristics only (we’re assuming no a priori knowledge of scientific vocabulary and jargon). The groups will present and justify their classification schemes to the rest of the class and then the TAs will lead a discussion (with examples) of the terms and descriptions that biologists currently use for each of the specimens. Lab 5 – Evolution Computer Simulation: Evobeaker – Darwin’s Snails. Students could choose to run the simulation at home (the CD or download key would be part of the Lab Manual package) and / or run it in lab with their group on one of the 4 (I hope) lab computers. CBL/PBL exercise: An Antipodal Mystery (Freeman Herreid, 2005) ties together taxonomy with Darwin. |
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