Journal of College Science Teaching

Journal of College Science TeachingJanuary/February 2012 Vol. 41, No. 3

Visit www.nsta.orgto find more resourcesfor science educators

• Survey of science literacy among undergraduates• Impact of service learning in environmental studies• Inquiry-based college science teaching institutes

F e a t u r e s

Journal of College science teaching...a Peer-reviewed Journal Published by the National science teachers association

Vol. 41, No. 3, 2012

42

18

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18 Transformative Professional Development: Inquiry-Based College Science Teaching Institutes

by Ningfeng Zhao, Stephen B. Witzig, Jan C. Weaver, John E. Adams, and Frank Schmidt

26 Long-Term Impact of Service Learning in Environmental Studies

by Janet MacFall

32 Improving Active Learning by Integrating Scientific Abstracts Into Biological Science Courses

by Jeffry Lyle Shultz

36 Engaging Undergraduates Through Interdisciplinary Research in Nanotechnology

by Anura U. Goonewardene, Christine Offutt, Jacqueline Whitling, and Donald Woodhouse

42 Calibrated Peer Review Essays Increase Student Confidence in Assessing Their Own Writing

by Lauren Likkel

48 Two Paper Airplane Design Challenges: Customizing for Different Learning Objectives

by Daniel Z. Meyer and Allison Antink Meyer

54 Looking Back to Move Ahead: How Students Learn Geologic Time by Predicting Future Environmental Impacts

by Chen Zhu, George Rehrey, Brooke Treadwell, and Claudia C. Johnson

The Journal of College Science Teaching (ISSN 0047-231x) is published six times a year (Sept./Oct., Nov./Dec., Jan./Feb., March/April, May/June, July/Aug.) by the National Science Teachers Association, 1840 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, VA 22201-3000. Individual membership dues are $75 ($50 for publication, $25 for membership). Memberships outside the United States (except territories), add $15 per year for postage. Single copies, $10. Periodicals postage paid at Arlington, VA, and additional mailing offices. Publications Mail Agreement no. 41506028. Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: P.O. Box 503, RPO West Beaver Creek, Richmond Hill, ON L4B 4R6 Canada. © 2012 by the National Science Teachers Association, all rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part of any article without permission is prohibited. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to the Journal of College Science Teaching, NSTA Member Services, 1840 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, VA 22201-3000.

Concerned that your students aren’t being introduced to the newest research? Find out how scientific abstracts can be incorporated into course instruction to overcome deficits in materials and improve active learning on page 32. On page 42, read how one professor used an online writing software tool to increase student confidence in their own writing on page 42. See how a paper-airplane design task was used to incorporate scientific inquiry into a college classroom on page 48.Cover image: Wind turbines. Image by Brand X, Ecology Issues.

Editor .........................................................Ann CutlerLilly Science Hall 332.D, University of Indianapolis,

1400 East Hanna Avenue, Indianapolis, IN 46227317-788-3259

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Kenneth L. [email protected]

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Journal of College science teaching...a refereed Journal Published by the

National science teachers association

researCH aND teaCHING74 Scientific Inquiry in the Genetics Laboratory: Biologists

and University Science Teacher Educators Collaborating to Increase Engagement in Science Processes

by Todd Campbell, Joshua P. Der, Paul G. Wolf, Eric Packenham, and Nor Hashidah Abd-Hamid

82 Surveying Science Literacy Among Undergraduates: Insights From Open-Ended Responses

by Jessie Antonellis, Sanlyn Buxner, Chris Impey, and Hannah Sugarman

92 Literacy Strategies Build Connections Between Introductory Biology Laboratories and Lecture Concepts

by Lisa L. Harmon and Jerine Pegg

DePartMeNts

6 Guest Editorial From the Framework to the Next Generation Science

Standards: What Will It Mean for STEM Faculty? by Michael Padilla and Melanie Cooper

10 Point of View Who Is Catching Up With Whom? Internationalization of

Science Education by Richard W. Schwenz

13 Headline Science SatelliteImagesHelpSpeciesConservation•GalaxiesAre

theUltimateRecyclers•BetterRechargeableBatteries•HowtheFlyFlies•Antibiotic-SensitiveBacteria

64 Case Study Stereochemistry of Drug Action: Case Studies With

Enantiomers by Jessica L. Epstein

aLsO IN tHIs Issue61 Call for Papers

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4 Journal of College Science Teaching

Journal of College Science TeachingThe mission of the National Science Teachers Association is to promote excellence and innovation in science teaching and learning for all.

Published by the National Science Teachers Association

JCST AdviSory BoArdLaurie Bonneau, Trinity College, Hartford, CT; Grant E. Gardner, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC; Lynn Gatto, University of Rochester, Honeoye Falls, NY; debarati Ghosh, Hillsborough Community College, Tampa, FL; Linda Keen-rocha, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa; Eliza richardson, Penn State University, University Park, PA; richard Schwenz, University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, CO; Brian Shmaefsky, Lone Star College, Kingwood, TX; Timothy Slater, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY; Marshall Sundberg, Emporia State University, Emporia, KS; Mark Turski, Plymouth State University, Plymouth, NH; Corinne Zeller-Knuth, Saint Augustine’s College, Raleigh, NC.

JCST rEviEw PAnELJeff Appling, Clemson University, Clemson, SC; Alex Azima, Lansing Community College, Lansing, MI; Janelle M. Bailey, University of Nevada, Las Vegas; ingrid Bartsch, University of North Carolina, Charlotte, NC; Christopher Bauer, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH; Joseph Bellina, Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, IN; Mark Benvenuto, University of Detroit Mercy, Detroit, MI; Gautam Bhattacharyya, Clemson University, Clemson, SC; Prajukti Bhattacharyya, University of Wisconsin, Whitewater, WI; Bruno Borsari, Winona State University, Winona, MN; donna Bozzone, St. Michael’s College, Colchester, VT; Stacey Lowery Bretz, Miami University, Oxford, OH; daniel Brovey, Queens College, Flushing, NY; deanna Buckley, University of Texas, Austin, TX; Thomas Cappaert, Central Michigan University, Mount Pleasant, MI; Cinzia Cervato, Iowa State University, Ames, IA; Susan Chaplin, University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, MN; Kerry Cheesman, Capital University, Columbus, OH; Kim Cleary-Sadler, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, TN; renee Cole, Saint Mary’s College, Warrensburg, MO; Melanie Cooper, Clemson University, Clemson, SC; Charlie Cox, Georgia Tech, Atlanta, GA; Kent Crippen, University of Nevada, Las Vegas; diana Cundell, Philadelphia University, Philadelphia, PA; Larry davis, College of St. Benedict/St. John’s, Collegeville, MN; nora demers, Florida Gulf Coast University, Ft. Myers, FL; Krisma dewitt, Mount Marty College, Yankton, SD; Lin ding, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH; Christopher dobson, Grand Valley State University, Allendale, MI; Adrienne dolberry, Salem State College, Salem, MA; Marvin druger, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY; Michelle duman, University of Indianapolis, IN; Lynn Fowler, Clinton Community College, Plattsburgh, NY; don French, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OH; Art Friedel, Indiana University Purdue University Fort Wayne, Fort Wayne, IN; Frank Frisch, Chapman University, Orange, CA; Joel Gluck, Cranston Public Schools/Community College of Rhode Island, Cranston, RI; Marion “dee” Goldston, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL; robert Gregory, Indiana University Purdue University Fort Wayne, Fort Wayne, IN; Marshall Griffin, West Virginia University at Parkersburg, WV; david G. Haase, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC; Sarah Haines, Towson University, Towson, MD; Michelle Harris, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI; Andrew Heckler, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH; Flor Henderson, Hostos Community College CUNY, Bronx, NY; Mark Hirschkorn, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada; Art Hobson, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR; John Hoffmann, Truman State University, Kirksville, MO; James Holden, Chowan College, Murfreesboro, NC; Jan House, West Central Technical College, Waco, GA; Tom Howick, Chatthoochee Nature Center, Sewanee, TN; Lee Hughes, University of North Texas, Denton, TX; william Hunter, Illinois State University, Normal, IL; daniel King, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA; Kurtis Koll, Cameron University, Lawton, OK; Kimberly A. Lawler-Sagarin, Elmhurst College, Elmhurst, IL; rosemary Leary, Maricopa Community College, Phoenix, AZ; Brenda Litchfield, University of South Alabama, Mobile, AL; Catherine MacGowan, Armstrong Atlantic State University, Savannah, GA; Blase Maffia, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL; david Maloney, Indiana University Purdue University Fort Wayne, Fort Wayne, IN; Adam Maltese, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA; randall Mandock, Clark Atlanta University, Atlanta, GA; Fred r. Mangrubang, Gallaudet University, Washington, DC; Jeff Marshall, Clemson University, Clemson, SC; Johanna Mazlo, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, NC; Laura McCullough, University of Wisconsin-Stout, Menomonie, WI; James Mcdonald, Central Michigan State University, Mount Pleasant, MI; william Mcintosh, Delaware State University, Dover, DE; Andrew Muller, Millersville University, Millersville, PA; Kristen L. Murphy, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI; Chris ohana, Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA; Maria oliver-Hoyo, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC; MaryKay orgill, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV; vincent Pereira, New Explorations into Science, Technology, and Math, New York, NY; ralph Preszler, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM; Gregory Pryor, Francis Marion University, Florence, SC; Laura regassa, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA; John T. reilly, Coastal Carolina University, Conway, South Carolina; Eliza richardson, Penn State University University Park, PA; Judy ridgway, The Ohio State University, Westerville, OH; Jennifer roberts, Lewis University, Romeoville, IL; Chris romero, Front Range Community College, Fort Collins, CO; Michael rutledge, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, TN; Santiago Sandi-Urena, Clemson University, Clemson, SC; Judith A. Scheppler, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, Aurora, IL; Greg Schultz, UC Berkeley, CA; richard Schwenz, University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, CO; Hannah Sevian, University of Massachusetts, Boston, MA; ike Shibley, Penn State Berks, Reading, PA; Tom Shoberg, Pittsburg State University, Pittsburg, KS; MacKenzie Stetzer, University of Washington, Seattle, WA; Katherine Stickney, University of Indianapolis, IN; Shawn Stover, Davis & Elkins College, Elkins, WV; Marilyn Suiter, NSF, Arlington, VA; Gerald Summers, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO; Todd Tarrant, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI; Jerold Touger, Curry College, Milton, MA; robert vick, Elon University, Elon, NC; Samantha whalen, Region IV Education Service Center, Houston, TX; Kevin wise, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL; Michael wittmann, University of Maine, Orono, ME; Kimberly woznack, California University of Pennsylvania, California, PA; Li-hsuan yang, University of Michigan, Flint, MI.

nSTA oFFiCErS And BoArd oF dirECTorSPresident: Patricia Simmons, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC; Retiring President: Alan Mc-Cormack, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA; President Elect: Karen Ostlund, University of Texas–Austin, Austin, TX.

diviSion dirECTorSPreschool/Elementary: Melvina Jones, DC Public Schools, Washington, DC; Middle Level: Kathy Prophet, Hellstern Middle School, Springdale, AR; High School: Michael Lowry, The McCallie School, Chattanooga, TN; College: Timothy Slater, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY; Informal Science: Elizabeth Mulkerrin, Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo, Omaha, NE; Research in Science Education: Kathryn Scantleburg, University of Delaware, Newark, DE; Coordination and Supervision: Linda Lacy, North Kansas City Schools, Kansas City, MO; Preservice Teacher Preparation: Lisa Nyberg, California State University, Fresno, Fresno, CA; Multicultural/Equity in Science Education: Kathy Wright, Hughes STEM High School, Cincinnati, OH; Professional Development: Christine Anne Royce, Shippensburg University, Shippensburg, PA.

diSTriCT dirECTorSDistrict I: Patricia Ruane, St. Augustine Cathedral School, Bridgeport, CT; District II: Linda Bates, Milton Elementary School, Milton, NH; District III: Gloria Allen, Plummer El-ementary School, Washington, DC; District IV: Lynn Gatto, University of Rochester, Honeoye Falls, NY; District V: Cindy Willingham, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL; District VI: Carrie Jones, Middle Creek

High School, Apex, NC; District VII: Chris Campbell, Sims-boro High School, Simsboro, LA; District VIII: Bonnie Embry, Rosa Parks Elementary School, Lexington, KY; District IX: Ramona Lundberg, Deuel High School, Clear Lake, SD; District X: Kate Baird, Indiana University–Purdue University Columbus, Columbus, IN; District XI: Sally Harms, Wayne State College, Wayne, NE; District XII: Eric Brunsell, Uni-versity of Wisconsin–Oshkosh, Oshkosh, WI; District XIII: Deidre Parish, Frisco Independent School District, Frisco, TX; District XIV: Beverly DeVore-Wedding, Meeker High School, Meeker, CO; District XV: John Graves, Monforton School, Bozeman, MT; District XVI: Denise Antrim, Orange County Department of Education, Costa Mesa, CA; District XVII: Jennifer Thompson, Juneau School District, Juneau, AK; District XVIII: Philip Langford, Bert Fox Community High School, Ft. Qu’Appelle, SK.

nSTA FiELd EdiTorS Science and Children, Linda Froschauer, 11 Marion Road, Westport, CT 06880, [email protected]; Science Scope, Inez F. Liftig, Fairfield Woods Middle School, 1115 Fairfield Woods Rd., Fairfield, CT 06430, [email protected]; The Science Teacher, Steve Metz, 1 Elm Street, Byfield, MA 01922, [email protected]; Journal of College Science Teach-ing, Ann Cutler, University of Indianapolis, Indianapolis, IN 46227, [email protected].

nSTA PEriodiCALSScience and Children, Valynda Mayes, Managing Editor; Science Scope, Kenneth L. Roberts, Managing Editor; The Science Teacher, Scott Stuckey, Managing Editor; Journal of College Science Teaching, Caroline Barnes, Managing Editor.

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NSTA publishes four journals: Science and Children (grades K–6), Science Scope (grades 6–9), The Science Teacher (grades 9–12), and the Journal of College Sci-ence Teaching (college). These are included in various membership categories as follows: Individual: Members choose any one of four journals, $75; two different journals, $110; three different journals, $147; or all four journals, $182. Student/New Teacher/Retired: Members choose any one of four journals, $32; two different journals, $64; three different journals, $96; or all four journals, $128. Joint NSTA/SCST: Member-ship in both NSTA and the Society for College Science Teachers. Journal received is JCST, $90. Institutional: Members choose any one of four journals, $95; two different journals, $136; three different journals, $177; or all four journals, $218.

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From the Framework to the Next Generation Science Standards: What Will It Mean for STEM Faculty?By Michael Padilla and Melanie Cooper

GueST eDITORIAL

The development of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) is well underway, with a scheduled

first draft release for comment in early 2012. What, if anything, does this have to do with college science teachers? Will the release of new standards impact us? Should it im-pact us?

Most college science teachers are familiar with National Science Education Standards (National Research Council [NRC], 1996) or the Benchmarks for Science Literacy (American Association for the Advancement of Science [AAAS], 1993)—the documents on which most current state science standards are based. In the almost 20 years since these documents were published, we have discovered more about how people learn and particularly how stu-dents develop competence over time. Given these new understandings, it was time to begin development of a new set of standards for science edu-cation. The NRC began the process of developing the NGSS by first creat-ing A Framework for K–12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas, which was released in July, 2011. As we will see, the Framework (http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13165) de-serves serious study—by both K–12 and college teachers.

The Framework provides a guide for the writing of the NGSS and an

outline and a “frame” for the content of standards. The NGSS are currently being developed under the auspices of Achieve, Inc., a nonprofit organi-zation, by a writing team comprised of 41 educators and scientists from pre–K to college level and 20 lead partner states that represent 48% of the nation’s public school students.

Let’s examine some important issues related to the Framework, the Standards, and ultimately college teachers.

Is there likely to be anything different in the new standards?The Framework describes three di-mensions of science, so let’s look at each separately.

Science and engineering prac-tices are those things scientists and engineers do when they engage in scientific inquiry. The change in terminology in the Framework (to practices and away from inquiry) is meant to signal that engaging in “inquiry requires coordination both of knowledge and skills simultaneously” (NRC, 2011, p. 3-1) The Framework lists eight practices, from “asking questions” to “obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information.” Although not a major change from the 1996 National Science Education Standards, the descriptions of the practices emphasize that there are a range of skills that fall under this umbrella and that acquisition of those

skills can be achieved an a wide vari-ety of instructional settings.

Cross-cutting concepts are those ideas that “bridge disciplinary bound-aries” and have “explanatory value.” The seven key crosscutting ideas include energy, scale, systems, pat-terns, cause and effect, structure, and function. Again this “cross-cutting concepts” idea is not new, but the emphasis will be on highlighting these big ideas across all science disciplines. This big-picture look at science will be a strong emphasis in the new standards.

Core ideas are the fundamen-tal content to be developed. The Framework outlines the major ideas in life, physical, and Earth sciences, with grade-band end points, provid-ing a coherent guide to how major concepts will be developed over time— a learning progression. In ad-dition to the traditional three science disciplines, the NGSS will include engineering, technology, and the ap-plications of science. The goal is to

7Vol. 41, No. 3, 2012

provide the STEM content that all students should learn by the end of high school.

How are the NGSS different from the original National Science Education Standards, Benchmarks, and most state standards?There are two major differences that will become apparent, perhaps the most obvious being the addition of engineering content into the sci-ence framework. In addition to the engineering practices (asking ques-tions, etc.) referenced previously, the Framework specifies engineer-ing design and connections be-tween engineering and technology, science, and society. The second difference involves the structure of the standards themselves. Each standard will take the form of a set of performance expectations that encompass all three dimensions of the Framework. That is, each stan-dard will integrate the core content, practices, and cross-cutting con-cepts and provide guidance for as-sessments that will also address all three dimensions.

Why are the NGSS important for college science teaching?The most obvious reason why the NGSS are important for college sci-ence teaching is that colleges will be receiving the product of the K–12 system—those educated under the new standards. If these standards become widely implemented (and because there are already 20 lead partner states, this seems quite like-ly), students will begin to arrive in college with different experiences, expectations, and abilities. These students will (we hope) be able to integrate knowledge and practices and will expect that the science and

engineering they learn be relevant to their lives. Perhaps even more important, the next generation of K–12 science teachers will be edu-cated by college science teachers. Current science teachers typically learn the relevant science content in disciplinary departments, often in large-enrollment classes that em-phasize recall and regurgitation of information and algorithmic prob-lem solving. Even though they take science methods classes, science teachers in their own classrooms of-ten teach as they were taught—by lecture and rote recall. If teachers are to be prepared to use the NGSS, the science curriculum that poten-tial teachers take must radically change. The integration of content and practices means that the current “mile wide, inch deep” approach to introductory college-level science classes will also have to change.

As teachers of college-level sci-ence courses, it will be our job not only to prepare new teachers to teach at the level and focus of the new standards, but also to provide a con-tinuation of the approach begun by the NRC Framework to make science and engineering more relevant, more accessible, and more important to the next generation.

What is the message for education faculty?Be careful, science educators! Don’t let the seemingly small and subtle changes in standards lull you into thinking “same old, same old.” The evolution of inquiry to the new conception of practices will require a reformulation of how we talk and think about science teaching and how we go about getting students to think about the science they learn. Moreover, the addition of engineer-ing content will compel a rebalanc-

ing of what K–12 teachers teach and thus what methods instructors must prepare them to teach. How we pre-pare new and experienced teachers for these changes will determine the ultimate success of the NGSS.

A final challengeThe ultimate success of the NGSS on college campuses will only be achieved if we work as one, scien-tists and science educators together, to collaborate and build coalitions to reform college science teaching. We can no longer afford the silos and finger pointing from past genera-tions. This will be the challenge that will confront us shortly. Will we be ready?

ReferencesAmerican Association for the

Advancement of Science. (1993). Benchmarks for scientific literacy. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

National Research Council. (1996). National science education standards. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

National Research Council. (2011). A framework for K–12 science education: Practices, crosscutting concepts, and core ideas. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. Available at http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13165

Michael Padilla ([email protected]) is director of the Moore School of Education at Clemson University in Clemson, South Carolina, and former NSTA president, 2006. Melanie Coo-per ([email protected]) is Alumni Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at Clemson University and a member of the Next Generation Science Standards writing team.

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PoinT of V iew

Who Is Catching Up With Whom? Internationalization of Science EducationBy Richard W. Schwenz

My experiences in observ-ing science education in China show how much science education in the

United States influences the rest of the world for better and worse. Because the U.S. higher-education system has been the envy of, and the model for, worldwide higher-education systems, it is worthwhile to examine the conse-quences of this influence. In visits with colleagues interested in education in China, their most frequent question was “Is it possible for Chinese chem-istry and chemistry education to reach the state of chemistry and chemistry education in the United States?”

Let’s start by looking at some nu-merical information. With the popu-lation of China now exceeding one billion, it would be surprising if their university system were not more ex-tensive than that in the United States. Chinese universities prepare about 30,000 undergraduate chemistry ma-jors annually, whereas the U.S. system graduates about 14,000 (Gou & Cao, 2010). Approximately 30% of the Journal of Physical Chemistry submis-sions come from Chinese universities each year. These numbers suggest that science and science education will be performed increasingly at sites outside the United States, Canada, and Europe.

So, are the U.S. paradigms be-ing adopted? What is the difference between science education in other nations and in the United States if the other countries have adopted the para-digms of the U.S. higher-education system? The preeminent position of

U.S. graduate education implies that many faculty at institutions in other nations have been prepared at U.S. higher-education institutions, as about half of the science doctoral degrees awarded in the United States are to non-U.S. students. These students then go on to become professors around the world. Additionally, the textbooks used in foreign classrooms are frequently either the international or translated editions of textbooks produced for the U.S. market. Even the instruction, at least in chemistry, in several countries is delivered in English. In practice, when the instruction is in English, explanations are conveyed in the local language, mathematical language is used for derivations, and the language and jargon of the science being taught is used. Science education has be-come multilingual for these students, with all the challenges that entails. Even whether the same instructional methods used in the United States are sufficiently culturally responsive to address the needs of students in dif-ferent cultures becomes an important question if the U.S. paradigm has been adopted.

As the numbers of students in-crease, the Chinese government is investing in higher education, bringing new campuses and new universities online in order to deal with the chal-lenge of numbers. Every university in China seems to be building new cam-puses. For example, I visited a new, five-story, 100,000-square-foot build-ing devoted to undergraduate chemis-try teaching. One floor was devoted to

the laboratories for each subdiscipline of chemistry, with 900 students rotat-ing among upper-division laboratories with 20 replicate setups in each room for each laboratory activity. Teaching assistants were assigned to a particular time in each room; a computerized scheduling system allowed students to sign up for each laboratory activity. The buildings of original campuses are understandably dated. However, laboratory instrumentation is current and extensive. In addition, the use of technology is up-to-date and wide-spread, especially within lecture halls. One chronic difficulty appears to be in timely delivery of supplies needed for research and teaching.

Despite adoption of the U.S. sys-tem of higher education at the macro (overall curriculum) level, I noted significant differences in teaching methods and styles between U.S. and foreign universities. Class scheduling is among the most obvious. In visits to four Chinese universities, I found that many classes meet roughly for the same total time as corresponding U.S. classes, about three hours weekly. The difference is that the Chinese classes were scheduled as one extended period, exclusive of laboratory time (i.e., a three-hour block one day per week with two breaks during a three-hour lecture session). This scheduling means that students must be extremely prepared for each class meeting. Entire lectures are videotaped, with the video posted on the web for later student viewing. A noticeable slowdown in accessing the Internet occurs when

11Vol. 41, no. 3, 2012

students start accessing the video files of the lectures each morning. Most professors that I observed conduct their lectures with PowerPoint im-ages containing considerable content. Some slides convey extremely dense information that could interfere with student learning. Few lectures would be considered very interactive between instructor and students. Explanations for this lack of interaction could in-clude deference and respect for elders and teachers within other cultures, students’ difficulty in posing questions in English, and the video recording of lectures causing instructors to become relatively stationary behind their lecterns. I observed little use of the techniques advocated by the Pro-cess Oriented Guided Inquiry Lecture group (Eberlein et al., 2008) or use of “clickers” (Koenig, 2010) in lecture classrooms.

The position of U.S. university education in science is envied even as science is increasingly interna-tionalized, with multi-institutional, multinational research becoming commonplace. Although instruction is moving slowly in the same direc-tion, we, as higher-education faculty, should become more aware of cultural differences among both our students and international colleagues as we collaborate with them in various situ-ations. We also need to understand and respect the views and efforts of international colleagues as we all strive to improve science students’ abilities and understanding. I would ask the return question, “Who is lead-ing whom?” because every nation and culture should be contributing; perhaps an even better question is “How can we contribute to teaching students around the world?”

ReferencesEberlein, T., Kampmeier, J., Minderhout,

V., Moog, R. S., Platt, T., Varma-Nelson, P., & White, H. B. (2008). Pedagogies of engagement in science: A comparison of PBL, POGIL, and PLTL. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education, 36, 262–273.

Gou, X., & Cao, H. (2010). Under-graduate chemistry education in Chinese universities: Addressing the challenges of rapid growth. Journal of Chemical Education, 87, 575–577.

Koenig, K. (2010). Building acceptance for pedagogical reform through wide-scale implementation of clickers. Journal of College Science Teaching, 39(3), 46–50.

Richard W. Schwenz ([email protected]) is a professor of chemistry at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, Colorado.

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13Vol. 41, No. 3, 2012

Satellite images help species conservationOrganisms living on small islands are particularly threatened by ex-tinction. However, data are often lacking to objectively assess these threats. A team of German and Brit-ish researchers used satellite imag-ery to assess the conservation status of endangered reptiles and amphib-ians of the Comoro archipelago in the Western Indian Ocean. The re-searchers used their results to point out which species are most threat-ened and to define priorities for fu-ture protected areas. The study was published recently in the open ac-cess journal ZooKeys.

A typical problem in species conservation efforts, particularly in tropical regions, is the lack of information on the extent of suitable habitat available for threatened spe-cies. “The analysis of satellite images allows us to precisely estimate the remaining extent of rainforest and other natural habitats,” said Oliver Hawlitschek from the Bavarian State Collection of Zoology. This approach has rarely been used in species con-servation, and this is the first time that it is applied to all species of a group in an entire country.

In addition to their satellite im-agery analyses, the researchers conducted intensive field surveys in order to detect the habitat pref-erences of the reptiles. “We found that only 9% of the island area is still covered by natural forest, but many native species have adapted to habitats under human influence like orchards, plantations, and gardens,” Hawlitschek said. “Those species which are dependent on the remain-ing natural habitats are the ones most threatened by extinction.”

This research was conducted in col-laboration with Bristol Conservation and Science Foundation’s (BCSF) project in the Comoros. The re-

searchers chose the Comoros as a case study for their methodology because, in relation to large islands like neighboring Madagascar or continental regions, these islands cover little area and are inhabited by a limited number of species.

“Natural habitats are destroyed at a fast pace in many regions of the world,” said Frank Glaw, herpetolo-gist at the Bavarian State Collection of Zoology. “We therefore need tools to assess quickly and objectively where we have to set our priorities in species conservation, especially for species endemic to small islands that are particularly vulnerable to extinc-tion.” (Pensoft Publishers)

Galaxies are the ultimate recyclersGalaxies learned to “go green” early in the history of the universe, con-tinuously recycling immense vol-umes of hydrogen gas and heavy elements to build successive gen-erations of stars stretching over bil-lions of years.

This ongoing recycling keeps galaxies from emptying their “fuel tanks” and therefore stretches out their star-forming epoch to over 10 billion years. However, galaxies that ignite a rapid firestorm of star birth can blow away their remaining fuel, essentially turning off further star-birth activity.

This conclusion is based on a series of Hubble Space Telescope observa-tions that flexed the special capabili-ties of its comparatively new Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) to detect otherwise invisible mass in the halo of our Milky Way and a sample of more than 40 other galaxies. Data from large ground-based telescopes in Hawaii, Arizona, and Chile also contributed to the studies by measur-ing the properties of the galaxies.

This invisible mass is made up of normal matter—hydrogen, helium,

and heavier elements such as carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and neon—as opposed to dark matter that is an unknown exotic particle pervading space. The results were published in three papers in Science magazine.

The color and shape of a galaxy is largely controlled by gas flowing through an extended halo around it. All modern simulations of galaxy formation find that they cannot ex-plain the observed properties of gal-axies without modeling the complex accretion and “feedback” processes by which galaxies acquire gas and then later expel it after processing by stars. The three studies investigated different aspects of the gas-recycling phenomenon.

The team of researchers used COS observations of distant stars to dem-onstrate that a large mass of clouds is falling through the giant corona halo of our Milky Way, fueling its ongoing star formation. These clouds of ion-ized hydrogen reside within 20,000 light years of the Milky Way disk and contain enough material to make 100 million suns. Some of this gas is recycled material that is continually being replenished by star formation and the explosive energy of novae and supernovae, which kicks chemi-cally enriched gas back into the halo; the remainder is gas being accreted for the first time. The infalling gas from this vast reservoir fuels the

Cosmic Origins Spectrograph being prepared at the Ball Aerospace labs

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Fruit fly (Drosophila malanogaster, male)

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Milky Way with the equivalent of about a solar mass per year, which is comparable to the rate at which our galaxy makes stars. At this rate the Milky Way will continue mak-ing stars for another billion years by recycling gas into the halo and back onto the galaxy. (NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center)

Better rechargeable batteriesImagine a cell-phone battery that stayed charged for more than a week and recharged in just 15 minutes. That dream battery could be closer to reality thanks to Northwestern University research.

A team of engineers has created an electrode for lithium-ion batteries—rechargeable batteries such as those found in cell phones and iPods—that allows the batteries to hold a charge up to 10 times greater than current technology. Batteries with the new electrode also can charge 10 times faster than current batteries.

The researchers combined two chemical engineering approaches to address two major battery limita-tions—energy capacity and charge rate—in one fell swoop. In addition to better batteries for cell phones and iPods, the technology could pave the way for more efficient, smaller bat-teries for electric cars.

The technology could be seen in the marketplace in the next three to five years, the researchers said. A paper describing the research was published by the journal Advanced Energy Materials. (Northwestern University)

How the fly fliesIn order to fly efficiently, flies have to flap their small wings very fast. This causes the familiar buzzing and hum-ming of the small beasts. The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster moves its wings at a frequency of 200 hertz—

that means its flight muscles contract and relax 200 times per second. “In contrast, a hundred meters sprinter who moves his legs only a few times per second moves like a snail,” said Frank Schnorrer, one of the authors of a recent study published in Nature. How can the fruit fly flap its wings at such a high frequency?

Muscles control all body move-ments, including the wing oscilla-tions. However, flight muscles are unique. Their contractions are not only regulated by nerve impulses as usual, but also additionally triggered by tension. Every fly has two catego-ries of flight muscles that enable the wing oscillations: One type moves the wings down and, at the same time, stretches the other type, which induces its contraction. The wings are pulled up again and stable wing oscillations begin.

By means of targeted gene silenc-ing in the fruit fly, scientists in the re-search group Muscle Dynamics at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry have now identified the switch es-sential for the formation of flight muscles: Spalt. Transcription factors like Spalt play an important role for the correct transcription of the genetic information into RNA and proteins necessary in the respective cell type. Spalt only exists in flight muscles and is responsible for the specific architec-ture of their myofibrils. These compo-nents of muscle fibers alone enable the contraction of a muscle in response to

the applied tension during the oscilla-tions. Without Spalt, the flies survive, but are flightless. The flight muscles no longer react to tension and behave like normal leg muscles. Vice versa, the scientists succeeded in creating flight muscles in the fly’s legs by only inserting Spalt.

These results could be medically important. “Human body muscles do not have Spalt and are hardly regu-lated by tension,” Frank Schnorrer explained. “But the human cardiac muscle builds Spalt and the tension inside the ventricle influences the heartbeat intensity. Whether Spalt plays a role in heartbeat regulation is not yet known and remains to be investigated.” (Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry)

Antibiotic-sensitive bacteria Many infections, even those caused by antibiotic-sensitive bacteria, re-sist treatment. A key cause of this resistance is that bacteria become starved for nutrients during infec-tion. Starved bacteria resist killing by nearly every type of antibiotic, even ones they have never been ex-posed to before.

What produces starvation-induced antibiotic resistance, and how can it be overcome? In a paper that appeared recently in Science, researchers report some surprising answers.

“Bacteria become starved when they exhaust nutrient supplies in the body, or if they live clustered together in groups known as biofilms,” said Dr. Dao Nguyen, lead author of the paper.

Biofilms are clusters of bacteria encased in a slimy coating and can be found both in the natural environment as well as in human tissues where they cause disease. For example, biofilm bacteria grow in the scabs of chronic wounds and the lungs of patients with cystic fibrosis. Bacteria in biofilms tolerate high levels of antibiotics without being killed.

15Vol. 41, No. 3, 2012

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“A chief cause of the resistance of biofilms is that bacteria on the outside of the clusters have the first shot at the nutrients that diffuse in,” said Dr. Pradeep Singh, senior author of the study. “This produces starvation of the bacteria inside clusters, and severe resistance to killing.”

Starvation was previously thought to produce resistance because most antibiotics target cellular functions needed for growth. When starved cells stop growing, these targets are no longer active. This effect could re-duce the effectiveness of many drugs. Microbiologists have long known that when bacteria sense that their nutrient supply is running low, they issue a chemical alarm signal. The alarm tells the bacteria to adjust their metabolism to prepare for starvation. Could this alarm also turn on functions that pro-duce antibiotic resistance?

To test this idea, the team engi-neered bacteria in which the starva-tion alarm was inactivated and then measured antibiotic resistance in experimental conditions in which bacteria were starved. To their amaze-ment, bacteria unable to sense starva-tion were thousands of times more sensitive to killing than those that could, even though starvation arrested growth and the activity of antibiotic targets.

“That experiment told us that the resistance of starved bacteria was an active response that could be blocked. It also indicated that starvation-induced protection only occurred if bacteria were aware that nutrients were running low,” said Singh.

The findings suggest new ap-proaches to improve treatment for a wide range of infections. According to Nguyen, “Our experiments sug-gest that antibiotic efficacy could be increased by disrupting key bacte-rial functions that have no obvious connection to antibiotic activity.” (University of Washington)

STEM Forum & Expo

OVERALL OBJECTIVES:

• Identify research-based practices and teaching strategies/projects where STEM education has been successfully integrated into the elementary and middle school curricula/programs;

• Identify outreach and informal projects where STEM education has been successfully integrated into after-school programs and informal education venues; and

• Identify STEM skills that are lacking in students at the high school/college levels.

www.nsta.org/stemforum

All proposals must:• Fit within a one-hour time period and actual presentations must be interactive.

• Be STEM oriented by showing an integrated approach to teaching and learning that removes the traditional barriers erected between the four disciplines and integrates them into one cohesive perspective of preK–8 instruction.

• Demonstrate best practices and/or teaching strategies/ projects where STEM education has been successfully integrated into the elementary and middle school curricula/programs.

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Submit your proposal to one of the five strands listed below. Each strand has its own specific criteria.

1) PreK–2 (early childhood) a. Follow National Science Education Standards. b. Be developmentally and age appropriate.

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4) Community/After-School/Outreach Program a. Demonstrate an outreach and informal project where STEM education has been successfully integrated into an after-school program and/or community outreach venue.

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Two Summer Institutes funded by the National Science Foundation were held for current and future college science faculty. The overall goal was to promote learning and practice of inquiry-based college science teaching. We developed a collaborative and active learning format for participants that involved all phases of the 5E learning cycle of classroom inquiry and introduced the new mini-journal model of inquiry. Postinstitute responses and practices showed the effectiveness of the “teach inquiry through inquiry” strategy in changing participants’ pedagogy and practice. The format and outcome of the institutes have provided a model for transforming professional development into participants’ learning and practice.

The inadequacy of under-graduate science education has been recognized as a national problem that leads

to diminished student interest in and poor public understanding of science (National Science Board, 1996). College science teachers generally are not impressed by students’ mo-tivation and accomplishment, while their students complain about poor teaching—passive learning, exces-sive memorization, and limited application of theory (Seymour &

Hewitt, 1994). This situation is ex-emplified by lab sessions that are usually designed for repetition and verification (Alberts, 2005; Lord & Orkwiszewski, 2006). STEM (sci-ence, technology, engineering, and mathematics) laboratories ought to be places where students improve their understanding of major con-cepts and enhance their skills in scientific inquiry. Traditional lab curricula, however, rarely give stu-dents a chance to design, practice, and discuss science as an inquiry

Transformative Professional Development: Inquiry-Based College Science Teaching InstitutesBy Ningfeng Zhao, Stephen B. Witzig, Jan C. Weaver, John E. Adams, and Frank Schmidt

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Transformative Professional Development

process. Instead, they are similar to recipe books. Students passively re-peat and report as the lab manual or instructor says (Lunetta, Hofstein, & Clough, 2007).

The National Research Council (NRC) endorses a greater emphasis on the process of inquiry to improve undergraduate science teaching, involv-ing five essential features that allow students to (a) engage in scientifically oriented questions, (b) give priority to evidence, (c) formulate explanations from evidence, (d) connect explana-tions to scientific knowledge, and (e) communicate and justify the explana-tions (NRC, 1996, 2000). Although inquiry-based science education has a rather long history, confusion about inquiry design, implementation, and assessment is common among college faculty. A recent study showed that sci-ence faculty at a variety of institutions recognized the benefits of inquiry-based instruction, citing increased student motivation, critical thinking, and sci-ence learning. They also perceived constraints to implementing inquiry-based teaching, however, which derived from an incomplete view of classroom inquiry as completely student driven (Brown, Abell, Demir, & Schmidt, 2006). In addition, the lack of practical models usually inhibits the develop-ment and implementation of inquiry-based science teaching (Witzig, Zhao, Abell, Weaver, et al., 2010).

The success of inquiry-based sci-ence teaching relies heavily on the instructor’s understanding, value,

and belief toward classroom inquiry (Crawford, 2007; Lotter, Harwood, & Bonner, 2006), suggesting that positive developmental experience could alter their educational practice. Professional development programs for science teachers, including Local Systemic Change (Banilower, Boyd, Pasley, & Weiss, 2006) and Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (Moog & Spencer, 2008) have been conducted for nearly three decades. Successful strategies for enacting and sustaining educational programs for science teachers should not only disseminate curriculum and pedagogy but also develop reflective teachers, transform trainings into a shared vision of teachers’ learning and practice, and ultimately lead to improvement in the classroom (Henderson, Finkelstein, & Beach, 2010). The characteristics of suc-cessful programs suggest that ef-fective professional development usually includes qualified program providers, active engagement of the participants, correlated curriculum materials and instruction strat-egy, opportunities for networking, and long-term support (Hutchins, Arbaugh, Abell, Marra, & Lee, 2008; Loucks-Horsley, Love, Stiles, Mundry, & Hewson, 2003). Science teachers searching for professional development opportunities usually look for those led by experts in sub-ject matter and pedagogy, where they can receive sustained support and collaboration (Sunal et al., 2001).

Mini-journal and Summer Institutes An essential goal of inquiry-based science education is to engage stu-dents in ways that demonstrate sci-ence as a way of knowing, a con-cept defined in the National Science Education Standards as “the diverse ways in which scientists study the natural world and propose explana-tions based on the evidence derived from their work” (NRC, 1996, p. 23). A key feature of our inquiry-based instructional approach is to model the scientific research pro-cess in a classroom setting. We re-cast traditional “cookbook” lab cur-ricula into mini-journal articles that mirror how scientists communicate through the professional literature (Witzig, Zhao, Abell, Weaver, et al., 2010). The mini-journal lab manual describes the investigation completed by the instructor, and the inquiry-based lab instruction mod-els the work of scientists. Students read the mini-journal provided by the instructor (modeling literature review), then design follow-up questions, carry out the investiga-tion, collect and interpret the data (modeling scientific research), and finally communicate their findings in the form of their own mini-jour-nals (modeling scientific publica-tion). Although students may not carry out an open inquiry in which they make all of the decisions, they are engaged in the five essential fea-tures of inquiry in a field-based set-

TABLE 1

Comparison of the traditional “cookbook” to the mini-journal labs.

Attribute Cookbook Mini-journal

abstract Not included summarizes the investigation and findings.

Introduction Varies in length as a general review; refers to textbook.

extensive and focused on motivation of the experiment; refers to the big question or principle.

Materials and methods protocol form; numbered list. Narrative in detail; students prepare own protocol.

results provided tabular form and calculation formula; students answer exercise questions.

Narrative in tables and/or graphs; student determine own forms of illustration and analysis.

Discussion abbreviated (if present). refers to hypotheses and principles; follow-up research questions guide student investigation.


ting. A comparison of the traditional cookbook to the mini-journal labs is shown in Table 1.

The mini-journal introduces a model of achievable classroom inquiry in a broad prospect, from teacher-directed guided inquiry to student-directed open inquiry, while retaining the con-tent goals of the original lab exercise (Witzig, Zhao, Abell, Weaver, et al., 2010). Because the mini-journal lab is a modification of a well-vetted lesson, it fits into existing course framework, and large-scale alterations to current curricula are not required (Zhao & Wardeska, 2011).

The mini-journal laboratories were developed and implemented in an interdisciplinary science sequence for non-STEM majors in an Honors College at a large research univer-sity (Park Rodgers & Abell, 2008). To extend this model to a variety of courses and institutional types, we

developed a Summer Institute format as part of the CUES (Connecting Undergraduates to the Enterprise of Science) project, funded by the National Science Foundation, to introduce the mini-journal model of inquiry and instruction to college science faculty (CUES, 2010). Two three-day institutes were offered dur-ing two consecutive summers with the following goals for participants:

1. Gain a broader understanding of inquiry-based science instruction.

2. Convert existing cookbook laboratories into the mini-journal format.

3. Share the design, implementa-tion, and assessment of inquiry-based laboratories with each other and the CUES team.

4. Build networks of support with each other and the CUES team.

5. Become agents of change in their own institutions, sharing new pedagogy and activities with peers.

Research has suggested that “multi-day workshops with follow-up and monitoring have been reported to result in significant changes in faculty attitude, knowledge, observed classroom instructional behavior, and interaction with students” (Sunal et al., 2001, p. 248). Our experience agreed with these findings, and the achievements of the institute goals are addressed below in detail.

Leadership and instructionThe CUES Summer Institute host team consisted of one physical scientist, two life scientists, one science education specialist, and an outside evaluator. All team members have more than 20 years of college science teaching experience. The scientists in the CUES team served as resources of subject matter and practical teaching, whereas the education specialist and evaluator provided pedagogical expertise. The two Summer Institutes recruited 48 faculty and future faculty members (postdoctoral fellows and graduate students) from four participating institutions of the CUES project—one community college; one liberal-arts, masters-granting college; and two research universities, as shown in Tables 2 and 3. The participants were drawn from physical, life, and Earth science disciplines. This hybrid community of faculty, future faculty, scientists, and education experts was found to be an effective strategy to introduce inquiry-based teaching through professional development (Ash, Brown, Kluger-Bell, & Hunter, 2009).

The schedule of the Summer Institutes was designed to allow for a mix of formal presentations, collaborative group work, and in-dividual writing time (Table 4).

TABLE 2

CUES Summer Institute participants by institution.

Institution Year 1 Year 2

Faculty Future faculty

Faculty Future faculty

Returning participants

research extensive university

4 5 9 14 3

research intensive university

2 5 0 1 3

Liberal-arts masters-granting college

3 N/a 1 N/a 2

community college 1 N/a 3 N/a 1

Total 20 28 9

Note: cues = connecting undergraduates to the enterprise of science.

TABLE 3

CUES Summer Institute participants by discipline.

Discipline Year 1 Year 2

New participants New participants Returning participants

physical science 7 7 6

Life science 8 20 3

earth science 5 1 0

Total 20 28 9


21Vol. 41, No. 3, 2012


The structure of each institute was aligned with the BSCS (Biological Sciences Curriculum Study) model for classroom inquiry and included all phases of their 5E learning cycle: Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate (Bybee et al., 2006). This was designed to model and teach inquiry through inquiry.

Day 1 started with introduction of the mini-journal and its relationship to inquiry-based teaching by the host team. To engage participants in active learning, we demonstrated the instruction of an undergraduate mini-journal lab, with participants taking the students’ role. After experiencing the process of mini-journal inquiry, the CUES team and participants worked together to compare and contrast the mini-

journal instructional approach with a more traditional cookbook col-lege lab (see Table 1). Participants explored the question “What does inquiry mean in science teaching?” in order to develop their own cri-teria for inquiry. The CUES team then introduced the participants to several manifestations of inquiry that can occur in college science classrooms and discussed how they meshed with participants’ criteria.

Each participant had selected two traditional cookbook laboratories for conversion to the mini-journal format before attending the insti-tute. These were brought to the institute along with experimental data gathered before in their classes (Witzig, Zhao, Abell, Weaver, et al., 2010). During the afternoon

of Day 1, participants joined small groups to develop their first mini-journal from a template provided by the institute. The groups were formed based on disciplines and included participants from all types of institutions to promote collab-orative learning (Goodsell, Maher, & Tinto, 1992; Kadel & Keehner, 1994). Members of the CUES team also joined each group to facilitate discussion and provide subject re-sources and pedagogical expertise. Through interactive teaching and collaboration in the group, each participant consolidated the learning of classroom inquiry and held each other accountable for developing and reviewing their mini-journal articles. Participants continued to write and revise their mini-journal

TABLE 4

CUES Summer Institute schedule.

Day 1 Day 2 Day 3

Morning • Demonstrationofinquiry-basedlab instruction

• Introductionofmini-journal

• ClassroomInquiryContinuum

• Sharingandpeer-reviewofthefirstmini-journal

• Revisionofthefirstmini-journal

• Sharingandpeer-reviewofthesecondmini-journal

• Revisionofmini-journals

afternoon • Developmentofthefirstmini-journal

• Discussionandcollaborationingroups

• Developmentofsecondmini-journal

• Discussionandcollaborationingroups

• Reflectiononinquiry-basedteaching and learning

• Completionofimplementationtemplates

evening • Freewritingtime• Professionalnetworking

• Freewritingtime• Professionalnetworking


TABLE 5

Mini-journal development and implementation.

Physical sciences/instructors

Life sciences/ instructors

Geological sciences/ instructors

Total

year 1

Mini-journaldevelopment 11/7* 12/7 7/5 30/19

Mini-journalimplementation 5/4 8/4 6/4 19/12

year 2

Mini-journaldevelopment 11/8 22/16 2/1 35/25

Mini-journalimplementation 1/1 6/4 2/1 9/6

*The first number shows the number of mini-journals that were developed/implemented; the second number shows the number of instructors who developed/implemented the mini-journals.


articles during free-writing sessions in the evening.

The draft mini-journal articles developed during Day 1 were distrib-uted to all institute participants at the beginning of Day 2, along with a tem-plate for peer review. The peer-review template was developed by the host team and includes a list of essential features of inquiry in college science teaching as a framework. Participants reviewed each other’s work in groups based on the template and revised their mini-journals accordingly. The same procedure was followed during the afternoon of Day 2 to develop the second mini-journal article, with peer review and revision during the morning of Day 3. Participants’ groups were reorganized during the preparation and review of the sec-ond mini-journal article to promote collaboration and group work. The afternoon of Day 3 was devoted to assessment and feedback about the Summer Institute. An open discus-sion was conducted during which participants discussed their learning and made suggestions for the institute and future improvements.

At the end of the institute, all participants completed the imple-mentation template provided by

CUES team. The template collected participants’ preliminary plans for implementation and assessment and the optimal level of support they would need from the host team and each other. Sample mini-journal labs, before and after conversion examples, as well as resources to assist faculty in transforming their labs can be found at our project website (CUES, 2010).

Performance measures of the Summer Institutes Goal 1: Gain a broader understanding of inquiry-based science instructionAlthough all participants of the Summer Institutes were engaged in college science teaching, their percep-tion of inquiry followed faculty views of inquiry that we observed previously (Brown et al., 2006). We use the mod-el of Classroom Inquiry Continuum (Figure 1; adapted from Brown et al., 2006) to illustrate various manifesta-tions of classroom inquiry.

The Classroom Inquiry Continuum is a two-dimensional representation re-flecting the process and degree of inqui-ry in a classroom or lab exercise. One dimension of the continuum reflects who makes decisions regarding the learning process. “Decision making”

ranges from entirely teacher-directed guided inquiry to student-directed open inquiry. A second dimension, “explanatory power,” represents the learning goals of the exercise from “skill development” through “demon-stration of principles” and “application and transferability” to “generation of new understanding.” Randomly as-signed points A–E on the continuum represent various types of laboratories on the basis of their learning goals and openness of inquiry. For example, point A on the far left of the figure repre-sents teacher-directed guided inquiry (cookbook lab), whereas point E on the far right represents student-directed open inquiry (“Einstein”). Although all points represent inquiry-based teaching and learning, participants needed to decide which essential features of in-quiry (NRC, 1996, 2000) were achiev-able on the basis of the instructional environment and learning objectives. The goal of the CUES project is to move science teaching toward a more balanced view of inquiry, essentially along the diagonal shown in Figure 1. We do not advocate going directly from cookbook lab (point A) to student-directed open inquiry (point E). When converting cookbook to inquiry-based mini-journal labs, other, less-sweeping changes (e.g., from point A to points B, C, D) will more often serve the purposes of a course. The workshop participants gained this broader view by carrying out a mini-journal lab experiment in addi-tion to discussion and reading written materials. The broader understanding of inquiry in science instruction was also achieved through the introduction and adoption of the Classroom Inquiry Continuum into each participant’s in-structional strategy, as evidenced from the development and implementation of mini-journal labs and external evalua-tion results (discussed next).

Goal 2: Convert existing cookbook laboratories into the mini-journal formatDuring the two three-day institutes, participants developed 65 inquiry-

FIGURE 1

Classroom Inquiry Continuum. Adapted from Brown et al. (2006)

23Vol. 41, No. 3, 2012


based mini-journals, including 22 in physical sciences, 34 in life sciences, and 9 in Earth sciences (Table 5). Although not all mini-journals could be finalized during the institutes, they began the process to change the way college science laboratories are taught. Following the institutes, many of them were completed and imple-mented at participating colleges and universities throughout the succeed-ing academic years (discussed next). To find out if a mini-journal was cre-ated in the project that aligns with your course topics, please see our project website (CUES, 2010).

Goal 3: Share the design, implementation, and assessment of inquiry-based laboratories with each other and the CUES team The CUES Summer Institutes were designed to facilitate teachers’ learning and practice of inquiry-based college science teaching. All participants agreed to implement at least one of the mini-journals de-veloped in the institute during the subsequent academic year in ac-cordance with their teaching loads. During the academic years follow-ing the two institutes, 18 instruc-tors implemented 28 mini-journal laboratories at four participating institutions (Table 5). The format of the institutes also provided a platform where participants could collaborate and share related expe-rience in inquiry-based instruction. Before the start of the second insti-tute, we invited first-year institute participants back to a follow-up workshop. Participants shared their experience in mini-journal design, implementation, and assessment. The CUES team provided an ini-tial assessment of mini-journal adoption at various institutions (Witzig, Zhao, Abell, Weaver, et al., 2010). After the follow- up workshop, nine first-year partic-ipants volunteered to return to the second-year institute (Tables 2 and

3). Returning participants contrib-uted three one-hour users’ forums: How to Start the Conversion, Im-plementation Challenges, and Stu-dent Assessment. All participants in the second institute remarked on the value of the input from the ex-perienced instructors.

Goal 4: Build networks of support with each other and CUES teamEffective professional develop-ment required sustained support (Banilower et al., 2006; Shin, Yager, Oh, & Lee, 2005; Stanley, 2004). Some participants were new to inquiry-based college science teaching and very few had experi-ence with the mini-journal format. We expected that they would face challenges when implementing the new mini-journal labs. Participants from the same institution worked together, and the CUES team pro-vided follow-up support to par-ticipants during the succeeding academic years by reviewing their mini-journals and offering sugges-tions on course organization. The CUES team also observed and in-terviewed students and instructors during the mini-journal lab imple-mentations (Witzig, Zhao, Abell, Weaver, et al., 2010). An online venue for participants and oth-ers to find information about the mini-journal lab and achievable classroom inquiry model is also accessible at the CUES website (CUES, 2010). The website is a resource to find learning materials and examples, look for assistance and collaborations, and share ideas and experiences through the peer-reviewed database.

Goal 5: Become agents of change in their own institutions, sharing new pedagogy and activities with peers The CUES project aimed at a long-term impact on the teaching of lab science. Going beyond the phase

of curriculum development and professional training, the institutes were followed by implementa-tion of new curricula and prac-tices of inquiry-based instruction at all types of college classrooms. Broader effects of the mini-journal model of inquiry came about as participants published new labs and pedagogies (Demir, Abell, & Schmidt, 2010; Manteuffel, 2008; Witzig, Zhao, Abell, Weaver, et al., 2010) and presented at national educational conferences for the National Science Teachers Associ-ation (Hanuscin, Witzig, & Vever-ka, 2008), National Association for Research in Science Teaching (Hutchins & Friedrichsen, 2010; Witzig, Abell, & Schmidt, 2009; Witzig, Zhao, Abell, & Schmidt, 2010), American Chemical So-ciety (Zhao & Schmidt, 2007a), National Association of Biology Teachers (Witzig, 2008), American Geophysical Union (Whittington, Speck, Witzig, & Abell, 2009) and Society for Advancement of Chica-nos and Native Americans in Sci-ence (Zhao & Schmidt, 2007b), to achieve a boarder and deeper im-pact. The products of these presen-tations are available on our project website (CUES, 2010).

Evaluation and reflectionThe participants considered the CUES Summer Institutes to be highly successful. Self-assessments and responses to the external eval-uator of the project indicated that participants had greatly expanded their understanding of inquiry in college science teaching. Exter-nal evaluation reports showed that over 80% of the participants be-lieved the institutes had prepared them well for mini-journal lab conversion, implementation, and assessment. CUES Summer Insti-tutes have not only introduced cur-riculum and pedagogy but also de-veloped teacher experts and shared the learning and practice of mini-


journal inquiry. Participants appre-ciated the use of the collaborative and active learning format for fac-ulty development.

The framework for the institutes is aligned with the BSCS view of classroom inquiry encompassing the 5E learning cycle (Bybee et al., 2006). The active learning cycle started by engaging participants in a sample mini-journal lab exercise equipped with inquiry-based teaching strategy, as their students would do with them. The exploration phase focused on in-vestigation of criteria and application of inquiry. The Classroom Inquiry Continuum provided the explanation for the pedagogy, so that participants could discover how the mini-journal model of inquiry could fit into their teaching practices. Finally, in the elaboration and evaluation phases, participants created their own mini-journals given specific teaching con-text, reviewed each other’s work, and revised their products through peer collaboration.

The CUES Summer Institutes promoted collaborative learning and practice among participants and the host team, not only during the pedagogical learning and curriculum development, but also in postinsti-tute implementation and assessment. We also observed that the institutes were a starting point for participants’ involvement in other professional development opportunities, although this was not a direct objective of the institutes. For example, some par-ticipants sought assistance in under-standing how to be a better discussion leader. Others asked for training to develop better assessments of stu-dent understanding. Participants also expressed interest in creating ways to interact with colleagues from their own and other institutions who shared their interest in teaching improve-ment. These efforts led to participants organizing dissemination seminars at professional meetings (Hanuscin et al., 2008; Whittington et al., 2009). Finally, the participants were very

interested in continuing develop-ment of the mini-journal articles, as evidenced by the activities of the first-year participants who helped facilitate the second-year institute.

In summary, the CUES Summer Institutes provided an effective model of transforming professional devel-opment into participants’ learning and practice. Through the institutes, college science faculty and future faculty were equipped to ensure inquiry-based pedagogy in their own institutional settings to improve stu-dent leaning. For more information about the project, please visit our website (CUES, 2010). n

AcknowledgmentThe authors dedicate this article to San-dra Abell (1956–2010), Curators’ Pro-fessor and director of the University of Missouri Science Education Center. This material is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation Course, Curriculum, and Laboratory Improvement (CCLI) program under Grant No. 0618817. Any opinions, find-ings, and conclusions or recommenda-tions expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

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Ningfeng Zhao ([email protected]) is an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry at East Tennessee State Univer-sity in Johnson City. Stephen B. Witzig is a doctoral student in the MU Science Educa-tion Center, Jan C. Weaver is the director of Environmental Studies, John E. Adams is a professor in the Department of Chem-istry, and Frank Schmidt is a professor in the Department of Biochemistry, all at the University of Missouri in Columbia.


Long-Term Impact of Service Learning in Environmental StudiesBy Janet MacFall

Long-term impacts from a senior course in Environmental Studies were evaluated by a survey of program graduates (36 respondents, 50% response rate) who had participated in the course over an 8-year period. Each year, the Senior Seminar used a service-learning pedagogy with a different environmentally focused project ranging from web resource development to environmental assessments. Survey respondents indicated that the course had long-term outcomes in commitment to civic engagement and environmental stewardship, fostering the ability to work with professionals and the community, to communicate with professionals in the field, and to relate ecological principles to real-world issues.

Service learning has been widely used in many disci-plines as a means to connect classroom teaching with

“real-world experience.” A survey by Campus Compact (http://www. campuscompact.org) showed that of the 627 campuses that responded to their annual survey, 93% included service-learning courses. A total of 24,271 courses were identified as having a service-learning component.

The Campus Compact survey also showed that 74% of the identified service-learning courses touched on an environmental theme as part of the service. Many different approaches can be taken, from students focus-ing on practices within their own university campus to exploring local, regional, or global environmental is-sues. Activities included tutoring and mentoring, environmental monitor-ing, research, and other projects. One common theme that has been reported at the end of the semester is that stu-dents feel empowered to take charge of their learning, believe that they can “make a difference,” and can see con-nections between their classroom and university and/or community issues (Brubaker & Ostroff, 2000).

studies. The academic goal for the course is as follows:

Environmental professionals are broadly trained with back-grounds in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Professionals in this area com-monly engage in group work and must have strong research, writ-ing, and verbal skills. They must be able to analyze data, conduct field research, and critically analyze studies and other materi-als associated with environmental issues. They also must identify and work with appropriate com-munity stakeholders. The goal of this course is for students to improve and demonstrate these cross-disciplinary skills.

In this course, Seminar: Environ-mental Impact Assessment and Policy Development, students address a spe-cific environmental question within their community and build a project development plan with target time-lines. Students assign roles, respon-sibilities, and leadership expectations and are expected to work with com-munity members, community leaders, and outside agencies. The project is identified by the lead faculty before the semester begins. Initial contacts with the appropriate community partner(s) are made by the instructor, but the project structure is developed by the students. Students are given a great deal of flexibility and freedom in the way they develop their project. They meet regularly with faculty for guidance and comment, but faculty serve primarily in a consulting capac-

The definition of service learning by the National Service-Learning Clearinghouse (http://www.service learning.org) is as follows:

Service-learning is a teaching and learning strategy that integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility, and strengthen communities.

Much of the assessment that has been done to evaluate impacts on students and the community has fo-cused on data collected immediately following the experience or while students are still in school. Much of it is anecdotal or qualitative, with little quantitative analysis or emphasis on skills development. In addition, assessment of long-term impacts of service learning, especially in environmental science, is generally lacking (Bixby, Carpenter, German, & Coull, 2003; Cooks & Scharrer, 2006; Steinke & Buresh, 2002).

Service learning is the core peda-gogy used in the Senior Seminar cap-stone course, which is required for all students majoring in environmental

27Vol. 41, No. 3, 2012

Long-Term Impact of Service Learning

ity. Past projects have addressed a range of topics, as listed in Figure 1.

In each of these projects, all stu-dents in the class worked together as a single group on a single project, with group size ranging from 4 to 13 students. Class size is representative of the number of graduating seniors in environmental studies for a single academic year. Students were repre-sentative of the institutional student demographic, mostly Caucasian from middle- to upper-income fami-lies, with slightly more females than males. The university is a midsized liberal arts institution. Only about 25% of the students are from the state in which the university is located.

The course is taught by two faculty members, providing an interdisciplin-ary perspective. One faculty member, an ecologist, taught this course during all years represented in the survey (eight years). The other faculty mem-

ber represented the social sciences, either in economics (six years) or political science (two years).

The entire class worked together in project development throughout the semester, with responsibilities divided between different class mem-bers and smaller “working groups.” Each project was very interdisciplin-ary, addressing aspects related to scientific data collection and analysis, consideration of political constraints, and an appreciation of human needs and concerns. The interdisciplinary nature of all of the projects required students to integrate information from many perspectives. Class met once each week for four and a half hours, with expectations for at least four additional hours. The semester progression was generally as follows:

• Week 1—Identification of the project and meeting with commu-

nity partners. Students discussed the project, focusing on questions that could be addressed.

• Week 1 or 2—Preliminary site visit(s), followed by more discus-sions with community partners.

• Week 2 or 3—Identification and partitioning of the project, with specific student leaders identi-fied for each week. A conceptual model for the project was also de-veloped, which served as a guide for project development with adaptive management throughout the semester. Groups developed a timeline, with target deadlines for specific tasks to be revisited throughout the semester.

• Week 3 or 4—Annotated bibli-ographies of literature relevant to their part of the project were compiled by students.

• Week 4 or 5—Literature review papers were written by each stu-dent on a topic related to his or her project contribution.

• Weekly—Meetings were held at the beginning of each class to assess progress and to review expectations for the past and upcoming weeks. Students also usually reconvened at the end of each class period to review expectations for the upcom-ing week. Additional meetings with project partners were held throughout the semester.

• Weekly—Students turned in individual logs of activities ac-complished during the past week, ending with short reflec-tive writings. They also included materials collected for project development, such as interview transcripts and data collected. Logs were turned in at the begin-ning of each class, evaluated and commented on by the instructor, and then returned to each student by the next morning. Comments provided additional guidance for individual students as well as the class group.

• Week 10—A group progress re-

FIGURE 1

Examples of class projects.

• Environmental impact statement on the Randleman Dam, a new drinking water supply reservoir. Community partner—Piedmont Triad Regional Water Authority and the Friends of the Deep River.

• Environmental impact assessment of a municipal sanitary sewer-line ex-tension. Community partner—City of Burlington, NC.

• Environmental assessment of the removal of an abandoned high hazard dam within an economically depressed neighborhood of Burlington, NC. Community partner—the Haw River Assembly and the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

• Environmental assessment of Buffalo Creek, a 303D listed stream (legal-ly defined as impaired by the EPA), with restoration recommendations. Community partner—Piedmont Land Conservancy.

• Analysis of the riparian buffer of the Haw River, with development of an assessment protocol for river protection by local governments. Community partner—Piedmont Triad Council of Governments and the City of Burlington, NC.

• Assessment of land purchased for a riverfront park and design of pre-liminary plans for park development. Community partners—Town of Swepsonville, NC; the Haw River Assembly; and the National Park Service.

• Assessment of the impact of Toxic Release Inventory Sites on urban com-munities in North Carolina. Community partner—community leaders.

• Development of a water resources webpage with regional water qual-ity data for use by the local community. Community partner—local high school and the City of Burlington.


port was submitted by the class to be evaluated by the faculty, in-cluding sections written by small student groups. This report also summarized activities done by each student and included “on the ground” information collected to date. Faculty provided feedback on this project report within a few days, so students could ad-dress problems and modify the project development plan as

FIGURE 2

Survey response summary.

1. The Senior Seminar experience encouraged you to continue environmentally related work or to attend graduate school following graduation. Mean = 2.6

This seminar gave us an opportunity to engage in the community and take what we were taught and apply it. It showed us that we could make a difference and what a group of people who cared could do. I think this encouraged a lot of people to continue their education because greater understanding of these ideas leads to better work for the environment.

2. The Senior Seminar experience helped you to develop skills for working collaboratively on environmentally related issues. Mean =

1.97

Yes, we worked for both ourselves (grades wise), for the Piedmont Land Conservancy, and in a sense for Elon [University]. As it was known by you, and now by me, working collaboratively is a must in the real world—especially when working for the envi-ronment. There are many different levels of bureaucracy that must be delved through in order to get to the desired outcome, usually the protection of the environment. It was good to work for the PLC, an outside source when doing the sen. sem. It led us to understand this concept.

It demonstrated first-hand how stakeholders, including government agencies and the community, need to be involved in a proj-ect to aid in its success. It also gave me experience in coordinating such efforts and making the effort to conduct an assessment.

3. The Senior Seminar experience helped you to integrate perspectives from the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities in envi-

ronmental work. Mean = 2

In working with the community, together as a group of students we definitely had to pull on our knowledge and our social skills. I found that our knowledge of history and environmental ethics was very important and the environment is not just affected by things we do . . . it is affected by people’s ideas, religion, and upbringing. To just assume we could walk in and tell people what to do would not be very welcomed, and the humanities and social sciences helped us understand that.

4. The Senior Seminar experience helped develop skills for communicating about the environment to professionals. Mean = 2.12

I felt that this gave us an opportunity to really pull on people who knew more than we did during the project. It was nice to be able to have done research and then call up an expert and have him give us some helpful hints and not sound like we had no idea what we were talking about. It gave us some confidence.

I think that our presentation at the end of the seminar class was critical in my development for communicating with environ-mental professionals.

5. The Senior Seminar experience helped develop skills for communicating about the environment to the general public. Mean = 2.4

It definitely made us take things from a solely scientific realm that we were often used to dealing with and explaining our find-ings and goals in a way that people of all specialties could understand.

6. The Senior Seminar experience demonstrated application of ecological principles to addressing real-world environmental issues.

Mean = 1.66

It showed that, although throughout school the hard sciences can seem ineffectual on real environmental issues, they can actu-ally be applied to solving these problems from a policy end.

I used my knowledge from other courses taken concurrently with senior seminar to broaden my horizons and realize how the information learned from them can be used in the real world.

needed. The report also included an outline and proposed Table of Contents for the final report.

• Week 13—Preliminary final re-port turned in.

• Week 14—Oral presentation to Environmental Studies faculty and community partners.

• Week 15—Final report turned in incorporating comments from the oral presentation. Students were also given a course evaluation

and a peer evaluation form at this time. They also participated in a project debriefing discussion.

Products from all of the Senior Seminar projects have included professional-level project reports, including information on data col-lection, analysis, and recommenda-tions. These are always shared with project partners and have helped to build lasting relationships between

29Vol. 41, No. 3, 2012


FIGURE 2 (continued) 7. The Senior Seminar experience helped prepare you to work with the public on environmentally related issues. Mean = 2.39

It taught me to research and try to understand both sides of the fence!

I feel much more confident after taking this class to speak on environmental issues I know about. I am constantly working with the public as I am an educator and that experience made me realize what all has to be taken into consideration when talking to people about issues they are not aware about or that could be sensitive.

In my daily life I am talking w/other farmers and consumers, hearing their concerns and opinions (both educated and uneducat-ed). I feel better prepared to absorb and filter information as well as present it in an organized and respectable way.

8. The Senior Seminar experience strengthened your commitment to responsible environmental stewardship. Mean = 1.94

Senior Seminar definitely reinforced my commitment to responsible environmental stewardship because it showed that local is-sues are a mirror of sorts for national and worldwide issues.

It showed all of us involved that we could make a difference . . . and we did. I don’t know what more we could have asked for.

9. The Senior Seminar experience strengthened your commitment to public service in some form (ex. Volunteer activities, environmental career, environmental education, social/political awareness, environmental advocacy, etc.) Mean = 2.32

A lot of people out there are at risk and don’t even know it—it’s more educated people’s responsibility to help them. 10. What specific skills or strengths were developed through the Senior Seminar experience that have been helpful to you?

Learned how involved environmental issues are, and how much work really is involved. Especially how hard it is to make the gen-eral public understand sometimes change has to occur to prevent a major environmental problem.

I think that just going through the process of developing an ELS gave me a better understanding of all the issues that go into environmental problems. I learned that it is more than what is good for nature—the general public doesn’t necessarily care about that—the “environment” includes the populace and cultural resources as well as the nature they interact with.

I would have to say that there are no specific skills or strengths but ALL of my skills/strengths were developed that have been helpful.

11. Please provide additional comments on whether the Senior Seminar experience helped with your life after Elon. If so, in what

way.

The group work was very helpful—improved my patience.

I feel like the Senior Sem. Project was really a jumping off point for me. It introduced me to an important issue facing most com-munities. But I was probably not mature enough at that point to really take advantage of all the experience had to offer.

the university and the regional en-vironmental community. There have also been some lasting, significant outcomes. The project to study the riparian buffer of the Haw River, a major regional river system, resulted in a protocol that was used by the lo-cal partners (Piedmont Triad Council of Governments) for an assessment of an additional 18 river miles. It was used as the basis for the university to acquire external funding for hiring a conservation coordinator to actu-ally implement the river protection plan described. The riverfront park assessment and plan resulted in the funding of a grant for development of the proposed park. On the basis of the work by students and faculty,

a value of $30,000 was used to pro-vide a match required by the funding agency.

Standard course evaluations were given at the end of the semester. All fall classes received course evalu-ations, but spring classes did not. Responses were varied but frequently noted the difficulties involved with group work. Students also commented on a perceived lack of faculty guid-ance, often noting that “the faculty member didn’t tell us what to do” or “the faculty member didn’t give us the stuff we needed.”

Study designIn this study, postgraduation im-pacts of the Environmental Studies

Senior Seminar course were evalu-ated. As discussed previously, there were many reports from faculty who had integrated service learning into a wide range of disciplines, including science courses. Evaluations were often anecdotal, with little follow-up once the course ended.

The university’s Office of Insti-tutional Advancement and Alumni Relations provided contact information for all of the 73 graduates of the Envi-ronmental Studies program from the preceding eight years. All graduates had participated in the Senior Seminar class. Contact information included a mailing address, e-mail address, or both.

A survey was developed to assess lasting impacts on student develop-


ment postgraduation. The survey included 13 questions related to the Senior Seminar class. Surveys were sent to all addresses available, both by letter and electronically.

Each survey, whether mailed or sent by e-mail, included an introduc-tory letter explaining the purpose of the survey and a request that recepi-ents respond either to the web-based survey tool or the paper survey, but not to both. Graduates were able to respond anonymously, although many did volunteer their names with additional information about current activities. Responses were collected over a six-month period from the date of survey deployment.

Most questions asked for a re-sponse on a Likert scale, followed with space for additional comments. The scale was an inverted scale, with the lower number indicating greater agreement with the statement (1 = strongly agree, 2 = agree, 3 = neu-tral, 4 = disagree, and 5 = strongly disagree).

Survey summaryThere was a total of 36 completed surveys (50% response), with no surveys showing identical responses. Respondents were nearly evenly di-vided between the Environmental Science concentration (19) and the Society and the Environment con-centration (17) within the Environ-mental Studies major. There were also at least three respondents from each graduating class.

The survey began with the back-ground question, “Are you currently engaged in environmentally related work or graduate school? If so, where and doing what?” Twenty-eight (78%) of the respondents answered that they were professionally engaged in envi-ronmentally related work. Activities included law school, graduate school, environmental education, consulting, working for nonprofits, toxic material management, and working for local and state governments (e.g., as the state fish biologist).

The remainder of the survey fo-cused on the Senior Seminar experi-ence, evaluating impacts on profes-sional development and interest in public service. The survey began with the statement, “Please answer the following questions as they relate to your Senior Seminar in Environmental Studies. Circle the number that most closely reflects your response.” Survey questions with the mean response value and representa-tive comments are shown in Figure 2.

Responses of the alumni were generally in agreement with the statements in the survey, suggesting a perceived lasting effect from the course. Values ranged from 1–4 in all but questions 1 and 6, which had re-sponses ranging from 1–5. The state-ment with the strongest agreement (mean response = 1.66) was to ques-tion 6, which said the course demon-strated the application of ecological principles to addressing real-world issues. In reflecting back on the course following graduation, respondents clearly saw the link between their classroom work in science classes and applications to environmental issues. Undergraduate students often fail to see this relationship while taking a class, frequently asking why they must learn specific facts or concepts. The service-learning experience of the capstone course clearly helped students to see these connections, although some may not have realized this until later.

There was also agreement (mean response = 1.94) with question 8, which said the course strengthened a commitment to responsible envi-ronmental stewardship and a sense of civic responsibility. A stronger commitment to civic engagement has often been cited as a potential posi-tive outcome from service learning, but there is very little long-term data to support this. Respondents to our survey strongly indicated that they felt their service-learning experience had a lasting effect.

Respondents were also in agree-

ment with statement 2 (mean response = 1.97) when asked if the Senior Seminar helped develop skills for working collaboratively on environ-mentally related issues. This is in contrast to the end-of-semester evalu-ations from students, in which students often complained about the difficulties of working with a group and about the performance of their student col-leagues. Development of leadership skills has been cited as one of the po-tential student outcomes from service learning (Eyler & Giles, 1999). Even though they had not realized it at the time of the course, respondents to our survey clearly felt that in retrospect, development of the group collabora-tions and leadership skills that are necessary for successful collaborative work was one of the most positive outcomes of the experience.

It was also noted that the Senior Seminar experience helped develop skills for communicating about the environment to professionals (ques-tion 4, mean response = 2.12). One course objective was to build profes-sional skills and to help students tran-sition from a student mindset to being able to work as an environmental professional. Response to this ques-tion suggests this course objective was being met.

Respondents showed the least agreement with question 1, with a mean score of 2.6 (still < 3, suggest-ing some agreement). The question asked if the Senior Seminar helped motivate respondents to choose an environmental career or graduate school. This is in contrast to some other reports in which service learn-ing was reported to have a strong influence in career choice (Gutstein, Smith, & Manahan, 2006).

Overall, respondents to our post-graduation survey clearly showed long-term outcomes, as indicated by agreement with survey statements, from an intensive, capstone course that was designed around a service-learning pedagogy. All categories surveyed showed mean response values < 3.

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Another positive outcome that has been discussed for service learning is the help students receive to develop skills for complex problem analysis. Development of these skills and abili-ties was reflected in question 10, when respondents were asked which skills or strengths developed in the Senior Seminar have been most helpful. The comments clearly show that the respondents learned to appreciate the complexity of environmental issues and problem solving, the need for diverse skills, and the importance of partnering with the community.

When asked if they would recom-mend this course to other students, the overwhelming response was positive: 26 of 28 said yes, followed by very supportive comments. One comment was of particular note—the respondent indicated that when taking the course, he or she probably would have said no, clearly indicating that the experience had a long-term impact that was not appreciated until later.

The positive comments from the survey respondents are in contrast to the end-of-semester course evalua-tions. The course evaluation focuses on questions related to course struc-ture and student satisfaction. The scale is opposite to the scale used in the alumni survey, with the course evaluation scale having 5 as the highest score (strongly agree). The average evaluation scores for the class ranged from 2.2 to 3.82, below the university average of 4.1. Average course grades, however, were gener-ally at or slightly above the univer-sity average (3.02–3.1 for the years included), indicating mastery of the skills needed for project development.

Other studies of the outcomes of service learning have reported similar findings—a greater connection be-tween classroom learning and public issues and feelings of empowerment to make changes for the greater good. Most of these results have been based on reflective writings and evaluations made during and at the end of the course; however, there is little infor-

mation on long-term impressions or outcomes (Bixby et al., 2003; Curry, Heffner, & Warners, 2002; Eyler & Giles, 1999; Grossman & Cooper, 2004; McDonald & Dominguez, 2005; Woods, 2002).

The Environmental Studies Senior Seminar has been modified to ad-dress student concerns and outcomes from this survey. More guidance and structure have been added to help students manage group work, such as requiring written summaries from all students from out-of-class meetings and required sharing of materials through BlackBoard. More emphasis has been placed on project planning and development of a concept model at the beginning of the course, with frequent revisiting of project develop-ment plans and timelines throughout the semester. Groups are also kept at five students or smaller.

Our survey of the graduates of our Environmental Studies program clearly shows long-term outcomes on all measures surveyed, as indicated by survey-statement agreement (mean of all questions < 3). Students were motivated to value environmental stewardship and public service, to appreciate the interdisciplinary con-nections in environmental work, to be better communicators both to professionals and to the public, to be able to apply scientific principles to broader questions, and to help build a foundation for productive profes-sional development following gradu-ation. Students felt that these skills persisted after graduation, as reflected in the responses of the alumni. This research provides support for many of the conclusions and observations made by practitioners of service learn-ing and may provide a foundation for greater application of this pedagogy in science and environmental classes. n

ReferencesBixby, J. A., Carpenter, J. R., German, P.

L., & Coull, B. C. (2003). Ecology on Campus: Service learning in introduc-

tory environmental courses. Journal of College Science Teaching, 32, 327–331.

Brubaker, D. C., & Ostroff, J. H. (Eds). (2000). Life, learning and communi-ty: Concepts and models for service-learning in biology. Washington, DC: American Association for Higher Education.

Cooks, L., & Scharrer, E. (2006). Assessing learning in community service learning: A social approach. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 13(1), 44–55.

Curry, J. M., Heffner, G., & Warners, D. (2002). Environmental service learning: Social transformation through caring for a particular place. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 9(1), 58–66.

Eyler, J., & Giles, D. E. (1999). Where’s the learning in service learning? San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Grossman, J., & Cooper, T. (2004). Linking environmental science stu-dents to external community partners: A critical assessment of a service-learning course. Journal of College Science Teaching, 33, 32–35.

Gutstein, J., Smith, M., & Manahan, D. (2006). A service-learning model for science education outreach. Journal of College Science Teaching, 36, 22–26.

McDonald, J., & Dominguez, L. (2005). Moving from content knowledge to engagement. Journal of College Science Teaching, 35, 18–22.

Steinke, P., & Buresh, S. (2002). Cognitive outcomes of service learn-ing: Reviewing the past and glimps-ing the future. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 8(2), 5–14.

Woods, M. 2002. Research on service-learning. Agricultural Education Magazine, 75(2), 24–25.

Janet MacFall ([email protected]) is an associate professor in the Departments of Environmental Studies and Biology and Director of the Center for Environ-mental Studies at Elon University in Elon, North Carolina.


Improving Active Learning by Integrating Scientific Abstracts Into Biological Science CoursesBy Jeffry Lyle Shultz

Introducing students to the newest research in a field is a challenging task for an instructor. Commercially available course material is at least two to three years old, is not citable, and is not a realistic training aid for students planning to enter a scientific field. In addition, engaging students in discussions about current research topics is difficult at best, with most students preferring a passive approach to learning. I have used scientific abstracts for three years in my junior-level Genetics course at Louisiana Tech University to overcome this deficit in materials and active learning. Students are introduced to topics via abstracts within lectures, as quiz material, and as homework in order to develop their understanding of how and why research is performed, what information they can freely acquire, and how to access information for their own research. A discussion of the different techniques I have used to incorporate abstracts into course instruction and discussions are included. Solved and explained examples of abstract-based test questions are included as supplemental material. Assessment of the pre- and postcourse capability of 69 students was performed using abstract tests. This assessment indicates an improved ability to understand and apply information contained in an abstract.

A relevant question to ask when teaching a course is, “What knowledge or techniques do I want each student to have mastered after complet-ing my course?” In the case of science education for undergraduate students, an appropriate goal is one that allows them to understand

and apply information contained within primary scientific literature. Scientific abstracts are brief synopses of a scientific research project. Each

abstract contains the main focus of the project, how the project was performed, results of the experiment, and a summary of the findings. The use of scientific abstracts in a course allows a transition to primary literature from useful but always outdated and simplified textbooks. Using abstracts also prepares stu-dents for passage understanding versus recall-based testing procedures and forces them to actively solve problems with limited previous knowledge of a topic. Teaching with examples taken from recent manuscripts keeps a course up-to-date and effective and has the added benefit that course material is easily updated by the instructor, saving course preparation time.

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As many educators are aware, teaching an advanced course in the sciences is a continual process be-cause of ever-changing and expanding information. The continuous addition of new material eventually requires that older material be discarded to keep the course both up-to-date and effective. The task, therefore, is to identify and retain core concepts as the foundation of the course, while incorporating new technology and information in your course material.

There are several benefits linked to students’ ability to understand primary literature. At the most basic level, they can identify literature that is related to their topic of interest. Second, they begin to understand why a particular population, procedure, or resource may be appropriate for solving their specific problem. Once they have a co-hesive understanding of the organism and the procedures used to study that organism, they can propose modifica-tions to these parameters to suit their investigative goals. Finally, the ability to read and understand literature will eventually lead to an investigator (a term that is more accurate than stu-dent at this point) who is capable of preparing manuscripts in their own right. These particular steps follow Bloom’s Taxonomy (Anderson et al., 2001; Bloom, 1956) very closely and are illustrated in Figure 1.

The first stage of Bloom’s Taxonomy, commonly identified as “knowledge” or “remembering,” is often the only level sought by instructors, leading to the memorization of not just core concepts, but everything. There is no way around memorization if you want to get to the next, far more important levels, like comprehension and application. I look at the memorization of these core con-cepts as a way of allowing the students and instructor to communicate in the same language, thus enabling progres-sion up the “tree” as shown in Figure 1. In my particular class, I spend about one hour of the first lecture discussing the major fields of genetics and how to identify which field is being used (i.e.,

for Mendelian genetics, students are told to look for a defined cross in which the parents are identified). Once students identify what field is being used, they can then proceed to determine why it was used. Thus, memorization of the core concepts is initially necessary, but it is immediately reinforced by examples of how to apply these concepts to any manuscript being discussed.

Within static fields of study, memo-rization can serve a nearly primary function, but once information in the field begins to expand and evolve, the importance of memorization is re-duced. An argument can be made that memorization is inversely proportional to the amount of change occurring in a field. Because abstracts represent a brief description of research performed and are essentially the most important and up-to-date resource available re-garding a specific topic, it makes sense to focus on an understanding of only a few core concepts in each field so that a researcher can apply these concepts to quickly decide whether the manuscript is applicable to their specific needs.

ObjectivesI sought to incorporate scientific ab-stracts into course material for an upper-class Genetics course. Using abstracts, key concepts from the four subdisciplines of genetics (transmis-

sion, molecular, quantitative, and pop-ulation) would be used to stimulate discussion in class. A demonstration to students of the ubiquitous nature of these concepts and how to recognize them in the context of primary litera-ture was of particular importance.

MethodsStudentsThese abstracts have been used in a junior-level Genetics course that is conducted over a 10-week quarter system. Enrollment for this course is a minimum of 36 students. Students in this course have a diverse educational background but have satisfied prereq-uisite courses including Biological Principles and Biological Diversity.

Abstract selectionEach abstract is selected on the basis of subject that the instructor wishes to cover. An excellent source for abstracts are the National Center for Biotechnol-ogy Information’s (NCBI) Pubmed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub med/) or PubMed Central (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/) databases. If Mendelian genetics is the topic, for example, search words such as cross, progeny, inbred lines, and F2 are ex-cellent at bringing up articles that may be used. Because many of the students in our Biological Sciences program are

FIGURE 1

Categories within Bloom’s Taxonomy and their relationship to abstract-based testing.


in preprofessional tracks, I like to use human as an additional search term, narrowing the number of manuscripts retrieved and increasing relevance to the students.

In-class abstract integrationQuestions that are based on abstracts can be used in several ways through-out a course, such as in quizzes, take-home assignments, and in-class projects and by fully or partially com-prising an exam. Each abstract takes about one minute to read, introduces a new topic, and forces an active ap-proach to problem solving, because the abstracts are frequently linked to a quiz or a test.

A technique I frequently use when administering the first abstract quiz is to distribute the quiz, wait for ap-proximately five minutes while the students individually try to solve the questions, and then allow students to discuss their answers among them-selves before submitting the quiz. This technique leads to student-directed analysis and evaluation of a topic. In every instance that this technique has been used, students immediately turn

to each other and began discussing the paper and what it meant. By following this procedure with an instructor-led discussion, the pertinent information can be highlighted.

To see how open discussion be-tween students affects answers, an instructor can provide two copies of the same abstract quiz to each student. The students then fill out both tests and pass in one of them. Students are then allowed to discuss their answers before submission of the second, identical quiz. When this was performed for one quiz, the first quiz average was 50.6%, whereas the second quiz average was 63.5%.

Another method is to give several abstracts to students before an exam, during which they then must answer specific questions (with or without) these abstracts. This is essentially a variation on the first technique, as many students will study together to try to completely understand the work performed and what it means.

To increase the difficulty of a quiz, students can be given a manuscript citation available on NCBI’s Pubmed. Students are told that they will have a

quiz based on that abstract in the next class period but that they would not be allowed to see the abstract during the quiz. This requires students to completely and fully understand es-sentials of the reported project before quiz administration.

Pre- and postcourse assessmentOn the first day of two different aca-demic terms, all students were given one of two pretests, consisting of an abstract and five questions. These pretests were collected and not dis-cussed with the class, with each stu-dent receiving full credit, regardless of actual score. Approximately 80% into each course, students were given the alternate of the two tests, and the averages of pre- and posttest scores were then determined. The two tests used in this course are provided as examples 1 (questions 3–7) and 6 in Appendix A (available at http://www.nsta.org/college/connections.aspx).

Results and discussionQuestionsAbstracts were selected from NC-BI’s Pubmed. A selected abstract and

FIGURE 2

Changes in average abstract test score within two quarters of abstract test administration. There was a range of 0–5 possible points, each point corresponding to a single, correctly answered question.

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Improving Active Learning

its full citation are copied as text and pasted into a word processing pro-gram. The use of open access (freely available) articles, the enclosure of abstract text in quotation marks, using the questions in a classroom setting, and fully citing the article should be sufficient to satisfy any copyright issues. The creation of five questions on the basis of an abstract takes approximately one hour. Ap-pendix A (available at http://www.nsta.org/college/connections.aspx) contains sample genetics questions and answers based on six manu-scripts (Cussenot et al., 2008; Ed-derkaoui et al., 2007; Jackson, Feng, Fenn, & Chen, 2008; Jin & Steffen-son, 2002; Kumar et al., 2008; Sha-zia, Nithya, & Seshadri, 2009).

Questions typically include what the article was about, the methods used, what kind of organism/population is being used and why, what was the main result of the experiment, what could be done to continue the research, and what is the evolutionary advantage being measured. Genotypic and phenotypic segregation ratios, the central dogma, genetic and environmental interactions, and the five Hardy-Weinberg assump-tions are core topics that I include in my Genetics course.

Grades for each quiz typically aver-age 50%–60%. When I prepare ques-tions, at least one of them is obvious from the title, with each ensuing ques-tion increasing in difficulty and com-plexity. I see these tests as a way to push each student to their limit, reinforcing knowledge that they currently possess and illustrating a weakness that should be addressed. Abstract questions ac-count for 10%–15% of the course grade.

AssessmentPre- and postcourse test data were as-sembled for two terms. A total of 36 students participated in the first quar-ter, taking both tests. In the second quarter, 34 students took the pretest and 33 took the posttest. As shown in Figure 2, the average improved from 2.027 to 2.5 in the first quarter

and from 1.853 to 2.181 in the sec-ond quarter. This type of data can be used to measure the outcome of the course in relation to a student’s abil-ity to read and comprehend primary literature.

Future workThe ability of students to understand scientific abstracts can be a measure of the effectiveness of a secondary education (as abstracts are typically not used in primary education). I am currently performing additional research to determine whether ab-stracts can be used to measure teach-ing outcomes in several other biolog-ical science disciplines. In addition, the creation of a publicly available set of abstracts with questions and answers would assist other instruc-tors with integrating this procedure in their classrooms.

ConclusionsI present the technique of using ab-stracts to introduce current research into a science course. Abstracts help to stimulate class discussion of a sci-entific topic and support the applica-tion, analysis, evaluation, and devel-opment of the creative process for a career in research. In addition, ab-stracts may form a viable assessment tool for secondary education. n

Note: Because the pre- and posttest data were likely to be included as part of publicly distributed literature, I sought and received approval from the Human Subjects Committee at Louisiana Tech University. This step is unnecessary when publication of test results is not foreseen by an in-structor. All students reported herein signed waivers, allowing their grades to be included in the overall average of pre- and postassessment scores.

ReferencesAnderson, L. W., Krathwohl, D. R.,

Airasain, P. W., Cruikshank, K. A., Mayer, R. E., Pintrich, P. R., . . . Wittrock, M. C. E. (2001). A

taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives. New York, NY: Longman.

Bloom, B. S. E. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives: the classification of educational goals. Chicago, IL: Susan Fauer.

Cussenot, O., Azzouzi, A. R., Bantsimba-Malanda, G., Gaffory, C., Mangin, P., Cormier, L., . . . Cancel-Tassin, G. (2008). Effect of genetic variability within 8q24 on aggressiveness patterns at diagnosis and familial status of prostate cancer. Clinical Cancer Research, 14, 5635–5639.

Edderkaoui, B., Baylink, D. J., Beamer, W. G., Wergedal, J. E., Porte, R., Chaudhuri, A., & Mohan, S. (2007). Identification of mouse Duffy antigen receptor for chemokines (Darc) as a BMD QTL gene. Genome Research, 17, 577–585.

Jackson, E. W., Feng, C., Fenn, P., & Chen, P. (2008). Genetic mapping of resistance to purple seed stain in PI 80837 soybean. Journal of Heredity, 99, 319–322.

Jin, Y., & Steffenson, B. J. (2002). Sources and genetics of crown rust resistance in barley. Phyto-pathology, 92, 1064–1067.

Kumar, V., Becker, T., Jansen, S., van Barneveld, A., Boztug, K., Wolfl, S., . . . Stanke, F. (2008). Expression levels of FAS are regulated through an evolutionary conserved element in intron 2, which modulates cystic fibrosis disease severity. Genes and Immunity, 9, 689–696.

Shazia, A., Nithya, P., & Seshadri, M. (2009). Genetic variation of polymorphic NOS STR locus in ten Indian population groups. Genetika, 45, 271–274.

Jeffry Lyle Shultz ([email protected]) is an assistant professor in the Depart-ment of Biological Sciences at Louisiana Tech University in Ruston, Louisiana.


To recruit and retain more students in all science disciplines at our small (5,000 student) public university, we implemented an interdisciplinary strategy focusing on nanotechnology and enhanced undergraduate research. Inherently interdisciplinary, the novelty of nanotechnology and its growing career potential appeal to students. To engage students in learning and to keep them engaged, we offer progressively more independent research opportunities with faculty mentors and encourage participation in a robust science learning community that supports students outside the classroom. Activities beginning in the freshman year build connections with faculty members and student peers and foster a growing individual identity as scientists. Since implementing this approach in 2005, a total of 73 students have enrolled and 32 have graduated. Half of the currently enrolled students are biology–chemistry majors and the rest are physics majors. We have significantly increased the number of student publications in peer-reviewed journals. These gains were achieved without sacrificing standards: 32 graduates have earned on average 148 credits and maintained a mean GPA of 3.17, and half have gone on to graduate school.

The low proportion of U.S students earning science degrees is a source of con-cern. The consequences for

America’s prominence in science and technology have been described in near-crisis terms (Committee on Prospering, 2007). Over several de-cades, the United States’ ranking for the proportion of college-age popu-lation earning science and engineer-ing degrees has dropped from 3rd to 17th. Approximately one-third of all bachelor’s degrees awarded in the United States are in science and engineering fields. By contrast, more than half of all first university degrees awarded in Japan (63%), China (53%), and Singapore (51%) are in science, technology, engi-neering, or mathematics (STEM) disciplines. Just over four million STEM bachelor’s degrees were awarded worldwide in 2006: 21% in China, 19% in the European Union, but only 11% in the United States (National Science Board, 2010).

Limited role models and mentors, poorly equipped secondary schools, and financial obstacles contribute to the paucity of science, math, and engineering majors. Fundamental changes in philosophy about and methods for teaching science are essential to increase recruitment and graduation of traditional and underrepresented students in STEM disciplines.

Several identified patterns explain the ineffectiveness of traditional approaches to increasing science enrollment. One entrenched, but

Engaging Undergraduates Through Interdisciplinary Research in Nanotechnology By Anura U. Goonewardene, Christine Offutt, Jacqueline Whitling, and Donald Woodhouse

often unacknowledged, systematic problem is the “weeding out” of seemingly unmotivated or poorly prepared students. To stop the weed-ing out, faculty members need to invest extra effort in these students. Physics and preengineering students who lack strong mathematics prepa-ration are especially at risk. Studies show, however, that students who remain in science and those who change majors do not differ in high school preparation, performance scores, or effort expended. Also, exceptionally gifted and talented students leave the sciences when they find introductory science courses to be narrow in focus, formulaic, and unchallenging. These students foster the belief that other fields are more stimulating and promise a fuller educational experience (Margolis & Fisher, 2001; Meyer, 2002; Seymour & Hewitt, 1996).

Since 2005 we have worked to recruit, support, and graduate more students in all science disciplines. Our approach is grounded in the Building Engineering and Science Talent

Committee’s (2004) principles

to increase representation of mi-norities in science and engineering: institutional leadership, targeted re-cruitment, engaged faculty, personal attention, peer support, enriched re-search experience, bridges to the next level, and continuous evaluation.

To translate these principles into practice, a cohesive, interdisciplinary strategy focusing on nanotechnol-ogy and enhanced undergraduate research was created. Inherently

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interdisciplinary, the novelty of nanotechnology and its growing career potential appeal to students. We engage students by offering progressively meaningful research opportunities with faculty mentors to foster a growing identity as sci-entists. Additionally, many activities beginning during the freshman year connect students with the program and peers.

The preliminary results are en-couraging. Since implementing the Nanotechnology program in 2005, the number of graduates in the physics program has doubled, and it is now the third largest physics program in Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education, de-spite the fact that our 5,000-student university is 11th of 14 in under-graduate enrollment (Goonewardene, Tzolov, Senevirathne, & Woodhouse, 2011). Of the 32 graduates from the Nanotechnology program, half were engineering/physics majors; the rest majored in biology and chemistry. Half of all graduates are now in masters or doctoral programs. Our students have produced nearly 40 peer-reviewed articles and presenta-tions. Our interdisciplinary program continues to grow: of 35 students currently enrolled, 31 were recruited in the past two years, 9 in engineer-ing/physics and 22 in biology and chemistry. Student demographics are also shifting. Approximately half the new recruits are women and many are first-generation college students.

Described here is our approach to recruit additional, and more diverse, science students and engage them through increasingly sophisticated and independent undergraduate re-search. Strong evidence has indi-cated that a comprehensive approach addressing all aspects of student–faculty engagement is a hallmark of effective programs (Atkin, Green, & McLaughlin, 2002; Bowman & Stage, 2002; Hilborn & Howes, 2003; Tobias, 1992; Whitten, Foster, & Duncombe, 2003).

Purpose and methods Nanotechnology is not a separate de-partment at Lock Haven University. Rather, the interdisciplinary nano-technology program utilizes faculty from all science departments and has its own funding for operations and equipment. Three physics pro-fessors were recruited to lead nano-technology research initiatives and manage five interdisciplinary labo-ratories while teaching a full load in the physics and nanotechnology programs. Labs were developed us-ing seed funding from the univer-sity in 2004 that was leveraged for multiple grants from Pennsylvania’s Department of Community and Economic Development (PA-DCED). Grants for research-grade instruments totaled approximate-ly $350,000, including matching contributions from the university, which also provided 3,000 sq. ft. of laboratory space. In 2008 and 2009 the program received near-ly $700,000 of National Science Foundation (NSF) funding to ex-pand the program, acquire more research-grade instrumentation, and provide student scholarships (NSF Stem Award #0806660; NSF MRI Award #0923047).

Biology, chemistry, and health sciences faculty help the physics faculty implement the program. This Nano Group, consisting of eight fac-ulty members, recruits students, sup-ports the student Nano Club, mentors students involved in undergraduate research, and shares nanotech de-velopments within their disciplines (Whitling et al., 2010).

The research in the nanotechnology program is interdisciplinary (Drayer, 2008a, 2008b; Drayer, Girardi, & Tzolov, 2007; Ganther, Yarunova, Overton, & Senevirathne, 2010a, 2010b; Yarunova, Senevirathne, Overton, & Tzolov, 2009). For ex-ample, faculty in physics and chem-istry are investigating liposomes as drug-delivery platforms, and faculty in physics and biology are analyzing

fungi using nanotechnology tools and techniques.

The goal of this uniquely or-ganized “department” is to infuse nanotechnology into the curricula of all science disciplines and provide students with the fundamentals of nanoscience and skills of nano-technology, which they can apply within their respective disciplines. This department, therefore, has no majors of its own; rather, it expands student options by offering a minor in nanotechnology and an associate of applied science in nanotechnol-ogy. Either path complements the BS-degree major in all science disciplines.

The nanotechnology program is coordinated by a director who re-ceives a half-time release from teach-ing to maintain student records and manage budget lines totaling $34,000 per year for equipment, student lab workers, and operations. He identi-fies external funding opportunities and supports and encourages faculty to develop competitive proposals for external funding, a key part of the program.

RecruitmentOur recruitment approach is com-prehensive and vigorous. To attract local students we present an an-nual nano open house that show-cases our laboratories and describes educational and career opportuni-ties. This event brings 50–70 high school students and teachers onto campus for research presentations and demonstrations by under-graduate nano students. To reach beyond our region, we sponsor a booth at the Pennsylvania Science Teachers Association annual meet-ing. Undergraduates (rather than faculty) staff the booth and describe their experiences and the opportu-nities at Lock Haven University to teachers from throughout the state. Our students are our best ambassa-dors; they connect and have more credibility with their peers than pro-


fessors or admissions counselors. Finally, we visit distant school dis-tricts to showcase our programs to high school students and their teach-ers and guidance counselors. We also identify and publicize scholar-ship opportunities, supported by a National Science Foundation grant, that are open to science students in the Nanotechnology program.

Once students enroll, our efforts focus on exciting and engaging them in science learning through progres-sively sophisticated and independent research opportunities and through a student-learning community that supports them throughout their aca-demic career.

Introduction to Nanoscience seminarIntroduction to Nanoscience is a one-hour seminar for first-year stu-dents curious about nanotechnol-ogy, similar to other freshmen semi-nars that attract and engage students (Adams, 2009; Sullivan et al., 2008; Tahan et al., 2006). The informal and interactive format encourages students to actively participate rath-er than passively listen to lectures. Experiential learning also comes from touring the nanotechnology labs at Lock Haven University and the nearby cleanroom facility at Penn State University. Students are introduced to hot topics in nano-technology across all disciplines and to the popular scientific litera-ture. They learn to conduct litera-ture reviews using online and of-fline library resources. Throughout the semester, students present what they researched to the class, and the professor guides them to addi-tional resources to strengthen their presentations. Because the students choose the topics, class discussions range across all science disciplines. Finally, they present a topic of their choice from their literature survey to a science class of peers (e.g., an introductory physics class for biol-ogy, chemistry, or physics majors)

using verbal (PowerPoint) and vi-sual (Publisher) modes.

Science learning community—Nano ClubInteraction with other students is an essential element of our ap-proach. The science learning com-munity built around the Nano Club and run by upper-division students is the “glue” that keeps students and faculty connected and engaged throughout the students’ university career. Especially during the criti-cal first two years when they com-plete required introductory courses in their respective disciplines, all science students are encouraged to attend Nano Club activities (pizza helps), where they meet other stu-dents and faculty members.

Among the activities is an informal multidisciplinary Nanotechnology Seminar Series that brings together faculty members, students, and guest speakers who exchange ideas and research experiences to inform and engage students. Presentations by upper-division students serve two purposes: first- and second-year students learn firsthand from upper-class peers about their work, and upper-division students can present on campus before making formal presentations at scientific confer-ences. Students feel more comfort-able asking questions and engaging in discussions with their peers than with faculty or outside speakers.

The students plan activities such as visits to science museums and research labs, industrial tours, and travel to student conferences. Alumni working in industry or attending graduate school pres-ent at the annual university-wide Nanoscience Awareness Day. This provides students with firsthand accounts of the opportunities of-fered by broadening their science education with the nanotechnol-ogy experience. The Nano Club forum nurtures communication and professional relationships across

science disciplines for both faculty and students. It also offers recre-ational and social opportunities (e.g., bowling, flag football, picnics) that bring students from different majors together. The Nano Club learning community is supported through university student activity fees and provides out-of-classroom opportu-nities for student interaction outside their own discipline. We promote and foster this supportive science learning community to engage stu-dents beyond the classroom and help them stay motivated and focused. Data show that students do not make precipitous decisions about staying or leaving the sciences (Seymour & Hewitt, 1996).

Undergraduate research Our curriculum is designed to mo-tivate students and provide them with content knowledge and skills to carry out meaningful research. We offer a sequential approach that progressively advances students to-ward independent research.

Nanotechnology research re-quires specific laboratory skills and techniques using sophisticated instrumentation. In their second-year summer, students who remain interested in nanoscale science attend the 18-credit Nano Manufacturing Technology (NMT) semes te r at Penn State’s NSF-supported Nanotechnology Applications and Career Knowledge (NACK) Center (NACK Center, 2009), where they work in a cleanroom environment and master basic techniques. Our partnership with Penn State has enabled us to send students to this experience at the cost of Lock Haven University tuition. Partial board and lodging grants are also available to Pennsylvania residents through grants from PA-DCED.

Students who complete the NMT semester can do a one-year faculty su-pervised research project (Advanced Lab Experience PHAP431). This course is a hybrid between indepen-

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dent research and a laboratory expe-rience course that goes beyond the “cookbook” approach of traditional structured lab courses.

Students are guided by a fac-ulty mentor who initially provides detailed instructions and repetitive exercises to make students comfort-able with techniques. As the student masters various techniques, the fac-ulty member gradually encourages experimentation designed to develop scientific reasoning. By journaling and reflecting on these experiences, students learn to define scientific problems and to identify solutions using the scientific method. As a result, students become increasingly independent and develop an identity as a scientist and researcher.

At this stage (usually in their se-nior year), students are encouraged to carry out an independent research project, typically a continuation of work initiated in PHAP431, which often leads to a publication or pre-sentation. We pair senior students with junior students who “shadow” and assist their senior mentors. Juniors who earned this opportunity have demonstrated high academic achievement during their first year. This aligns with our philosophy of student-to-student engagement. To the extent possible, pairings are same sex because there is evidence that men and women have different learning and communication styles (Whitten et al., 2003). Same-sex pairings are also practical because much of the independent research occurs at night and on weekends when students are alone in the labs.

To date, 25 students have present-ed their research at regional, state, or national conferences, and 8 have coauthored peer-reviewed journal articles. One student is a coinventor on patent-pending device technol-ogy (Tzolov & Swiontek, 2010). This publication record helps our students compete with graduates of more selective schools when apply-ing to graduate schools. Moreover,

completing independent research and contributing to the scientific com-munity as a coauthor strengthens a student’s identity as a scientist and builds confidence and self-worth (King, 2008). This kind of maturity cannot be instilled by mere classroom or guided laboratory experience.

Assessment In spring 2010, we surveyed gradu-ates of the nanotechnology pro-gram, students taking nanotech-nology courses, and students who

expressed interest by taking the Introduction to Nanoscience course or by participating in the Nano Club.

A total of 58 current and graduated students were surveyed, and 26 (45%) responded: 15 men and 11 women; 17 undergraduates and 9 alumni; 10 biology/chemistry majors, 7 physics majors, 5 biology majors, 3 engineer-ing majors, and 1 chemistry major; and 7 NSF-nanoscience scholars and 13 nonnanoscience scholars. Respondents were asked why they chose Lock Haven University and the

TABLE 1

Results of survey of student opinions.

N Mean SD

Introduction to Nanoscience course

Increased interest in nanotechnology 23 4.35 0.935

Increased knowledge in nanotechnology 22 4.27 0.935

Increased understanding of applicationsof nanotech to specific science majors 22 4.27 0.935

Identify application of nanotech to career goals 22 4.09 0.971

Improved presentation skills 22 4.32 0.894

Improved literature search skills 13 3.46 1.127

Touring Lock Haven’s nano lab increased excitement about field

20 3.95 1.050

Touring Penn State nano lab increased excitement about field

20 4.40 1.095

Exposure to cutting-edge researchincreased interest in conducting research 22 4.14 1.082

Science learning community

Attending conferences increased involvement 17 4.65 0.996

Attending nanotechnology annual picnic increased involvement

17 4.35 1.057

Attending field trips increased involvement 22 4.18 1.368

Informal contact with faculty increased involvement 23 4.17 1.029

Nano Club participation increased interest in the field 24 4.04 0.999

Nano Club participation increased knowledge of the field 25 4.12 1.054

Undergraduate research opportunities

Conducting research increased student confidence 12 4.67 0.651

Conducting research increased student identity as scientists 6 4.83 0.408

Conducting research helped students believethat they could contribute to the field 15 3.67 1.047

Faculty effectiveness

Quality of faculty 25 4.88 0.332

Commitment of faculty 24 4.75 0.532

Note: A 5-point Likert scale was used, with 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = neutral, 4 = agree, 5 = strongly agree.


nanotechnology program and about their experiences in and satisfaction with the nanotechnology program, specific nanotechnology courses, and the elements of our program de-scribed previously (i.e., Introduction to Nanoscience, Nano Club, research opportunities). Open-ended ques-tions elicited opinions about program strengths, weaknesses, and recom-mendations for change. Students provided a positive evaluation of all areas of the program. Satisfaction with the science learning com-munity/Nano Club, undergraduate research opportunities, and program faculty was especially high. Mean responses (using a 5-point Likert scale with 1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree) to specific program elements are summarized in Table 1.

Conclusions There are many reasons why STEM majors comprise a low proportion of college students. Altering this pattern requires effort at every edu-cational level, including primary and secondary schools in which stu-dents are first introduced to science. At the university level, eliminating financial barriers through scholar-ship programs is a necessary but insufficient measure. To encourage more science majors and to help them succeed, we must examine how students learn and how we teach science and engineering.

We use nanotechnology, an in-terdisciplinary field, to generate interest and attract students across all disciplines and to offer progres-sively challenging research oppor-tunities with faculty mentors while sequentially building skills. We en-courage student-to-student support to foster rapport, comradeship, and program ownership through Nano Club activities.

The nanotechnology program is not a substitute for proficiency in sci-ence or mathematics; students must successfully complete coursework in their discipline. Nano students suc-

cessfully completed an average of 73 credits by the end of their sophomore year (completing 60 credits is “on track” to graduate in four years). The fact that half of our nanotechnology graduates have gone on to graduate school (the 32 program graduates earned an average of 148 credits with a mean GPA of 3.17) demonstrates that it is possible to increase science enrollment without lowering stan-dards. We continue to promote group research projects that are truly inter-disciplinary. For example, we have recently started collaborating with medical researchers and engineers at Penn State University to involve undergraduates in designing and testing biosensors for neurological applications. Our goal is to develop an interdisciplinary platform where students from different disciplines work together and faculty members model interdisciplinary collabora-tion. Beyond learning scientific con-tent, students gain real-life experi-ence with group process; such group activities promote student retention, especially among underrepresented minorities (McIlwee & Robinson, 1992; Rosser, 1997).

Our interdisciplinary education model produces undergraduates who have a deep disciplinary back-ground while also receiving a robust cross-disciplinary education. These students can be ideal candidates for further training and research in “convergence science,” the subject of the recent Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2011) white pa-per, “The Third Revolution: The Convergence of the Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, and Engineering.” Our model can also serve as a work-force development model for this area at the undergraduate level.

Although we think that the ideal approach is interdisciplinary, this model can be replicated within a single department or discipline that emphasizes or is expanding under-graduate research. Student clubs can form the core of a student learning

community that provides support, en-couragement, and motivation outside the classroom. n

AcknowledgmentsWe thank Dr. Mike Cullin for his help drafting and revising the manuscript. We also acknowledge contributions by Dr. Marian Tzolov, Dr. Indrajith Senevirathne, Dr. Carina Howell, and Dr. Amy Way, members of the faculty Nano Group. Their contributions were essential to the successful implementa-tion of our nanotechnology program.

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Atkin, A. M., Green, R., & McLaughlin, L. (2002). Patching the leaky pipeline: Keeping first-year college women interested in science. Journal of College Science Teaching, 32(2), 102–108.

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future. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. Available at http://www.nap.edu/books/0309100399/html

Drayer, N. (2008a, April). Encapsu-lation of nanoparticles in liposome nanovesicles. Paper presented at the meeting of the AAPT-CPS, Lock Haven, PA.

Drayer, N. (2008b, October). Production of functionalized iron oxide nanoparticles for use as an MRI contrast-enhancing agent. Paper presented at the Central Pennsylvania/KME regional confer-ence, Bloomsburg, PA.

Drayer, N., Girardi, J., & Tzolov M. (2007, November). Solubility of ZnO nanoparticles in biologi-cal media. Paper presented at the Commercialization of Nanomaterials conference, Pittsburgh, PA.

Ganther, B., Yarunova, E., Overton, B., & Senevirathne, I. (2010a, March). AFM, SEM and EDX study of mor-phology, elemental composition and spore surface stiffness/ elasticity measurements for hypocrea and phomopsis spores. Paper presented at the American Physical Society meeting in Portland, OR.

Ganther, B., Yarunova, E., Overton, B., & Senevirathne, I. (2010b, February). Common fungi spores investigated by tapping mode AFM. Paper presented at the American Association of Physics Teachers an-nual national meeting, Washington, DC.

Goonewardene, A., Tzolov, M., Senevirathne, I., & Woodhouse, D. (2011). Sustaining physics programs through interdisciplinary programs: A case study in nanotechnology [Guest editorial]. American Journal of Physics, 79, 693–696.

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McIlwee, J. S., & Robinson, J. G. (1992). Women in engineering: Gender, power and workplace cul-ture. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

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NACK Center. (2009). Partner spot-light: Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania. NACK National Center News, 1(2), 4. Available at http://www.nano4me.org/assets/NACK_News_Bulletin_Volume_1_Issue_2

National Science Board. (2010). Science and engineering indicators. Arlington, VA: National Science Foundation.

Rosser, S. V. (1997). Re-engineering female friendly science. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

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Sullivan, T. S., Geiger, M. S., Keller, J. S., Klopcic, J. T., Peiris, F. C., Schumacher, B. W., . . . Turner, P. C. (2008). Innovations in nanosci-ence education at Kenyon College. IEEE Transactions on Education, 51, 234–241.

Tahan, C., Leung, R., Zenner, G. M., Ellison, K. D., Crone, W. C., & Miller, C. A. (2006). Nanotechnology and society: A dis-cussion based undergraduate course.

American Journal of Physics, 74, 443–449.

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Tzolov, M., & Swiontek, S. (2010, January 29). Method for deposition of cathodes for polymer optoelec-tronic Devices. Provisional patent application #61299532.

Whitling, J., Goonewardene, A., Senevirathne, I., Tzolov, M., Howell, C., & Way, A. (2010, June). Engaging STEM majors through undergraduate research in nano-science. Paper presented at the national conference of the Council on Undergraduate Research, Ogden, UT.

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Anura U. Goonewardene ([email protected]) is a professor in the Depart-ment of Geology and Physics, Christine Offutt is chair of and a professor in the Department of Psychology, Jacqueline Whitling is a professor in the Depart-ment of Chemistry, all at Lock Haven University in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania. Donald Woodhouse is the Grants Office Director at Antioch University New Eng-land in Keene, New Hampshire.


Calibrated Peer Review Essays Increase Student Confidence in Assessing Their Own WritingBy Lauren Likkel

The online writing software Calibrated Peer Review (CPR) is a useful tool for assigning writing assignments in large college classes. In this system, students submit essays online and are guided in how to rate essays using criteria written by the instructor. The instructor does not have to grade the essays, and CPR has educational benefits that make it desirable. I used the CPR system for four essays in the largest section of my undergraduate astronomy class, and to create a comparison group, I assigned the same essays in the sections of the course that did not use the CPR system. I surveyed students at the beginning and end of the semester about confidence in evaluating their own essays and confidence in their ability to write a good essay. I found that students who were not already confident in the ability to evaluate their own writing tended to increase their confidence after using the CPR system. There was no increase in confidence in the comparison group, indicating that the CPR system helps students become more confident at assessing their own writing.

When I first tried written assignments in my large-enrollment classes, the time it took to grade them was prohibitive. I wanted to use writing assignments because they improve writing ability and help students learn course content (e.g., Felder & Brent, 1992). But at primarily un-

dergraduate institutions like mine, we do not have graduate students to grade papers for us, so it is difficult to include significant writing assignments in a large class.

However, I found that I can include essay assignments without an overwhelm-ing grading burden if I use the Calibrated Peer Review (CPR) web-based tool for teachers (http://cpr.molsci.ucla.edu). With CPR, students submit an essay online, which is scored by three other students; I do not do the grading. I now use CPR for five short writing assignments in my 120-student introductory astronomy course and in my online version of the course.

Although CPR is useful for making writing assignments practical in large classes, the research I present here was inspired by the educational benefits of CPR. One useful aspect of the CPR system is that students are asked to reflect on their own work, and the instructor can allocate part of their score on how accurately they assess the quality of their own essay.

I wondered if students using CPR became more confident in their ability to judge the quality of their own writing. Students must believe that they can evaluate what they have written if they are going to develop proficient writing skills, an important outcome of a quality liberal arts education. In this article, I present results of my research investigating the effect of CPR assignments on student perception of their ability to evaluate their own essays.

43Vol. 41, No. 3, 2012

Calibrated Peer Review Essays Increase Student Confidence

CPRCPR was developed by the Uni-versity of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Chemistry Department, supported by the National Science Foundation and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, as a way to in-corporate writing into large enroll-ment classes (Russell, Chapman, & Wegner, 1998). CPR is not dis-cipline specific and has been used in the teaching of most subjects, for example, biology (Robinson, 2001; Gerdeman, Russell, & Worden, 2007), physiology (Pelaez, 2002), neuroscience (Prichard, 2005), ge-ology (Heise, Palmer-Julson, & Su, 2002), and engineering (Carlson & Berry, 2003).

Briefly, here’s how the CPR sys-tem works: The instructor develops instructions and resources for the essay assignment, crafts questions for a rubric to guide the student in evaluating the essays, writes three sample “calibration essays,” and decides how to award points for each part of the CPR system. Stu-dents write the essay; evaluate the calibration essays and see how their ratings match the instructor’s; evalu-ate three peer essays (anonymously to each other); and finally, evaluate their own essay. A full description of CPR is available at http://cpr.molsci.ucla.edu, and reviews are available (e.g., Prichard, 2005; Strong, 2008; Teacher Education, 2003; Walvoord, Hoefnagels, Gaffin, Chumchal, & Long, 2008).

Actively involving the student in the material leads to learning gains well beyond the straight presenta-tion of facts in the classroom (e.g., McDermott, 1993), and CPR is an ef-fective tool for teaching specific con-cepts. In the CPR system, important concepts are embedded in the grad-ing rubric and the three calibration essays that the instructor writes, and they may be contained in the three peer essays that the student reviews. The student must be engaged with the material to complete the assign-

ment and, after multiple exposures to the concepts, will know the material at a deeper level. In fact, students tend to score higher on traditional exams when they use the CPR system in their coursework (Enders, Jenkins, & Hoverman, 2010; Pelaez, 2002; Stokstad, 2001).

Both clear writing and evaluative thinking are an integral part of the CPR system. In one study, students using CPR improved their technical writing and critical-thinking skills more from the first assignment to the second than if they had completed traditional assignments (Heise et al., 2002). Several studies have reported that using CPR facilitated improve-ment of writing and reviewing skills, especially for students who ini-tially performed at lower levels (e.g., Gunersel & Simpson, 2009, and references therein). However, results are not consistent, with some studies finding no improvement in technical writing skills (Walvoord et al., 2008). Studies have shown that students using the CPR system improve their ability to correctly evaluate their own writing (Gerdeman et al., 2007; Stokstad, 2001).

The research projectI surveyed students about their abil-ity to evaluate their own writing, both before and after using the CPR system for four essay assignments (Table 1). I was interested in their perception of that ability, which I describe as their confidence in eval-uating their own work. I included a comparison group to compare the effect of CPR against the use of tra-ditional writing assignments. At the beginning and end of the semester (September and December 2005), students filled out a multiple-choice survey that included questions about the confidence they had in evaluat-ing their own essays. The results were confidential, but students’ names were associated with their responses so that I could track how individual students changed their

TABLE 2

The survey questions and possible responses.

1. When you write an essay, can you tell if it is a good essay?

(A) Yes, I have a good idea of the quality.

(B) I am not usually sure, but have a general idea.

(C) I am not very confident about how good it is.

(D) No, I can’t really tell if it will be graded high or low.

(E) I choose not to answer this.2. How skilled do you feel you are at

assessing your own writing? (A) I can read my own written work

and know its quality. (B) I have a good idea of the quality

of my own written work. (C) I don’t usually have a good idea

of the quality of my own written work.

(D) I cannot read my own written work and know its quality.

(E) I choose not to answer this.3. Do you know how to write a good

essay? (A) Yes. (B) I have learned to write an essay

fairly well. (C) I haven’t really learned how to

write a good essay. (D) No. (E) I choose not to answer this.

TABLE 1

The four essay topics.

(1) Sunset/sunrise location—where on the horizon the sun rises and sets at different times of the year

Concept: Seasonal changes relating to equinoxes and solstices

(2) Should “Intelligent Design” be taught in a high school science class?

Concept: What composes a “scientific theory”

(3) Evidence for the Big Bang Theory

Concept: Lines of evidence that led to the Big Bang Theory, were predicted by it, or that support it

(4) Write an astronomy essay for a nonscientific audience

Concept: Summarize an astronomy topic (specific topic not assigned) aimed at a popular level


responses by the end of the semes-ter. Only responses from students who agreed to participate and who took both surveys were included in the data analysis.

The two key questions used in the study (Table 2) were “When you write an essay, can you tell if it is a good essay?” and “How skilled do you feel you are at assessing your own writ-ing?” These questions are similar in order to provide a check on reliability. A third question was “Do you know how to write a good essay?” The ques-tions were posed in multiple-choice format, with the answer choices listed in Table 2.

The participants in the study were students in three sections of the intro-ductory astronomy course (Survey of Astronomy) at the University of Wis-consin–Eau Claire (enrollment at this university is about 10,000 students). I taught all three sections and used the same material and assignments for each, including the same four essay assignments (Table 1). One section

(the CPR group) used the CPR system for the essays. The comparison group, comprised of students in two smaller sections, did not use the CPR system. The comparison group’s essays were graded with the same criteria used in the CPR system, and students were provided a score and a few written comments. Only students who com-pleted at least three of the essay as-signments were included in the study, 104 students in the CPR group and 34 in the comparison group.

ResultsThe student responses to the three research questions on the surveys are in Tables 3–5. The possible re-sponses to the questions (Table 2) indicate confidence levels, ranging from “A” as most confident to “D” as not confident. The changes in in-dividual student’s responses on the two surveys are also tabulated as more positive, no change, or more negative. For example, if a student chose answer “B” to a question on

the first survey and chose answer “A” on the final survey, the change was more positive, but if the student chose “B” on the first survey and the final survey answer was “C” or “D,” the change was more negative. Because not all students answered all three questions on both surveys, there are slightly different total numbers of students for each ques-tion. The percentages in the tables have been rounded so may not to-tal to 100%. To evaluate the differ-ences between groups and between surveys, I used a χ2 test of indepen-dence with two degrees of freedom (Preacher, 2001).

Survey question: When you write an essay, can you tell if it is a good essay? For this survey question (Table 2), the responses of the CPR group and the comparison group were statisti-cally equal on the first survey. For example, about half of each group answered “(A) Yes, I have a good idea of the quality” (Table 3a). By

the end of the semester, the two groups clearly differed (p < .003), with 77% of the CPR group now selecting “(A)” but still only 52% of the comparison group answer-ing “(A)” (Table 3a). Comparing how each group changed from the first survey to the last sur-vey showed a clear change for the CPR group (p < .004) but no statistical change in the responses from the comparison group.

Across the two surveys (Table 3b), I found that 34% of the CPR group responded more positively at the end of the semester than they had at the beginning, and 8% responded less positively (59% did not change their answers). In con-trast, only 18% of the comparison group responded more positively at the end of the semester, and 21% ended less confident in their ability to tell if they had written a good essay (61% didn’t change their an-swers, similar to the CPR group).

TABLE 3

Question 1: When you write an essay, can you tell if it is a good essay?

a. Survey responses.

Question 1 First survey Last surveyResponse confidence CPR group non-CPR group CPR group non-CPR groupConfident 52% (55) 48% (16) 77% (80) 52% (17)Fairly confident 38% (39) 42% (14) 19% (20) 33% (11)Not very confident 9% (9) 6% (2) 4% (4) 9% (3)Not confident 1% (1) 3% (1) 0% (0) 6% (2)

b. How students changed responses by the end of the semester.

Change from beginning of semester—all students

CPR group (104 students)

non-CPR group (33 students)

More positive 34% (35) 18% (6)No change 59% (61) 61% (20)More negative 8% (8) 21% (7)

c. Changed responses after excluding the most confident students.

Change from beginning of semester—less confident*




Note: CPR = Calibrated Peer Review.*excludes students who were confident at both beginning and end

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Comparing statistically how the individual students changed their answers (more positive, no change, or less positive) shows that students in the CPR group changed differently from those in the comparison group (p < .05).

Students who did not change their answer to this question by the second survey usually selected the most positive answer for both surveys. They included half of the CPR group (50 of 104 students) and a third of the comparison group (12 of 33 students). I did a comparison excluding these students to see the effect the CPR system had on the confidence level of the less-confident stu-dents (Table 3c). After excluding students who chose the most positive response at the beginning (and end) of the semester, I found that 65% of students in the CPR group moved to a more positive response by the end of the semes-ter, compared with only 29% of the comparison group. Comparing how these less confident students changed their answers shows that students in the CPR group changed differently from those in the comparison group (p < .02).

Survey question: How skilled do you feel you are at assessing your own writing? For this question, only 17% in the CPR group and 9% in the comparison group chose the most positive answer at the be-ginning of the semester (Table 4a). But by the end of the se-mester, 42% of the CPR group responded that way, compared with 18% of the comparison group. Statistically, the groups were the same on the first survey but were clearly different on the last survey (p < .03). Comparing how each group changed from the first survey to the last survey showed a dramatic change for the CPR group (p < .001), but no

TABLE 4

Question 2: How skilled do you feel you are at assessing your own writing?





CPR group(101 students)









TABLE 5

Question 3: Do you know how to write a good essay?












More positive 41% (25 ) 27% (7)No change 54% (33) 62% (16)More negative 5% (3) 12% (3)



significant change in the responses for the comparison group.

Across the surveys, 38% of stu-dents in the CPR group responded more positively at the end of the semester than at the beginning (57% didn’t change their response), compared with only 21% in the comparison group (and a full 79% didn’t change their response; Ta-ble 4b). How individual students changed their answers (more posi-tive, no change, or less positive) was compared statistically, and no significant difference between groups was found. However, about 10% of students selected the most positive response on both the first and last survey (13 students out of 101 for the CPR group and 3 of 33 in the comparison group). After ex-cluding these students, 43% of the CPR group students, but only 23% of the comparison group, changed to a more positive response at the end of the semester (Table 4c). This shows a clear difference, with a significantly larger percentage of initially nonconfident students in the CPR group gaining confidence than in the comparison group (p < .04).

Survey question: Do you know how to write a good essay? For this question, the groups were not statistically different on the first survey, but on the last survey there was a small but statistically significant difference between the CPR group and the comparison group (p < .05; Table 5a). Compar-ing how each group changed from the first survey to the last survey showed no significant change for either group.

Across surveys, the fraction of students in each group who changed to a more positive response was about the same, 24% and 22% for the CPR and comparison groups, respectively (Table 5b). Exclud-ing students who chose the most positive choice for both surveys, 41% in the CPR group moved to a

more positive response, compared with 27% for the comparison group (Table 5c). The difference in how individual students changed their responses between the CPR and comparison groups on this question is not statistically significant. Thus, using the CPR system didn’t have a big effect on students’ opinion of their knowledge of how to write a good essay. This is in contrast to the results of the other two questions, which show that many students in the CPR group changed their perception of their self-assessment skill, in particular students who ini-tially had lower confidence.

DiscussionI found that using the CPR system for essay assignments positively influenced many of the students’ perception of their ability to accu-rately assess what they have writ-ten. In contrast, there was no sta-tistically significant change seen for the group that wrote essays but did not use the CPR system. I was surprised to find such a clear effect with only four CPR essay assign-ments. Students who used CPR, if not already confident about that ability, were about twice as likely to show increased confidence as students whose essays were scored with traditional grading. The re-sult appears to be due to the use of the CPR system and not to the fact that they wrote essays or otherwise become more confident during the course of the semester.

A component of the CPR system that may have caused the increase in confidence is the intense student use of an instructor-provided grading rubric for each assignment. In a CPR assignment, students received guid-ance on how to evaluate the essay as well as a score and minor com-ments. Students in the comparison group did not see the rubric and did not evaluate their essay or any other essay. They received scores on their work and some written comments,

but apparently that feedback on the quality of their essays was not suf-ficient to increase their confidence in evaluating their work.

In the CPR system, students gain experience with assessing es-says and must fully examine the rubric for each assignment. They must evaluate three sample essays, comparing their ratings to those of the instructor; evaluate three peer essays; and finally, rate their own essay. Understanding and using the rubric may be responsible for increasing students’ confidence in evaluating their own essay. This may occur because they learn to focus on specifics when evaluating an essay, or they see that a rubric relates to the instructions given for writing an essay, or they recognize their misconception that grading essays is subjective.

An integral part of the CPR system is that students must evaluate their own essays and compare their evalu-ation with the ratings of others. This self-assessment component might also be responsible for building con-fidence in self-evaluation. Reflecting on and rating their own essay is per-haps the key to building confidence in evaluating their own work, but students are rarely asked to carefully rate their work and compare that to the ratings of others.

It is possible that the way the ru-brics are constructed influences the research results in studies involving CPR. Each set of guidelines for grad-ing was specific to the assignment, with assignment-related questions such as “Did the author avoid the common misconception that . . .?” and “Did the author make the point that . . . ?” I did not investigate whether either the form or content of the rubrics was related to increasing student confidence.

It is also possible that the educa-tional benefits of the CPR system could be gained with carefully constructed assignments and procedures. This is of particular interest if an instructor did

47Vol. 41, No. 3, 2012


not plan to use CPR but wanted to have the same educational benefits. Future research could investigate which of the writing and reviewing components of the CPR system are responsible for the improved student outcomes, as suggested for example by Gerdeman et al. (2007).

ConclusionIn the semesters since I collected the data for this research, I have continued to use CPR in my Sur-vey of Astronomy classes of all size enrollments. In addition to the educational benefits of CPR cited earlier—that CPR assignments help students learn the material and develop thinking, writing, and reviewing skills—I have shown from the research reported here that many students also become more confident in their ability to evaluate the quality of their own work. These results bolster the al-ready strong reasons why instruc-tors might consider using the CPR system for their classes.

Details on implementation can be important for learning outcomes and student satisfaction (e.g., Wal-voord et al., 2008). It takes a couple of hours to draft a CPR assignment and several more hours to carefully develop it, but once created it can be used in future classes. A carefully constructed grading rubric is criti-cal to prevent students from being unhappy about perceived uneven grading. Student reaction to CPR will be better if you speak of its benefits and carefully explain in class or in writing how to get started. It takes some instructor time to deal with problems that arise, but students will respond better to the system if you are available to help and are flexible on deadlines. It is important to em-phasize to your students that you use the CPR system to help them learn the material and to develop thinking, writing, and reviewing skills; they may otherwise think you are trying to avoid grading.

The CPR system has documented educational benefits relative to traditional grading of assignments. There is still no cost to use it and only a modest cost expected for use of future versions, and it reduces the grading burden on the instructor. CPR allows me to have valuable writing assignments in large classes and have confidence that students benefit from the assignments in multiple ways. n

AcknowledgmentSupport through the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire’s Center for Teaching and Learning was instrumental in the completion of this work.

ReferencesCarlson, P. A., & F. C. Berry. (2003,

November). Calibrated Peer Review™ and assessing learn-ing outcomes. In Proceedings of the 33rd ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (pp. F3E1–F3E6). Boulder, CO: Frontiers in Education.

Enders, F. B., Jenkins, S., & Hover-man, V. (2010). Calibrated Peer Review for interpreting linear regression parameters: Results from a graduate course. Journal of Statistics Education, 18(2), 1–27.

Felder, R. M., & Brent, R. (1992). Writing assignments: Pathways to connections, clarity, creativity. College Teaching, 40, 43–47.

Gerdeman, R. D., Russell, A. A., & Worden, K. J. (2007). Web-based student writing and reviewing in a large biology lecture course. Jour-nal of College Science Teaching, 36(5), 46–52.

Gunersel, A. B., & Simpson, N. (2009). Improvement in writing and reviewing skills with Cali-brated Peer Review™. Interna-tional Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 3(2), 1–14.

Heise, E. A., Palmer-Julson, A., & Su, T. M. (2002).

Geological Society of America, Ab-

stracts with Programs, 34, A-345. McDermott, L. C. (1993). How we

teach and how students learn—a mismatch? American Journal of Physics, 61, 295–298.

Pelaez, N. J. (2002). Problem-based writing with peer review improves academic performance in physi-ology. Advances in Physiology Education, 26, 174–184.

Preacher, K. J. (2001). Calculation for the chi-square test: An interactive calculation tool for chi-square tests of goodness of fit and indepen-dence [Computer software]. Avail-able from http://quantpsy.org

Prichard, J. R. (2005). Writing to learn: An evaluation of the Cali-brated Peer Review™ program in two neuroscience courses. The Journal of Undergraduate Neuro-science Education, 4, A34–A39.

Robinson, R. (2001). An application to increase student reading and writing skills. The American Biol-ogy Teacher, 63, 474–480.

Russell, A. A., Chapman, O. L., & Wegner, P. A. (1998). Molecular science: Network-deliverable cur-ricula. Journal of Chemical Educa-tion, 75, 578–579.

Stokstad, E. (2001). Reading, writing, and chemistry are potent mix. Sci-ence, 293(5535), 1610.

Strong, K. E. (2008). CPR: Adopt-ing an out-of-discipline innova-tion. College Teaching Methods & Styles Journal, 4, 65–80.

Teacher Education. (2003). Review of Calibrated Peer Review. Available at http://merlot.org/merlot/view-CompositeReview.htm?id=150715

Walvoord, M .E., Hoefnagels, M. H., Gaffin, D. D., Chumchal, M. M., & Long, D. A. (2008). An analysis of Calibrated Peer Review (CPR) in a science lecture classroom. Journal of College Science Teach-ing, 37(4), 66–73.

Lauren Likkel ([email protected]) is a professor in the Physics and Astronomy Department at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire.


Two Paper Airplane Design Challenges: Customizing for Different Learning ObjectivesBy Daniel Z. Meyer and Allison Antink Meyer

The incorporation of scientific inquiry into college classrooms has steadily risen as faculty work to move away from exclusively didactic methods. One type of inquiry structure, the design task, produces a product rather than simply a conclusion. This offers students a context to apply their understanding of content in a tangible way that has particular appeal for the nontraditional student. This paper describes two examples of how a common, underlying design task—designing a paper airplane—was modified to meet the needs of two very different college science courses. Each had distinct curricular goals and populations of science students: a teacher education course for K–8 inservice teachers and a physics content course for nontraditional college students. The differences resulted in different pedagogical choices in the details of the activity. These cases serve to illustrate both important considerations in the design of this type of inquiry activity—design challenges—and how such activities can be used to meet differing educational goals.

T he purpose of this paper is to illustrate how the details of a design challenge can be ad-justed to match the pedagog-

ical needs of a particular course. We share two cases in which a common underlying design task—designing a paper airplane—was modified to meet the needs of two very differ-ent college science courses. Each had distinct curricular goals and was aimed at two very different popula-tions of science students. The activ-ity was first designed in a teacher education course for the purpose of developing understanding about sci-entific inquiry (National Research Council [NRC], 1996, 2000). It was then modified for a content course for nontraditional college students to support student learning of tradi-tional physics content. Overall, the activities influenced greater student involvement than traditional instruc-tion and were regarded positively and effective by the course instruc-tors.

Although inquiry has become a central focus of science education at the precollege level (NRC, 1996), the college science classroom continues to grapple with the role of inquiry as both a pedagogical tool and an instructional outcome. The inquiry addendum to the American National Science Education Standards (NRC, 2000) identifies the following as the essential features of classroom inquiry: (1) learner engages in sci-entifically oriented questions; (2) learner gives priority to evidence in responding to questions; (3) learner

formulates explanations from evi-dence; (4) learner connects explana-tion to scientific knowledge; and (5) learner communicates and justifies explanations. Creating the circum-stances in which these behaviors oc-cur, however, is challenging (Meyer & Avery, 2010).

One typical form of inquiry, the design challenge, has particular ap-peal. These activities are centered on an explicit assignment to produce a particular product—often a physi-cal object or possibly more abstract products such as procedures (e.g., land-use plans given certain envi-ronmental parameters). A familiar example to the physics classroom is the bridge-building contest in which students are asked to design and con-struct a bridge capable of withstand-ing a specific weight load. Design challenges are appealing because of their potential to balance open-ness and structure—a primary dif-ficulty in creating inquiry activities (Meyer & Avery, 2010). This article describes the pedagogical and logis-tical decisions that instructors must consider; simply asking students to make something does not auto-matically result in effective inquiry learning. These pedagogical choices are determined by the content and context of the classroom, including students’ previous experiences with science subject matter and the goals of instruction. The differences in audience and purpose meant simple insertion of the original activity into the new context would be inap-propriate.

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Why details matterThe importance of the details in the design of these inquiry experiences can be illuminated by considering what might happen without atten-tion to the details. Suppose students are simply given the task to design a paper airplane. The context of the problem has the potential for signifi-cant science content. Also, given that there are a multitude of possible out-comes, the design challenge format avoids reduction to a cookbook lab.

However, this openness is also a shortcoming. By being so open, any solution is permissible. There is no tension created over which arguments can be made. The use of empirical evidence and formation of scientific explanations and the questioning and communication of conclusions are unneeded, thus defeating the basic intention of inquiry activities. So design challenges must include more of a context to provide the perspective on judging various design proposals. Put differently, if students are going to be in the position of arguing that their design is better than another’s, there must be some meaning and basis to being “better.”

Inquiry—Teacher education caseGoalsThere were two goals for the use of a design challenge with the teacher education students. The first goal was to provide an experience that, along with several other activities, could serve as the focus for later ex-plicit discussion of scientific inquiry and nature of science. This meant having an investigation driven by questions, though not necessar-ily hypotheses; some ambiguity in procedures; potential for multiple interpretations of data; and conclu-sions supported by empirical data (Schwartz, Lederman, & Lederman, 2008; National Science Teachers Association [NSTA], 2004). It also provided a context for discussion about characteristics of scientific

knowledge such as its tentativeness, subjectivity, and empirical nature (Lederman, 2007; McComas, 2004; NSTA, 2000).

The second goal was to model design challenges specifically as a form of inquiry teaching. This meant attempting to include several common features of design challenges: a jigsaw structure (in which students divide into specialty groups to gain expertise in different areas, then regroup in design groups that have a representa-tive of each specialty); scaffolding the overall problem; and having sufficient tension between competing demands.

Needs and constraintsWe wanted to have the participants work with quantitative data, and therefore a quantitative goal for the airplane design was needed. The 17 students in the course, mostly el-ementary teachers, had relatively weak content backgrounds in sci-ence and mathematics and therefore a fairly straightforward, quantitative goal was used. Also because of the participants’ weak content back-grounds, some amount of structure for subdividing the problem was also needed. So it was necessary to develop a list of attributes of a paper airplane that participants would in-vestigate and be able to manipulate. (This went along with a desire to model using a jigsaw teaching strat-egy for the teachers.) For each attri-bute some guidance was necessary as to how to manipulate the attribute.

Besides providing a list of attri-butes as a means of subdividing the

problem, it was also necessary that these attributes have some amount of tension between them. If they cor-relate too well, an optimum solution might become too obvious and make any argumentation between partici-pants trivial. Parameters that had an obvious or one-sided solution would not be ideal. This also meant that the challenge and attributes were not independent decisions on the part of the instructor.

Last, because of the quantifiable goal, it was necessary to develop a standardized system to actually launch the airplanes. In a sense, this can be seen as part of the question of what the ultimate goal is. It represents part of the operationalization of that attribute.

Lesson designThe task for the teacher education version of the paper airplane design challenge was to design an airplane that would maximize the distance of flight—a straightforward, un-derstandable objective. It does not, however, have an obvious solution. Distance can, in a sense, be seen as a combination of hang time, speed, and straightness of flight—three characteristics that may work against one another.

The activity was structured as a jigsaw activity and took place across 2 two-and-a-half-hour course meetings. This meant that the class was initially divided into four specialty groups. Each group was given a variety of premade paper airplanes and asked to investigate an assigned attribute.

TABLE 1

Specialty group attributes and test planes.

Attribute Provided planes

a. Wing shape Eight planes: Four different shapes generally representing a spectrum of how wide of a delta shape; two sizes for each shape

b. Size Eight planes: The two most extreme shapes from the wing shape set; four different sizes for each shape

c. Launch angle Four planes: Two sizes and two shapes

d. Elevators Four planes: Two sizes and two shapes


FIGURE 1

Specialty group test planes.

(a) Wing shape

(b) Size

(c) Launch angle

(d) Elevators

a

c d

b

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Table 1 shows the attribute each group was assigned and a description of the planes they were given. Figure 1a–d shows pictures of the planes.

The models that were provided to each group gave students a start-ing place for their investigation. However, groups were also told that the instructor could make additional planes if requested. This provided a balance of structure and openness; students were given a base to work from but also the freedom and re-sponsibility to determine the process of their investigation. To encourage students to consider interactions among variables, not just the group’s target variable, each specialty group was given models that varied across their target variable and also in at least one other variable.

All groups were also provided with a common launch mechanism. This is shown in Figure 2. Each plane model had a narrow, standard length strip of lightweight, balsa wood set into the center fold to form a ridged spine. Planes were launched by pulling the rubber band back a standard distance (20 cm in this case).

Following investigations in spe-cialty groups, the students were reas-signed into design teams, and each design team had one representative from each specialty group. They were instructed to share the data and conclusions from their respective groups. Using this collaboration, each group designed what they argued was the optimum paper airplane design. Students were again encouraged to consider the interaction among vari-ables. This made it clear that they had to integrate the findings from each specialty group and could not simply add them together. This meant that there was potential for variation in the conclusions each group reached for their optimum design. These are shown in Figure 3.

How to standardize the launch of the planes proved to be one of the hardest features of the lesson to devel-op. Several other options were consid-

ered including launching each plane by hand (by a group member when testing the planes and the instructor when running the final competition), with some sort of defined parameters for the distance the launching hand moved before release. Ultimately, this proved too hard to standardize.

Several other attributes were also considered for variable parameters. Weight could have been adjustable by adding paper clips to the plane. The distance the rubber band was stretched could have been allowed to be changed. In both cases, these were not included out of concern that

FIGURE 3

Final plane designs by design groups.

FIGURE 2

Common launch mechanism provided to groups.


the data would be too one-sided and would not provide enough tension to be worthwhile.

Student responseThis activity was just one within an entire class dedicated to scientific inquiry and nature of science and inclusive of many inquiry activities intended to further their understand-ing of, and abilities related to, sci-entific practice. However, many stu-dents noted this particular experi-ence in their reflection assignments.

The following student’s comments came earlier in the investigation and although the comments demonstrate a misperception regarding the nature of an experiment versus other types of investigations, they do indicate an understanding of the tentative and sub-jective nature of scientific knowledge:

It was interesting to see the dif-ferent interpretations of airplanes that came out of groups of design-ers that were all part of the same groups. It was ultimately a blend of all the characteristics that allowed the farthest plane to win. It goes to show how social and cultural [sic] embedded even a simple experi-ment could have. In our combined groups, it was interesting to see how some members had a stron-ger opinion or voice or stronger convincing style that allowed their plane to sway to that design. The smaller airplanes groups for example must have had a member very convinced that a small size would make the plane fly farther. Thus, a smaller plane arose.

The following student connected the experience to the notion of subjec-tivity and variation in interpretation of data, as well as the social nature of knowledge construction:

Another aspect of that activity I found weird was that all the planes were so different. A narrow tip was the only feature that seemed to

be agreed to by all of the groups, well, that and the fact that all group launched at some type of angle whether it be 8 or 10 degrees. This demonstrated to me that interpre-tation of data is very important in science. All groups started out with the same data but we came to four different conclusions about which characteristics were best.

Content—General physics caseGoals There were three goals for the in-clusion of the paper airplane design challenge in the introductory physics course. Prior to this activity, students completed study of forces and mo-tion. This challenge was intended to (1) act as a context for a review of forces and force diagrams, (2) act as an introduction to lift, and (3) intro-duce aspects of inquiry.

Needs and constraintsAs a content course with a very dif-ference audience, this lesson was subjected to some very different con-straints. Unlike the education course, the intention was to have these stu-dents engage in an analysis of the actual dynamics in contrast to a fo-cus on the correlation between de-sign parameters and airplane perfor-mance. It is tempting to think that as a content-focused course, more free-dom is possible. In fact, the opposite is true. Because of the focus on par-ticular content—free-body diagrams and lift—more care was needed to ensure that the attributes participants attended to led to this focus and not to concepts outside the domain of study. For example, investigation of elevators would have involved rota-tional dynamics—beyond the scope of this course. (Arguably in a much more advanced course, more open-ness would have been the predomi-nate feature.)

Given that it was a more tradition-al, introductory course with specific content goals, there was also a need

for a more uniform focus of investi-gation on the part of each student. In other words, it would not work to have different students develop expertise in different aspects of the physics. Additionally, there were some needs shared with the education course. Students still needed an end goal that did not have an obvious solution, while still being appreciable. Students would also benefit from some amount of preliminary structure—an initial suggestion of issues to investigate. Finally, the interplay among these pa-rameters and the ultimate goal needed to create some tension that various solutions would attempt to resolve.

Lesson designThe activity in the content course had both a different challenge and a dif-ferent sequence of experiences. The 12 students were first presented with a variety of airplane designs (not unlike the wing-shape group in the teacher education class, but without the variety of size). They were asked to first make note of differences in design and also to make and justify predictions on how they would each fly. Part of this was prompting stu-dents to make free body diagrams showing the forces the planes would be subject to during flight.

Students launched the various models, using the same, standard launch device as the education course and recorded observations. They were then invited to redesign the air-planes. However, unlike the teacher education class, the challenge was to maximize flight time. Again, stu-dents were required to defend their proposals, including using free body diagrams. Finally, students tested their new models.

The objective of flight time encour-aged attention to both the lift force and air resistance. As a consequence, the activity generated data, observa-tions, and experience that would lay the groundwork for a more formal discussion of lift. In contrast, dis-tance might encourage an approach

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FIGURE 4

Students’ work describing forces on the plane.

that maximized reduction of air resis-tance. Because such a design would also minimize lift, such an experience would fail to raise the issue.

Student responseStudents’ work describing the forces on the planes served as an important check on student understanding. For example, a free body diagram such as that in Figure 4a indicates a lingering misconception about Newton’s First Law (as well as perhaps a simplis-tic view of air resistance). Figure 4b represents a better understanding of Newton’s First Law but no awareness of lift, and Figure 4c represents the target understanding.

Students’ observations about the differences among the airplanes were used to begin to build up a pattern to investigate lift. For example, students noted that larger planes (and therefore planes with larger wing area) tended to perform better.

ConclusionThere are a number of general prin-ciples for design challenges that are illuminated by these examples. First and foremost is having a meaningful goal. It must be something that is un-derstandable to students as a question, whereas the solution is not straight-forward. Both of these examples had a very easily defined goal, though that is not necessary.

Although having an understandable goal, each challenge, along with the

parameters that go into it, created a problem space that involved tension. That is, a solution was not readily ap-parent, and disagreement on solutions was possible and even likely.

Each lesson provided some sort of initial momentum for students. In the teacher-education case, the problem was formally broken down for the stu-dents. In the content course case, pro-totypes and initial trials were provided.

The differences between the activi-ties are also important. The goals of the activity in the teacher education course centered on inquiry, both as a learning objective and a pedagogical technique. The contention reflected in students’ discussion and final designs illustrates the activity’s success in producing the desired experience. The goals of the activity in the content course centered on the review of forces and introduc-tion of lift. Students’ analysis in Figure 4 and attention to the size of the wing illustrate how the details of the activ-ity succeeded in guiding students’ attention to specific physics concepts. These two lessons demonstrate that the details of a design challenge play a significant role in directing where students’ attention is focused and therefore how each lesson meets its pedagogical goals.

Ultimately, our aim in this paper has not been simply to share two ver-sions of a design challenge, but rather to promote attention to the details in the use of design challenges. The suc-cesses perceived by the two course

instructors, the authors in this case, stem from utilizing the details of each challenge to create the desired educa-tional context. This is the larger lesson: The details of how a design challenge is framed and conducted can and must be adjusted to support the pedagogical needs of the class. n

ReferencesLederman, N. G. (2007). Nature of sci-

ence: Past, present and future. In S. K. Abell & N. G. Lederman (Eds.), Handbook of research on science edu-cation (pp. 831–880). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

McComas, W. (2004). Keys to teaching the nature of science. The Science Teacher, 71(9), 24–27.

Meyer, D. Z., & Avery, L. A. (2010). Why inquiry is inherently difficult . . . and some ways to make it easier. The Science Educator, 19, 26–32.

National Research Council. (1996). National science education standards. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

National Research Council. (2000). Inquiry and the national science edu-cation standards. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

National Science Teachers Association. (2000). NSTA position statement: The nature of science. Arlington, VA: Author.

National Science Teachers Association. (2004). NSTA position statement: Scientific inquiry. Arlington, VA: Author.

Schwartz, R., Lederman, N. G., & Lederman, J. S. (2008). An instru-ment designed to assess the views of scientific inquiry: The VOSI question-naire. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the National Association of Research in Science Teaching, Baltimore, MD.

Daniel Z. Meyer ([email protected]) is an assistant professor and Allison Antink Meyer is a doctoral candidate, both in the Department of Mathematics and Science Education at the Illinois Institute of Tech-nology in Chicago, Illinois.


Looking Back to Move Ahead: How Students Learn Geologic Time by Predicting Future Environmental ImpactsBy Chen Zhu, George Rehrey, Brooke Treadwell, and Claudia C. Johnson

This Scholarship of Teaching and Learning project discusses the effectiveness of using distance metaphor-building activities along with a case study exam to help undergraduate nonscience majors understand and apply geologic time. Using action research, we describe how a scholarly teacher integrated previously published and often-used teaching practices in order to address a bottleneck in student learning. By using the decoding the disciplines model, educative assessment, and the case-study method, we suggest an integrated way to scaffold learning for students with little science background. None of the individual methods we adopted are new, but we suggest that integrating these three methods with all the other typical opportunities students have to address the learning of geologic time over the semester is noteworthy. Evidence of student learning was triangulated from three different class assessments. These assessments indicate students’ self-reported confidence in using the geologic time scale improved over the course of the semester, although the final exam analysis showed somewhat mixed results in their actual ability to do so.

In many introductory geology class-es, the concept of geologic time prevents overall success in scientif-ic reasoning. In their work on bar-

riers to disciplinary ways of knowing, Pace and Middendorf (2004) described such difficulties as a bottleneck—the place in a course where a large per-centage of students get stuck in their learning and are unable to do the type of thinking required to make the com-plex cognitive moves required of an expert within that discipline. A study by Hawkins (1978) also suggested that students’ ability to understand and ap-ply geologic time facilitates their com-prehension of more complex scientific theories. In this article we rely on the definitions of Anderson, Krathwohl, and Bloom (2001) for the terms under-stand and apply. In their taxonomy of educational objectives, a student must be able to understand a concept before he or she can apply it to a problem.

Over the past three decades, scholars and educators have sought to determine which methods are more effective for teaching geologic time. During that time, a multitude of metaphor-building activities have been used to help students visualize the immensity of geologic time. However, these activities typically rely on the use of past events unrelated to students’ contemporary lives, limit-ing the application of geologic time to relevant, real-world problem solving.

In her chapter “Scholarly Teaching and the Scholarship of Teaching,” Richlin (2001) distinguished between a disciplinary teaching, scholarly teach-ing, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. Accordingly, a scholarly teacher is a well-informed practitioner of discipline-specific teaching litera-ture who frequently adopts and adapts strategies and teaching interventions to his or her own teaching and who uses classroom assessments to collect

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Looking Back to Move Ahead

evidence of student learning. This definition is widely accepted within the international scholarship of teaching and learning community.

On the basis of our experience with the decoding the disciplines model, we decided that student suc-cess would be judged as students’ ability to apply the concept of geo-logic time to real-world problems. Throughout the semester, we studied how students applied the concept of geologic time when asked to take a scientifically reasoned stand on local environmental issues. According to Wiggins (1998), educative assess-ments require students to think and perform tasks like an expert within that given discipline. This makes educative assessment an appropri-ate choice when evaluating learning activities designed to overcome bottlenecks. Additionally, such assessments ask students to look forward to solve problems instead of looking backward to demonstrate what they remember. To assess stu-dents’ improved confidence level and ability to understand and apply geologic time, we triangulated data from a pre/postclass knowledge

survey, a postlab survey, and a final essay exam.

The learning of geologic time was framed within two prominent environmental issues: the potential disposal of high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain and the issue of global warming in relation to an on-campus, coal-fired energy plant. The concept of geologic time is fundamen-tal to understanding the complexities of these two societal problems. We anticipated that students would view these issues as important in their lives and hence become actively involved in seeking solutions. Their engagement in this process might also be attributed to the unresolved and sometimes emotionally charged nature of these issues.

Distance metaphor-building activi-ties and case studies are not new to the teaching of geology. However, in our approach we (1) identified an important bottleneck in this course (geologic time), (2) designed learning activities that helped students over-come that barrier, and (3) aligned an educative final assessment with that bottleneck in order to create a richer and more meaningful learning expe-

rience for nonscience majors. Hence this project represents the intersection of theoretical and applied models within the scholarship of teaching and learning with a view toward address-ing students’ difficulty with learning geologic time.

Difficulty of comprehending geologic timeGeologic time spans the 4.6-billion-year history of the planet Earth. The sheer immensity of this time pe-riod, relative to the human lifespan, makes it difficult for most students to fully comprehend it. In the con-text of geologic time, the past events that people discuss in daily life or learn about in school only occurred in the very recent past. For example, all human civilization has existed within the last 0.0001% of Earth’s history. However, as suggested by Hawkins (1978), attaining an under-standing of geologic time is an im-portant pursuit given that this con-cept is central not only to geology, but also to evolution. The concept is also instrumental in solving envi-ronmental problems such as climate change and nuclear waste disposal. It

FIGURE 1

The last seven questions of the knowledge survey asked students to rate their confidence in their ability to answer questions about geologic time.

Test questions Not confident

Somewhat confident

Very confident

14. Identify which geological era we live in. 1 2 3 4 5

15. Write an essay explaining Earth’s greenhouse gas effect and which major greenhouse gasses are playing a role.

1 2 3 4 5

16. Identify how far back we need to look into the geological past to determine if human activity is causing climate change. Why is this significant?

1 2 3 4 5

17. Draw an illustration of the cycle of glacial and interglacial periods.

1 2 3 4 5

18. Explain the relationship between the quaternary time scale and the geological time scale for Earth.

1 2 3 4 5

19. Explain how scientists predict the future safety of nuclear waste disposal and what factors they must consider.

1 2 3 4 5

20. Using quantitative analysis, determine how many years we should guarantee that high-level nuclear waste will be safely buried at Yucca Mountain.

1 2 3 4 5


is important for nonscience majors to become informed citizens, as we col-lectively make decisions on address-ing both of these pressing concerns.

Over the last three decades, the teaching and learning of geologic time has been investigated at the el-ementary (Ault, 1982; Schoon, 1992), high school (Dodick & Orion, 2003; Hidalgo & Otero, 2004), and col-lege level (Catley & Novick, 2009; Libarkin, Kurdziel, & Anderson, 2007). Scholars have examined a variety of issues related to the teach-ing and learning of geologic time. For instance, some researchers have focused specifically on individuals’ common misconceptions of geo-logic time (Schoon & Boone, 1998), whereas others have examined factors that may inhibit students from achiev-ing an adequate understanding of this concept (DeLaughter, Stein, Stein, & Bain, 1998). Educators have proposed using various student-learning ac-tivities to facilitate comprehension of geologic time. Most of these applied articles have suggested analogy or metaphor-based activities as an ef-fective way for students to visualize the magnitude of geologic time (Pyle, 2007). Richardson (2000) and Hemler

and Repine (2002) have advocated for equating geologic time to a certain physical distance, whereas Everitt, Good, and Pankiewicz (1996) along with Nieto-Obregon (2001) have sug-gested activities that allow students to translate geologic time into a time span they are more familiar with, such as one calendar year. Ritger and Cummins (1991) proposed that stu-dents be given the freedom to choose their own metaphor for geologic time, increasing the relevance of the activ-ity to their lives. All these activities ask students to compare the time scale to a familiar distance, volume, mass, or time period so that they will be more likely to grasp the brevity of human existence on Earth relative to the enormity of geologic time.

Demographic data and assessment methodsWe conducted this study at a public research university in the Midwest, with 37 undergraduate students en-rolled in a 17-week geology course, Environmental Geology. Students had a limited background in both geology and the sciences in general. For 73% of the students, it was their first undergraduate science course.

On the first day of class, 49% of students reported knowing “almost nothing” about geology, with a mere 8% of students indicating that they were highly confident in their under-standing of geologic time.

Students self-reported their con-fidence level in using geologic time to solve problems by completing an anonymous knowledge survey on the first and last day of class. The postsurvey was taken on the last day of class after students had completed all parts of the final exam. Students were asked to rate their level of confi-dence in solving problems concerning environmental geology by responding to 20 questions that might appear on the final exam. Of those 20 questions, the last 7 concerned geologic time (Figure 1). The preclass knowledge survey established baseline data to measure the change in students’ confidence in solving problems that involved geologic time. A total of 20 students completed the presurvey and 19 completed the postsurvey.

Knowledge surveys measure stu-dents’ perceptions of their ability to solve problems, not their actual abil-ity. In their study on the validity of pre/postknowledge surveys, Nuhfer

FIGURE 2

Students were asked how much the distance metaphor-building activity helped them with the concept of geologic time.

Strongly disagree

Agree Strongly agree

1. The lab helped me understand geological time. 1 2 3 4 5

2. The lab helped me visualize the immensity of the geological time scale.

1 2 3 4 5

3. The lab helped me relate geological time to current real-world issues and the search for solutions.

1 2 3 4 5

4. The lab helped me answer the homework question about burying nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain.

1 2 3 4 5

5. The lab helped me answer the homework question about human activity and global warming.

1 2 3 4 5

6. The lab helped me understand the time frame for the cycle of glacial and interglacial periods.

1 2 3 4 5

7. The lab helped me see the relationship between the current geological era we are living in and the geological time scale.

1 2 3 4 5

57Vol. 41, No. 3, 2012


and Knipp (2003) found that very few students display gross overconfidence when self-reporting. They concluded that such “aberrations contributed by occasional individuals never affect a class average in a significant way” (p. 66). Thus, we averaged student scores to draw conclusions about their improved understanding and applica-tion of geologic time.

A second assessment was an anon-ymous survey that students completed following a two-hour lab (Figure 2). In the lab, student teams created distance metaphors to demonstrate the immensity of geologic time. This was accomplished by asking students to demarcate rolls of toilet paper in order to visualize the immensity of the major geologic periods, with each square of toilet paper equal to 20 mil-lion years. Next, students used a roll of paper towels to mark a series of events in the past million and future million years, with each perforation equal to 10,000 years. Events one million years in the future included global warming and the next ice age. One million years is also the proposed performance period for high-level nuclear waste disposal. After com-pleting the activity, students were asked to estimate the number of years that would be required to ensure safe burial of nuclear waste at the potential Yucca Mountain repository site.

Using the Likert-type rating scale, the postlab survey results indicated that students believed these activities helped them understand and visualize the immensity of geologic time and its relationship to contemporary environ-mental issues (Figure 3).

Finally, we determined how well students could apply the concept of geologic time by evaluating their abil-ity to solve a case-study problem in an open-book, take-home portion of the final exam. The exam question asked each student to write a speech on be-half of a local student environmental group, explaining geologic time in layman’s terms as a way of supporting the claim that anthropogenic activities

are the major contributor to global warming and hence an important reason why the university should retire its coal-fired plant (Appendix A). Students were evaluated on the basis of how well they met each of the following criteria:

• Describe the immensity of geo-logic time.

• Use scientific data to describe the link between the CO2 rise, global warming, and human activity.

• Use graphs to argue that global warming won’t inhibit the next ice age.

• Identify at least two additional examples of contemporary envi-ronmental issues that require an understanding of geologic time.

It is worth noting that we chose this topic because our university cur-rently uses a coal-fired plant and this topic is part of a real, ongoing dialog between students and administrators about sustainability on our campus. The exam question was scored using a grading rubric created to determine how well students met these criteria (Appendix B).

Contextualizing geologic time Our choice of topics was guided by research that has indicated stu-dent learning increases with per-ceived relevance to the students’ lives (Frymier & Shulman, 1995; Frymier, Shulman, & Houser, 1996). Global warming is a concept that most students are familiar with; not only is it a prominent feature in U.S. secondary school science cur-ricula, but it has also garnered wide-spread attention in the news as well as in popular media. Furthermore, a recent survey of 435 undergradu-ates at our university indicated that 69.8% of students are at least some-what concerned about global warm-ing (Hanks, Odom, Roedl, & Blevis, 2008), suggesting that students see global warming as relevant to their lives. Also, the fact that the students chose to enroll in a course entitled Environmental Geology may have increased the likelihood that these students in particular view global warming as personally relevant. Therefore, given both its familiarity and relevance, global warming is an appropriate issue through which

FIGURE 3

Students were asked a series of questions about how the lab helped them to understand geologic time, visualize its immensity, and relate the time scale to real-world problems. We also asked them if the lab helped them to better understand the glacial and interglacial time periods. DGT = deep geologic time.


geologic time can be effectively taught.

Results A comparison of the averaged pre/postknowledge survey scores shows a 191% increase in the average of the student self-reported confidence val-ues on understanding geologic time and its importance in environmental geology between the beginning and the end of the course (Figure 4). The postsurvey was administered after the final exam. Prior to the start of the class, the overall average confi-dence score for items related to geo-logic time was 2.13 out of 5. On the last day of class, the average confi-dence score for the same items was 4.06. A two-tailed t-test with unequal variances on the increased confi-dence score of +1.93 yielded a p < .0001. The 95% confidence level for the 1.93 score is 40%. We view this as a significant change in students’ self-reported confidence in under-standing and applying geologic time.

Our final assessment for student learning was based on the criteria used to grade the case-study exam (Appendix B) and described in the methods section. Using those criteria, 65% of students were able to demon-strate some basic understanding of

geologic time, whereas 45% showed a good understanding of the concept. More than 7% of the entire class went into considerable depth about why geologic time is important to understanding other environmental issues. And 7.5% of the students ful-filled all of the criteria and then went on to describe in detail why geologic time is important to a variety other contemporary environmental issues.

Given the weak science background of the vast majority of students and the fact that only 8% of students felt highly confident in their knowledge of geologic time at the beginning of the course, we are encouraged by these final exam scores, which demonstrate that well over half the class completed the semester with a foundational un-derstanding of geologic time.

However, the discrepancy between their high-confidence scores on the postknowledge survey and the final exam is reason for concern. One reason for this discrepancy could be that the knowledge survey does not ask students if they could solve a case-study problem on the basis of the grading criteria. As an action research project, these are the types of things that become uncovered during the research. Our intention is to address the discrepancies between the survey

and exam scores in future classes.This study is not making a claim

of causality between any of the indi-vidual activities and assessment we used in class and the students’ ability to understand and apply geologic time by the end of the semester. We fully appreciate that students worked with the concept of geologic time through-out the semester and in a number of different ways. In fact, that is the point. This article outlines a process for uncovering difficulties in student learning, using student self-reported confidence scores as an additional tool to gauge student learning, and possible ways for designing addi-tional activities that may help students overcome barriers.

However, on the basis of our ex-perience teaching nonscience students in the past, and the fact that 65% of these students did provide evidence that they understood geologic time, we intend to build on this work and to use lab and case study in the future. We also plan to add an additional metaphor-building activity to the lab, asking students to create their own visual depiction of the immensity of geologic time. We will also modify the survey questions in order to align them more closely with the criteria in the case-study exam. Finally, we plan to give students a chance to practice working with the case-study method prior to the final exam. In addition, this study does not address students’ ability to transfer problem-solving skills to a different discipline, course, or problem set, nor does it address teaching geologic time to nonscience majors in classes of a much larger size. Both of these issues warrant further study.

ConclusionThis study discussed the integration of the decoding the discipline model, distance metaphor-building exercis-es, and the use of prominent environ-mental issues as a way to scaffold the learning of geologic time for non-science majors. This course was de-

FIGURE 4

Pre/postknowledge survey results. A two tailed t-test with unequal variances on the increased confidence score of +1.93 yielded p < .0001.

Knowledge survey question

Presurvey SD Postsurvey SD Change SD

Q14 2.27 1.06 4.26 0.74 1.99 1.29

Q15 2.38 1.07 4.39 0.57 2.01 1.21

Q16 1.86 1.21 3.91 0.88 2.05 1.50

Q17 1.19 0.46 3.87 1.08 2.68 1.17

Q18 2.62 1.17 4.22 0.72 1.60 1.37

Q19 2.38 1.24 4.00 0.72 1.62 1.43

Q20 2.19 1.31 3.78 0.93 1.59 1.61

Total average score

2.13 4.06 1.93*

59Vol. 41, No. 3, 2012


signed to deepen student understand-ing of geologic time and to use this understanding to solve real-world problems. By keeping geologic time in the context of familiar environ-mental issues, students engaged in learning a difficult scientific concept. Qualitative analysis of the final exam indicated that 65% of students had a foundational understanding of geo-logic time by the end of the semester and that generally speaking, students were more confident in their ability to understand and apply geologic time to real-world problems. n

ReferencesAnderson, L. W., Krathwohl, D. R., &

Bloom, B. S. (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of bloom’s taxonomy of edu-cational objectives. New York, NY: Longman.

Ault, C. R. (1982). Time in geological explanations as perceived by el-ementary school students. Journal of Geological Education, 30, 304–309.

Catley, K. M., & Novick, L. R. (2009).

Digging deep: Exploring college students’ knowledge of macroevolu-tionary time. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 46, 311–332.

DeLaughter, J. E., Stein, S., Stein, C., & Bain, K. (1998). Preconceptions about earth science among students in an introductory course. EOS, 79, 429–432.

Dodick, J., & Orion, N. (2003). Measuring student understanding of geological time. Science Education, 87, 708–731.

Everitt, C. L., Good, S. C., & Pankiewicz, P. R. (1996). Conceptualizing the inconceivable by depicting the magnitude of geo-logical time with a yearly planning calendar. Journal of Geoscience Education, 44, 290–293.

Frymier, A. B., & Shulman, G. M. (1995). “What’s in it for me?”: Increasing content relevance to enhance students’ motivation. Communication Education, 44, 40–50.

Frymier, A. B., Shulman, G. M., & Houser, M. (1996). The development

of a learner empowerment measure. Communication Education, 45, 181–199.

Hanks, K., Odom, W., Roedl, D., & Blevis, E. (2008). Sustainable mil-lennials: Attitudes towards sustain-ability and the material effects of interactive technologies. Paper pre-sented at the conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Florence, Italy.

Hawkins, D. (1978). Critical barriers to science learning. Outlook, 29, 3–23.

Hemler, D., & Repine, T. (2002). Reconstructing the geologic time-line. The Science Teacher, 69(4), 32–35.

Hidalgo, A. J., & Otero, J. (2004). An analysis of the understanding of geological time by students at sec-ondary and post-secondary level. International Journal of Science Education, 26, 845–857.

Libarkin, J. C., Kurdziel, J. P., & Anderson, S. W. (2007). College stu-dent conceptions of geological time and the disconnect between ordering

Appendix A: Final Exam QuestionCase-Based Scenario Exam: Geological Time Scale and Contemporary Environmental Issues

ScenarioIndiana University currently uses a coal-fired plant as a source of energy and to heat the campus. Recently you joined the Environ-mental and Sustainability Initiate (ELSI) at Indiana University. ELSI has decided that they want the university to replace its coal-fired plant with a renewable energy source, and because you have taken a class in environmental geology, they have asked you to assist in their Student Awareness Campaign. Specifically they would like you to give a presentation at the next Student Government Asso-ciation meeting and to persuade the Student Government Association members that rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide is directly related to the burning of fossil fuel.

Exam QuestionYour task is to write the text of your presentation. The presentation must use sound reasoning and scientific evidence to defend the belief that anthropogenic activities are a contributor to global warming and hence an important reason why Indiana University should retire its coal-fired plant.

The text of your presentation will be evaluated and graded upon the extent to which you:1. Explain the immensity of geological time and the variations of CO2 concentrations and glacial and interglacial cycles within the

Quaternary.2. Demonstrate through the use of scientific reasoning (observations, theory, experiments, the use of evidence and facts) that the

CO2 increase is likely beyond natural variability.3. Use graph(s) and an accompanying narrative to tackle the misconception that global warming is a good thing because we are in

the warm period of the glacial and interglacial cycles within the Quaternary period and heading into the next ice age. 4. Identify at least two additional examples of contemporary environmental issues that require an understanding of the geologi-

cal time scale. Explain how understanding the immensity of geological time is necessary to address the issues and resolve the problems. Accurately cite all resources.


Appendix B: Grading Rubric for Exam QuestionEssay question criteria 1 point 3 points 6 points

The essay clearly defines geologic time (GT).

GT is mentioned but is not defined or is incorrectly defined.

GT is defined but some aspects of the definition remain vague or somewhat unclear.

GT is defined clearly and in detail.

The essay links the variations of CO2 concentrations over the course of geologic time to human activity.

The CO2 variations are not explained or explained inaccurately.The CO2 variations are not linked to human activity.The concept of geologic time is not connected with CO2 variation.

The CO2 variations are explained but lacks exact CO2 readings or location and time of data collections.Weak link between CO2 variations and human activity.

The CO2 variations are explained accurately with exact CO2 readings and location and time of data collections.Details support validity of the measurements.CO2 variations and human activity are accurately linked.

The essay explains why global warming won’t inhibit the next ice age, using geologic time as part of the argument.

Explanation of why global warming won’t inhibit the next ice age is inaccurate.GT is not accurately discussed in connection with global warming.Glacial and interglacial cycles within the Quaternary are not explained.

Explanation of why global warming won’t inhibit the next ice age is accurate but lacks names of GT periods or dates/lengths of GT periods. Explanation of names, dates, and lengths of GT periods somewhat support the argument.Glacial and inter-glacial cycles within the Quaternary are cited but don’t support the argument.

GT is effectively used to support the argument.Explanation of why global warming won’t inhibit the next ice age supports the argument, is accurate and includes names, dates, and lengths of GT periods. Explanation of glacial and inter-glacial cycles within the Quaternary accurately support the argument.

The essay identifies at least two contemporary environmental issues and explains how an understanding of geologic time is necessary to address these issues.

Contemporary issues are cited but not discussed in relation to GT or are not the appropriate issues.

Appropriate issues are cited. Explanation of why GT is necessary to address these issues remains somewhat unclear.

Appropriate issues are cited. Explanation of why geological time is necessary to address these issues is clear and detailed.

Note: This rubric was used to determine how well students understood and applied geologic time in the case study. Scoring: 20–24 = excellent, 18–23 = good, 14–23 = basic.

and scale. Journal of Geoscience Education, 55, 413–422.

Nieto-Obregon, J. (2001). Geologic time scales, maps, and the chro-noscalimeter. Journal of Geoscience Education, 49, 25–29.

Nuhfer, E., & Knipp, D. (2003). The knowledge survey: A tool for all rea-sons. To Improve the Academy, 21, 59–78.

Pace, D., & Middendorf, J. (Eds.). (2004). Decoding the disciplines: Helping students learn disciplinary ways of thinking. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 2004(98).

Pyle, C. (2007). Teaching the time: Physical geography in four dimen-sions. Teaching Geography, 32(3), 121–123.

Richardson, R. M. (2000). Geologic time (clothes) line. Journal of Geoscience Education, 48, 584.

Richlin, L. (2001). Scholarly teach-ing and the scholarship of teaching. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 2001(86), 57–68.

Ritger, S. D., & Cummins, R. H. (1991). Using student-created metaphors to comprehend geologic time. Journal of Geological Education, 39, 9–11.

Schoon, K. J. (1992). Students’ alterna-tive conceptions of earth and space. Journal of Geological Education, 40, 209–214.

Schoon, K. J., & Boone, W. J. (1998). Self-efficacy and alternative concep-tions of science preservice elemen-tary teachers. Science Education, 82,

553–568.Wiggins, G. P. (1998). Educative as-

sessment: Designing assessments to inform and improve student perfor-mance. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Chen Zhu is a professor in the Depart-ment of Geological Sciences, George Rehrey ([email protected]) is a principal instructional consultant with the Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning, Brooke Treadwell is a doc-toral candidate in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Stud-ies, and Claudia C. Johnson is an associ-ate professor in the Department of Geo-logical Sciences, all at Indiana University, Bloomington.


Journal of College Science Teaching Call for Papers

The Journal of College Science Teaching (JCST), an award-win-ning peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary periodical published by the National Science Teachers Association, invites the submission of original manuscripts reporting innovations or investigations in the teaching of science at the college level. Successful general submission manuscripts may report interdisciplinary efforts or be of a sufficiently broad nature to be of interest to those centered in related disciplines. Manuscripts reporting innovations or collaborations leading to enhancements in college science learning and teaching are of particular interest to JCST.

Other topics of interest include, but are by no means limited to, the following:

• Newapproachestotheassessmentofstudentlearning• Uniqueprogramsordepartmentalstructures• Novelcollaborationsbetweenschoolsordepartments• Collaborationswiththosebeyondthecollegeenvironment• Professionaldevelopmentforcollegesciencefaculty• Genderanddiversityissuesinthecollegescienceclassroom• Undergraduateresearchexperiencesandlearning

outcomes• Innovativeuseoftechnologyintheclassroomorlaboratory• Onlinecoursedevelopment,implementation,and

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Column SubmissionsJCSTregularlypublishesaseriesofcolumnsthatfocusonspe-cific aspects of college science teaching.

Case Studies: Dr. Clyde Freeman Herreid, Director of theNationalCenterforCaseStudyTeachinginScience,editstheCase Studies column published in JCST. The column pub-lishes original articles on innovations in case study teaching, assessment of the method, as well as case studies themselves along with teaching notes for classroom instruction. All mate-rial is peer-reviewed in a double-blind process. Submissions should be limited to 2,500 words and submitted directly to [email protected].

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Submissionsarelimitedto3,000wordsexclusiveoftables,fig-ures, and references. Submissions reporting on investigations or those that review other literature will be double-blind peer reviewed. Editorial submissions will be assessed for their level of novel contribution. Accepted editorials will be designated as such (and therefore nonpeer reviewed) in the journal.

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Unlikeothercolumnsandfeaturearticles ineach issue, sub-missions to Point of View are not peer-reviewed. The FieldEditor chooses to publish submissions based upon their relevancy, and upon the level of potential contribution to the conversation on teaching and learning in college-level science. Submissions should be limited to 900 words and sub-mitted directly to our electronic submission system (http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/nsta) with an indication that the manuscriptistobeconsideredforthePointofViewcolumn.

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CASE STUDY

Stereochemistry of Drug Action: Case Studies With Enantiomers By Jessica L. Epstein

Case studyIn 1960, a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) medical re-viewer named Dr. Francis Kelsey was asked to evaluate a drug that most people thought was harm-less. The drug was thalidomide. Although she was pressured by the manufacturer to quickly approve a drug already in widespread use in the rest of the world, Dr. Kelsey found the clinical reports more on the nature of testimonials rather

T his case study exercise with optical isomers reinforces newly learned material on stereochemistry and intro-

duces students to the interface be-tween chemistry and pharmacology. Each student is asked to research the stereoselectivity of a pharmacologi-cally active compound containing a chiral center (Table 1). Students write an individual summary, answering a list of questions. The students are then placed in groups with others working on related compounds to present their findings orally to the class.

ObjectivesOn completion of the case study, students should be able to do the fol-lowing:

• understand stereochemistry and stereoselectivity,

• distinguish between a single enan-tiomer and racemic mixture,

• apply the lock-and-key model of enzyme/receptor action,

• identify a chiral center in a mol-ecule,

• apply the Cahn-Ingold-Prelog system to determine the R- or S- designation of molecules,

• begin to understand the interface between organic chemistry and pharmacology (the study of how drugs interact with the body), and

• gain further exposure to the pro-cess of science.

Classroom managementThis case study exercise is introduced

at the end of a series of lectures and exercises on stereochemistry, includ-ing a laboratory experiment on the separation of enantiomers and polar-imetry. Two case studies are present-ed at the end of the material, includ-ing the stories of thalidomide and citalopram/escitalopram. Students are then given a list of optically ac-tive compounds (Table 1) and en-couraged to choose a compound that interests them. Groups are selected by the instructor with two to four students working on compounds in a related therapeutic area.

Out-of-class workOut-of-class work includes both in-dividual work and group work, as follows:

• Individualwork: Students re-search their compound outside of class using the provided web links and the school library. Each

student compiles a written report on his or her compound. Students are encouraged to address spe-cific questions.

• Groupwork: Groups of students working on related compounds develop an oral presentation. Presentations are limited to 10 minutes and completed during an open laboratory period in order to afford sufficient time.

AssessmentStudents are assessed by their indi-vidual written summaries and par-ticipation in the oral presentation. These case studies give students an opportunity to connect stereo-chemistry with a pharmacological compound that interests them per-sonally. Typically, students choose compounds relevant to themselves or a family member and can connect personally with the relevance of ste-reochemistry.

than the results of well-designed and executed studies (Bren, 2001). She was concerned that the drug had not been adequately tested, so she cited the need for further study and effectively forestalled the ap-proval. She kept a dangerous drug off the market and forever changed the way drugs are tested, evalu-ated, and introduced in the United States and other countries (Botting, 2002).

65Vol. 41, No. 3, 2012

TABLE 1

Optically active drugs marketed as a racemic mixture or as a single enantiomer compound.

Name Therapeutic area Single enantiomer?

Cardiovascular

Zocor (simvastatin Lowers cholesterol Yes

Pravachol (pravastatin) Lowers cholesterol Yes

Diovan (valsartin) Lowers blood pressure Yes

Central nervous system

Paxil (paroxetine) SSRI Yes

Zoloft (sertraline) SSRI Yes

Celexa (citalopram) SSRI Racemic

Lexapro (escitalopram) SSRI Yes

Cymbalta (duloxetine) SSRI Yes

Prozac (fluoxetine) SSRI Racemic

ADHD

Ritalin (methylphenidate) ADHD Racemic

Focalin (d-methylyphenidate) ADHD Yes

Adderall (amphetamine, 2 forms) ADHD Yes/Racemic

Narcotic

Morphine Narcotic/pain relief Yes

Methadone Pain relief, antiaddiction Racemic

R-methadone Pain relief, antiaddiction Yes

Levomethorphan Narcotic/pain relief Yes

Dextromethorphan Cough suppressant Yes

Respiratory

Zyrtec (certirizine) Antihistamine Racemic

Xusal (levocetiricine) Antihistamine Yes

Albuterol Asthma/COPD Racemic

Levalbuterol Asthma/COPD Yes

Other

Plavix (clopidogrel) Prevents blood clots Yes

Imovane (zopiclone) Insomnia Racemic

Lunesta (eszopiclone) Insomnia Yes

Nexium (esomeprazole) Acid reflux Yes

Prilosec (omeprazaole) Acid reflux Racemic

Tamiflu (oseltamivir) Antiviral Yes

Note: Some drugs were first marketed as racemic mixtures and, after the patent expired, remarketed as a single enantiomer with the claim of greater efficacy and reduced toxicity. This process is called chiral switching (Rouhi, 2003). In some cases a racemic mixture presents a better drug because the combination of the active and inactive enantiomers allows for a smoother climb and decline of drug effectiveness. SSRI = selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor; ADHD = attention deficit hyperactivity disorder; COPD = chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.


CASE STUDY

Thalidomide (sold from 1957 to 1961) was initially prescribed as a tranquilizer and painkiller. It was later found to be an effective antiemetic (antinausea) drug and was subse-quently prescribed to pregnant women for morning sickness. In 1957 it was sold over the counter in Germany, and by 1960 it was sold throughout Europe and in many other countries. The de-veloper (West German pharmaceuti-cal company, Chemie Grunenthal) claimed it was nonaddictive, caused no hangover, and was safe for preg-nant women (Bren, 2001).

European physicians soon began reporting a disturbing phenomenon. A large number of women were giv-ing birth to babies with severe birth defects. Some had abnormally short limbs. Others had malformed inter-nal organs or eye and ear defects. In November of 1961, a German pediatrician, Widukind Lenz, deter-mined that thalidomide caused these birth defects. On questioning his patients, Lenz found that 50 percent of the mothers who had given birth to children with birth defects had taken thalidomide in the first trimes-ter of pregnancy. Lenz warned the manufacturer about the dangers of

FIGURE 1

The structure of thalidomide. The enantiomers of thalidomide have different effects. However, once inside the human body, the enantiomers readily interconvert. For example, a fraction of pure (R) thalidomide will convert to the teratogenic (S) enantiomer once inside the human body.

thalidomide. Ten days later, German health authorities pulled the drug from the market (Rouhi, 2005).

More than 10,000 children in 46 countries were born with severe limb and other deformities as a consequence of maternal thalidomide use. The dam-age in the United States was small by comparison, but no less devastating to those impacted. Unfortunately, the manufacturer had distributed thalido-mide tablets to more than 1,000 doctors throughout the United States on what was called an investigational basis. These doctors gave thalidomide to nearly 20,000 patients, several hundred of whom were pregnant (Bren, 2001).

Awareness of the stereoselectivity of drug action has intensified since the thalidomide tragedies of the 1960s. Researchers later discovered that only one enantiomer of thalidomide causes the teratogenicity (Figure 1). Unfortunately, even the safe isomer can be converted to the teratogenic enantiomer once inside the human body. So in the case of thalidomide, this knowledge would not have led to a better pharmacologic agent for the treatment of morning sickness (Rouhi, 2003). However, more recent stud-ies have suggested that thalidomide

offers promise for the treatment of a type of cancer called multiple my-eloma (Bennett & Cornely, 2001).

One of the more difficult concepts for beginning organic chemistry stu-dents to grasp is the subject of stereo-chemistry. Stereochemistry includes chirality, enantiomers, diastereomers, optical activity, and the resolution of enantiomers. Although complex and subtle, stereochemistry is relevant in many aspects of biochemistry, phar-macology, medicine, drug discovery, and the FDA-approval process. The subject of stereochemistry is at the interface between organic chemistry and biochemistry. Students are typi-cally introduced to enantiomers in or-ganic chemistry and then learn about essential optically active metabolites (Dinan & Yee, 2004) when they take biochemistry.

The concept of chirality and enan-tiomers is introduced during the first semester of organic chemistry. A tan-gible example is (R) and (S)-carvone. Students can readily recognize the difference between these enantiomers from their distinct odors (Figure 2). This phenomenon, in which a chiral receptor (the lock) interacts differently with each of the enantiomers (the key) of a chiral compound, is called chiralrecognition or stereoselectivity (Pavia, Lampman, Kriz, & Randall, 2005).

Receptor proteins and enzymes that are blocked by various pharmaco-logical agents are also stereoselective. Optically active compounds treat a variety of conditions including acid reflux, attention deficit and hyperac-tivity disorder (ADHD), depression, seasonal allergies, and more. In some cases, only a single enantiomer of a racemic mixture is pharmacologically active, and the other enantiomer is ei-ther less active or in some cases linked to undesired side effects.

Stereoselectivity in pharmacology

67Vol. 41, No. 3, 2012

is of particular relevance in the area of psychopharmacology, which is the study of pharmacologic agents that cross the blood brain barrier to treat conditions such as depression, ADHD, and insomnia. Because neurotransmit-ter activity in the brain is delicately balanced, even minor differences (R versus S) in the chemical structure can have a significant impact. Consider the example of citalopram/escitalopram (Figure 3).

Citalopram (Celexa) is a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) most commonly prescribed to treat depression. SSRIs relieve the symp-toms of depression by blocking the reabsorption (reuptake) of serotonin (a neurotransmitter) by certain nerve cells in the brain. This leaves more serotonin available to act on postsynaptic recep-tor sites. Increased serotonin enhances neurotransmission (nerve impulses) and improves mood. SSRIs primar-ily act upon serotonin receptor sites (Vaswani, Linda, & Ramesh, 2003).

Citalopram was initially marketed as a racemic mixture. Subsequent studies showed that the S enantiomer was the therapeutically active isomer and had a more rapid onset of ac-tion and fewer side effects than the racemic mixture (Gorman, Korotzer, & Su, 2002). The compound was later marketed as the S isomer only, escitalopram (Lexapro). However, patient responses are variable, and the racemic mixture is still commonly prescribed.

In some cases, a single enantiomer drug may be more effective, but the racemic mixture is still preferred. Consider the example of methyl-phenidate in which the enantiomers have unique activities (Figure 4). Methylphenidate (Ritalin), used to treat ADHD, is a central nervous sys-tem stimulant that activates the brain stem arousal system and prefrontal

FIGURE 2

The structure of carvone. The odors of the two enantiomers of carvone are distinctly different from each other. Most people can detect the difference in odor, because protein receptors in the nose are chiral.

FIGURE 3

The structure of citalopram. Escitalopram is the therapeutically active S-enantiomer of citalopram. Citalopram is a racemic mixture of the S-enantiomer and the inactive R-enantiomer.

cortex to produce the stimulant ef-fect. Studies have suggested that the single enantiomer (R, R) is more specific for treating ADHD than the racemic mixture (Hubbard, Srinivas, Quinn, & Midha, 1989). In 2001,

(R, R) methylphenidate (Focalin) was released. However, the racemic mixture remains more popular be-cause of the additional antianxiety and antidepressant properties of the (S, S) isomer.


CASE STUDY

FIGURE 4

The structure of methylphenidate. The (R, R) enantiomer of methylphenidate is effective to treat ADHD, whereas the (S, S) enantiomer has weak antidepressant properties.

Questions1. Draw both relevant enantiomers

and indicate the chiral center(s). 2. What is the commercial and

generic trade name of this compound?

3. What is this compound marketed to treat and how is it used medically?

4. Is this drug marketed as a racemic mixture or a single enantiomer? If your drug is marketed as a single enantiomer, was it ever marketed as a racemic mixture?

5. Describe how your compound works, and on what enzyme or receptor (in some cases this is not fully understood).

6. Is drug effectiveness linked to one enantiomer?

7. Consider the inactive or less active enantiomer. List any associated risks or side effects. Evaluate the benefit of administering a single enantiomer form of the drug versus the racemic form. Consider that patient profiles and responses may vary.

8. Is this compound still on the

market? If it was pulled off the market, explain why. n

ReferencesBennett, N., & Cornely, K. (2001).

Thalidomide makes a comeback: A case discussion exercise that integrates biochemistry and organic chemistry. JournalofChemicalEducation, 78, 759–761.

Botting, J. (2002). The history of thalidomide. DrugNewsPerspective, 15, 604–611.

Bren, L. (2001). Frances Oldham Kelsey: FDA medical reviewer leaves her mark on history. FDAConsumer, 35(2), 24–29.

Dinan, F. J., & Yee, G. T. (2004). An adventure in stereochemistry: Alice in mirror image land. JournalofCollegeScienceTeaching 34(2), 25–29.

Gorman, J. M., Korotzer, A., & Su, G. (2002). Efficacy comparison of escitalopram and citalopram in the treatment of major depressive disorder: Pooled analysis of placebo-controlled trials. CNSSpectrums,7, 40–44.

Hubbard, J. W., Srinivas, N. R., Quinn, D., & Midha, K.

K. (1989). Enantioselective aspects of the disposition of dl-threo-methyphenidate after the administration of a sustained-release formulation to children with attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder. JournalofPharmacologyScience, 78(11): 944–947.

Pavia, D. L., Lampman, G. M., Kriz, G. S., & Randall, G. E. (2005). Introductiontoorganiclaboratorytechniques:Asmallscaleapproach (2nd ed.). Belmont, CA: Thomson Brooks/Cole.

Rouhi, A. M. (2003). Chirality at work: Drug developers can learn much from recent successful and failed chiral switches. ChemicalandEngineeringNews,81(18): 56–61.

Rouhi, A. M. (2005). Top pharmaceuticals that changed the world: Thalidomide ChemicalandEngineeringNews, 83(25), 122–123.

Vaswani, M., Linda, F. K., & Ramesh, S. (2003). Role of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors in psychiatric disorders: A comprehensive review. ProgressinNeuro-PsychopharmacologyandBiologicalPsychiatry, 27, 85–102.

ResourcesThe following web links provide structure, biochemistry, history, and dosing information for many of the compounds currently prescribed.

• MedlinePlus. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginformation.html

• Drugs.com. http://www.drugs.com/• MedicineNet.com. http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/hp.asp

Jessica L. Epstein ([email protected]) is an associate professor in the Depart-ment of Chemistry at Saint Peter’s Col-lege in Jersey City, New Jersey.

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The following excerpt was taken from a grant proposal by one of the biologist au-thors of this paper (the third

author), in which he makes reference to scientific teaching—teaching that “involves active learning strategies to engage students in the process of science, and teaching methods that have been systematically tested and shown to reach diverse students” (Handelsman et al., 2004, p. 521)—as one area he prioritizes and seeks to improve in his instruction:

Teaching and research are parts of an integrated educational mission. My research requires appropriate teaching and mentoring; my formal teaching duties incorporate aspects of scientific research in ways that align with scientific teaching (Handelsman, Miller, & Pfund, 2007). Through this approach, I strive to foster higher-order thinking, creativity, and rigor couched in experimentation (Handelsman et al., 2004). My goal is to help students learn science as a process.

This excerpt presents a rationale for teaching and learning in an un-dergraduate science course that aligns with science education standards documents framing K–12 science teaching, namely “teaching should be consistent with the nature of scientific inquiry” (American Association for the Advancement of Science [AAAS], 1989, p. 147). From extensive con-tact with undergraduates over the years, this same author realized that although many biology undergraduate students have a good grasp of scien-tific information, few have a good grasp of the way science is actually done because of their lack of experi-ences engaging in scientific inquiry. This experience mirrors what others have reported regarding students’ lack of experience engaging in scientific inquiry (Campbell & Bohn, 2008); National Research Council [NRC], 2005; O’Sullivan & Weiss, 1999; Windschitl, 2003).

Just as there are extensive calls for increased attention to the quality of science education experiences at the K–12 level (NRC, 1996; NRC, 2007), these same concerns can be found at the undergraduate level (Dehaan,

RESEARCH AND TEACHING

Scientific Inquiry in the Genetics Laboratory: Biologists and University Science Teacher Educators Collaborating to Increase Engagement in Science ProcessesBy Todd Campbell, Joshua P. Der, Paul G. Wolf, Eric Packenham, and Nor Hashidah Abd-Hamid

The importance of engaging students in undergraduate science courses in scientific inquiry is well understood. K–12 standards documents and undergraduate science education literature both support the central role of engagement in science processes in the course of science education. However, most scientists and educators have experienced science education without engagement in science processes as a focus. Thus, the importance of this engagement as an instructional strategy and goal is minimized at best. This article details how collaboration among the authors—science teacher educators and scientists—was forged and the benefits that have emerged. These benefits include documentation of “reformed teaching” and significant gains in pre- and poststudent reports of experiences engaging in scientific inquiry. The structure of the synergistic collaborations shared in this article offers one possible mechanism for organizing collaborations among science teacher educators and scientists as well as future collaborations among these two groups and other disciplinary experts.

75Vol. 41, No. 3, 2012

2005; Handelsman et al., 2007). One central concern for science educators at the K–12 level is moving beyond science education focused solely on content and instead heeding recent calls (NRC, 2007; NRC, 2008) for a focus on four strands of scientific learning that include (1) science con-ceptual understanding, (2) science process, (3) the nature of science, and (4) communication in science. These same strands of learning can also be found in documents targeting undergraduate-level science educa-tion improvements (Handelsman et al., 2007).

The collaboration serving as a context for this article partnered sci-ence teacher educators and scientists. This was seen as a fitting partnership because the science teacher educators and scientists work closely with many of the same students (i.e., all students in the genetics course were biology majors, and many were secondary biology teaching majors). The collab-oration was initially sought with the scientists because the science teacher educator realized that although gains could be made in facilitating pre-service teacher growth as science teachers comfortable and capable of facilitating scientific inquiry, these gains would be more pronounced, in-formed, and likely to take hold better if the preservice teachers encountered content area coursework in biology in a manner that allowed them to experi-ence science as inquiry as they them-selves learned science. Both the sci-ence teacher educators and scientists quickly realized the potential benefit that could come if both the conceptual biological expertise of the scientists and the pedagogical expertise of the science teacher educators were lever-aged to consider improvements in the genetics laboratory course taught by the scientists.

Context and approach to improving a courseThis collaboration was focused on improving an undergraduate Genet-ics Laboratory course during fall 2009. The course is offered every other year and serves as a capstone course for all undergraduate biology majors, including those in a compos-ite teaching–biology program. Two sections of the laboratory course were offered during fall 2009 and the biologist (third author) and a teaching assistant/biologist (second author) cotaught both sections. The laboratory course met weekly for one three-hour session.

The collaborators first completed a half-day Reformed Teaching Ob-servation Protocol (RTOP; Piburn et al., 2000) training session prior to the semester. The RTOP is an ob-servational instrument designed to measure reformed teaching (Piburn et al., 2000), in which reformed teaching is defined for the purposes of this manuscript as teaching that is framed by constructivism. Con-structivism focuses on instructional strategies through which teachers engage learners actively in creating, interpreting, and reorganizing or synthesizing knowledge (Gordon, 2008). In reformed teaching, student learning is seen as an active process of students working to develop meanings that align with their current understandings, environment, and social settings. According to the Na-tional Science Education Standards (NRC, 1996, p. 32), teachers should

• focus and support inquiries while interacting with students;

• orchestrate discourse among stu-dents about scientific ideas;

• challenge students to accept and share responsibility for their own learning;

• recognize and respond to student diversity; and

• encourage and model the skills of scientific inquiry as well as the curiosity, openness to new ideas and data, and skepticism that characterize science.

The RTOP is adept at measuring reformed teaching because it is an instrument that was developed in alignment with national standards documents (AAAS, 1989; National Council of Teachers of Mathematics [NCTM], 2000; NRC, 1996). During this training session, the collaborators became familiar with the RTOP by rating online training videos found at http://physicsed.buffalostate.edu/AZTEC/RTOP/RTOP_full/. This was seen as a productive starting point for the collaboration because it facilitated initial discussions about teaching and learning in science classrooms. For example, we considered in-depth descriptors from the RTOP found in the training manual, such as the following:

This lesson encouraged stu-dents to seek and value alterna-tive modes of investigation or of problem solving. Divergent thinking is an important part of . . . scientific reasoning. A lesson that meets this criterion would not insist on only one method of experimentation . . . A teacher who valued alternative modes of thinking would respect and actively solicit a variety of ap-proaches, and understand that there may be more than one answer to a question. (Piburn et al., 2000, p. 35)

The biologist in our group under-stood the value of divergent modes of thinking, but we found that attempts


by the biologists to cultivate scientific reasoning were not as explicit as those strategies proposed by the science teacher educators. They recognized the importance of engaging students in developing scientific processes but had not previously considered the val-ue of making students explicitly cog-nizant of the processes and of helping them to articulate nuances of scientific processes that they were beginning to understand through their experi-ences. The science teacher educators then explained that it is not enough to engage students in the process of science. Rather, it is also important to engage them in metacognitive discus-sion about science (Abd-El-Khalick, Bell, & Lederman, 1998; Ackerson, Abd-El-Khalick, & Lederman, 2000). Collaborations between scientists and science teacher educators are at the heart of what we think is so important about our engagement outlined in this article. As this exemplar highlights, the biologists bring cutting-edge re-search methodology, years of experi-ence facilitating genetics instruction, and cultural capital founded on their research and publication in biologi-cal journals. Likewise, the science teacher educators bring expertise to this collaboration that is founded on connections and contributions to science education literature focused on teaching and learning in science classrooms. Coupling these two areas of expertise enhances the experiences of undergraduates in science courses, but it also enhances the professional growth of the biologists and science teacher educators.

The training session with the RTOP videos allowed the collaborators to establish interrater agreement at or greater than .80 with each other as well as the expert ratings at the web-site. The RTOP served as a laboratory observation tool for documenting the

extent to which observed instruction was aligned with national reform documents, but it was also used as a reflective anchor in pre- and postobser-vational meetings, providing tangible criteria for focusing discussion and reflection. In the preobservational meetings, the RTOP was used to shape needed changes. As an example, RTOP indicator 12 (students made predic-tions, estimations, and/or hypothesis and devised means for testing them) provided specific criteria for assess-ment of the planned session. Thus in the past, when hypotheses might have been devised for the students as well as mechanisms for testing them, these plans were changed as a result of the preobservational meetings to inten-tionally engage students in developing and testing their own hypothesis.

Fogarty and Pete (2009/2010) out-lined anchors that can have a lasting impact for engaging adult learners. These anchors situate learning as “sustained, job embedded, collegial, interactive, integrative, practical, and results-oriented” (Fogarty & Pete, 2009/2010, p. 32). To varying degrees, these anchors capture the collaborative approach described in this article, in which the adult learn-ers were the science educators and scientists. The collaboration was “sustained” in that it started prior to the fall 2009 semester at the half-day RTOP training session and continued until the end of the course. The RTOP served as an observational instrument to assess instruction in the course and as a foundation for discussion and col-laboration for four different genetics laboratory observations strategically planned throughout the semester. The science teacher educators were invited to observe these four laboratory ses-sions. Initially only postobservation meetings were planned, but after the second observation was completed,

preobservation coplanning sessions were initiated for the third and fourth observation because the science teacher educators felt they were not contributing prior to the observation and instead that they were “judging” the scientists instead of working with them. This change was initiated be-cause it was believed that even more benefit could emerge, as the preob-servation served as a lesson study for the group of collaborators. Lesson study is aptly described by Carlone and Webb (2006) as follows: “[t]he format involves teachers collabora-tively planning, teaching, observing, reflecting on, and revising lessons focused on specific learning goals” (pp. 563–564). This shift from only postobservations meetings to pre-/postobservation meetings allowed the science teacher educators involved to engage more in coplanning labora-tory sessions and iterative work on multiday lab sessions on the basis of students’ responses to the laboratories as they were enacted.

In addition to being sustained, the collaboration was also collegial, interactive, integrative, and practical as the scientists and science educators “put their heads” together to negoti-ate improvements for the course. The value of this was captured at the end of the semester, when one of the collaborators (first author) shared the following:

Going into this collaboration, I believed that I had much to offer, but also saw the other collabora-tors had equally as much experi-ence and expertise to offer so that each of us could gain from our involvement . . . [in the end] I was very excited about what I think we were able to accomplish as a group. We saw many future teach-ers engaging in reformed teaching


77Vol. 41, No. 3, 2012

in this course in a way that would support, in a positive way, teach-ers teaching how they are taught.

And finally, the collaboration de-scribed here was results oriented. This anchor for fostering lasting impact was described by Fogarty and Pete (2009/2010) as the need to focus on measurable outcomes; they declared that “professional learning, at its best, is data driven” (p. 34). Both labora-tory observations using the RTOP and pre-/poststudent surveys were completed to investigate the impact of this collaboration and to inform directions for the collaboration into the future in subsequent semesters.

Example of laboratory planning and revision The Revised Bioinformatics Labo-ratory (RBL) exemplifies how col-laboration and the use of “reformed teaching” enhance student experi-ences. This RBL was the focus of the third planned observation. In years past, students were given detailed step-by-step instructions, guiding them through the use of online data-bases (e.g., Genbank) and web tools (e.g., Blast, bl2seq, and NEBcutter) for biological sequence analysis. Students were asked questions about their results at each step to check their comprehension but were not challenged to develop their own in-vestigations, nor to collaborate with each other in solving a scientific problem of their design (see inter-net resources for databases and web tools at end of article).

As a result of this collaboration, the scientists were particularly inter-ested in realigning this bioinformatics lab exercise with reformed teaching practices to enhance student exposure to the nature and process of science in addition to specific instruction

in the mechanics and tools used in bioinformatic sequence analysis. To better accomplish these objectives, the science teacher educators and scientists met prior to the scheduled laboratory session to discuss and plan effective reformed teaching strategies in the context of this particular lesson.

In the RBL, the scientists briefly demonstrated several bioinformatic resources and tools available to stu-dents and then presented the class with a sample data set constructed in the context of earlier molecular biology labs. This data set consisted of an unknown plant gene sequence and a set of reference sequences that could be used to place the unknown sequence in an evolutionary context. Students were asked to form small groups to brainstorm and discuss possible questions and hypotheses related to the sample data set. The class was then brought back together to list some of the students’ ideas on the board. The scientists highlighted one of these questions and led the students through the use of several web tools to test hypotheses related to the question. Students then returned to the small groups to help each other identify a question of interest to them (not limited to those appli-cable to the sample data), generate relevant hypotheses, and work out a protocol to address their hypotheses. The scientists visited each group to provide advice and direction to en-sure each student could begin his or her analyses. Once each student in a group had identified an individual or partnered project, the students began collecting any additional data needed from online data banks and started to use the bioinformatic tools to address their questions. The scientists pro-vided assistance in using the tools as each student began working on their problem.

Because students were not restrict-ed to using the sample data provided, many students identified a problem relevant to other classes, work experi-ences, or their independent interests. Among these were projects investi-gating protein structural differences between species, the evolution of the H1N1 influenza genome in the context of archived sequences for the standard flu and previous pandemic strains, population-level variation in a wild plant species, and the evolu-tion of a body-size gene in canids using data from wolves and various domesticated dog breeds.

Because there seemed to be sub-stantial variation among students with respect to making progress on their projects, an additional class period was devoted to helping students work out problems encountered during the intervening week and to make sure they could communicate their project and results in a formal lab report. The conceptual space was left open for students to pursue something of interest to them, but this was very challenging to many students as they had not been asked to do this in their previous science classes. Addition-ally, many students faced challenges in seeing their projects to a satisfying conclusion (e.g., negative results or coming to a “dead end” in the project because of an incorrect assumption implicit in their hypotheses). Students were divided into small groups again during the second laboratory session so they could help each other work out the specific challenges they each faced in their individual projects. The second lab follow-up period presented an opportunity to get students on the right track and to instruct them in the way real scientific research often progresses: that regardless of the outcome of an experiment, investiga-tors often learn something about the


system they are studying and can then revise hypotheses on the basis of this new information.

This laboratory, which lasted for two sessions, did not come without problems, but even these problems were seen as opportune times for learning as instructors and for making revisions to attain the instructional objectives. An example of this oc-curred when a decision was made to have students present their results to solicit feedback from peers during the follow-up lab. One student in the class presented her well-conceived project with very clean results. This presen-tation intimidated other students, to the point at which discussion from

other students was shut down. Be-cause of this unintended outcome, the scientist shifted tactics and divided the students up into small groups so they could help each other in a less intimidating atmosphere. During this time, the scientists circulated around to the groups and helped troubleshoot specific challenges individually. This midstream instructional adjustment helped ensure that students received the original feedback intended.

Although the same breadth of de-scription is not offered for the other three laboratory sessions in which fo-cused collaboration occurred, a brief description of the reformed teaching in laboratory sessions is provided in

Table 1 to offer additional informa-tion about the changes aligned with the reformed teaching occurring in these sessions.

Benefits of collaboration and evidence of improvementsTwo particular measures that were used to investigate and document the benefits emerging from this collabo-ration were (1) RTOP (Piburn et al., 2000) ratings throughout the semes-ter and (2) Principles of Scientific Inquiry–Student (PSI-S) surveys completed by students (Campbell, Abd-Hamid, & Chapman, 2010).

As mentioned earlier, the RTOP served as a reflective anchor for

TABLE 1

Reformed teaching in laboratory sessions.

Laboratory sessions Focus of session Examples of Reformed Teaching Observed (from RTOP Indicators)

Week 2 Drosophila experiments: Developing questions and hypothesis for testing as part of semester-long projects and discussing population genetics sampling and conservation genetics

• Theteacher’squestionstriggereddivergentmodes of thinking.

• Theteacheractedasaresourceperson,working to support and enhance student investigations.

Week 6 Molecular genetics: DNA extraction from plants • Thelessoninvolvedfundamentalconceptsofthe subject.

• Studentswereinvolvedinthecommunicationof their ideas to others using a variety of means and media.

Week 10 Revised Bioinformatics Laboratory • Studentswereencouragedtogenerateconjectures,alternativesolutionstrategies,andways of interpreting evidence.

• Therewasahighproportionofstudenttalk and a significant amount of it occurred between and among students.

Week 13 Forensicgenetics-plasmidisolation,restrictiondigest,agarosegel,forensicanalysis

• Studentquestionsandcommentsoftendetermined the focus and direction of classroom discourse.

• Thislessonencouragedstudentstoseekandvalue alternative modes of investigation or of problem solving.

Note: RTOP = Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol.


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discussing and planning laboratory sessions as well as an observational measure for detecting the level of re-formed teaching enacted in the genet-ics laboratory. During the semester, the RTOP ratings were completed four times by the science teacher educator (first author; see Table 2) who had earlier established inter-rater agreement with the other col-laborators (second, third, and fourth authors) and an expert. Although only one collaborator completed the RTOP ratings throughout the semes-ter, the credibility of this process was established by (1) establishing of interrater agreement between this researcher, the other collaborators, and an expert and (2) consistent evidence of reformed teaching also found emerging from the PSI-S sur-veys in ways aligned with previous research (Campbell, Abd-Hamid, & Chapman, 2010).

As can be seen in Table 2, the RTOP ratings for observations 1, 3, and 4 were very high. MacIsaac and Falconer (2002) declared that “[a]ny RTOP score greater than 50 indicates considerable presence of ‘reformed teaching’ in a lesson” (p. 19). The rating for the second observation was at the “considerable presence of ‘reformed teaching’” level, but it is important to note that this observa-tion was the point in the collabora-tion at which a decision was made to initiate preobservational planning sessions. So, observations occurring after observation 2 represented the stage in the collaboration at which preobservations were instituted so that the science teacher educators felt more like collaborators where formative RTOP reflective col-laborations anchored by the tangible criteria found in RTOP indicators were likely responsible for the higher summative RTOP ratings found

during observations 3 and 4. These RTOP ratings provide evidence that instruction occurring throughout the semester was aligned with reformed teaching, instruction that has proven effective for increasing student achievement as measured by science conceptual understanding, science process/reasoning, attitudinal, and nature of science learning (Adamson et al., 2003).

In addition to RTOP ratings, students in the genetics lab were asked to complete the PSI-S at two times during the semester, during the first and final laboratory ses-sions (pre-/poststudent surveys). The PSI-S instrument was created to “investigate the extent to which students are engaged in scientific inquiry” (Campbell et al., 2010, p. 13). It is a self-reporting survey. The presurvey was administered during the first laboratory session of the semester during week 1 as students were asked to consider all of their undergraduate biology classes to date to offer responses to the PSI-S reflecting a summary of these experi-ences. Subsequently, the PSI-S was administered again during week 16 of the semester, but this time students were asked to consider only their ex-periences in the genetics laboratory course to offer responses to the PSI-S reflecting a summary of only these experiences. On the basis of these instructions, findings that emerged from the PSI-S pre-/postsurveys were used to compare students’ inquiry experiences in this genetics laboratory course with experiences that they had before this course. The PSI-S instrument is divided into the following categories:

• asking questions/framing research questions,

• designing investigations,

• conducting investigations, • collecting data, and • drawing conclusions.

Descriptive statistics from the pre-/postsurveys as well as the results of t-tests comparing average scores for each category of the PSI-S can be found in Table 3. One limitation of the PSI-S data that is openly revealed is the drop in students completing the post-PSI-S compared with those taking the pre-PSI-S. A few students dropped the course, but this drop in post-PSI-S mainly occurred because it was administered during the last class session at a time when several students for various reasons missed the class session (e.g., final-exami-nation scheduling conflicts, unavoid-able travel conflicts). This limitation should be considered as the findings from the PSI-S are discussed, but it was still believed that much could be gained from these surveys, as those completing the post-PSI-S were con-sidered representative of the student population in the course.

We found that significant improve-ment occurred with respect to the extent to which students were able to engage in inquiry when compar-ing experiences students had during this genetics laboratory course with experiences they had across the rest of their undergraduate biology

TABLE 2

Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol ratings.

Observation week during the semester

Rating

Week 2 94

Week 6 45

Week 10 89

Week 13 90


coursework. This occurred on all fac-ets of inquiry outlined in the NRC’s America’s Lab Report: Investigations in High School Science (NRC, 2005), the document used to shape the PSI-S instrument. On the basis of the RTOP observations and PSI-S surveys, there is evidence to suggest that this course aligns better with reformed teaching and provides an experience for sci-ence students that is more “consistent with the nature of scientific inquiry” (AAAS, 1989, p. 147).

ConclusionWe believe that our collaboration exemplifies the learning communi-ties that Senge (1990) described as “where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspira-tion is set free, and where people are continually learning how to learn to-gether” (p. 3). This was even more evident as the biologist (third author) shared the following:

I have always struggled with the problem of knowing that there

is a better way to teach science than how I have been . . . I am trained as a scientist, not as a teacher . . . The meat of the sci-ence is designing experiments to test hypotheses. The satisfaction of progress comes usually from successfully rejecting hypoth-eses. The discovery is often not in finding out something about nature itself, but the realization that I had overlooked an impor-tant assumption . . . But the way science is taught often revolves around being “right”: getting the correct answer on an exam or the correct answer in a teach-ing lab “experiment.” Although I have been trying to reconcile this paradox for years, I did not make significant progress until I established collaboration with science educators who under-stood more about the science of teaching.

In summary, although there are collaborations occurring between science and science education faculty members nationally and internationally to improve under-

graduate student learning, these partnerships are not yet the norm and, on the basis of early RTOP and PSI-S data collected in this specific project, suggest that the experiences encountered by under-graduate students represent a new and innovative approach. Through the collaboration described in this article and similarly shaped ones involving scientists and university science teacher educators, we see undergraduate science courses con-tinually improved in ways that will foster science majors’ understand-ing in all four strands of science learning outlined in recent national academies documents (NRC, 2007, 2008). Additionally, we see this as one mechanism for fostering scien-tists’ and science teacher educators’ professional growth as teachers. n

Internet resourcesBlast—http://blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/

Blast.cgibl2seq—http://1usa.gov/bCd07hGenbank—http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/

genbank/NEBcutter—http://tools.neb.com/

NEBcutter2/index.php

ReferencesAbd-El-Khalick, F., Bell, R. L., &

Lederman, N. G. (1998). The nature of science and instructional practice: Making the unnatural natural. Science Education, 82, 417–436.

Ackerson, V. L., Abd-El-Khalick, F., & Lederman, N. G. (2000). Influence of a reflective explicit activity-based approach on elemen-tary teachers’ conceptions of nature of science. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 37, 295–317.

Adamson, A. E., Banks, D., Burtch, M., Cox III, F., Judson, E., Turley, J. B., . . . Lawson, A. E. (2003).

TABLE 3

Pre/post PSI-S descriptive statistics and comparative results.

PSI-S category Pre (average/SD)(N = 32)

Post (average/SD)(N = 20)

t-statistic

Asking questions/ framing research questions

6.97 (4.02) 12.55 (2.42) 6.25**

Designing investigations 5.59 (2.92) 10.75 (2.83) 6.28**Conducting investigations 9.94 (3.22) 12.15 (2.80) 2.53*Collecting data 8.41 (3.75) 12.00 (2.45) 4.19**Drawing conclusions 9.94 (3.79) 12.90 (2.17) 3.18**Total 40.84 (13.90) 60.35 (10.54) 5.38**

Note: Twelve students originally surveyed during week 1 were not surveyed in week 16 because they either dropped the course or did not attend the final session of the laboratory of the semester. PSI-S = Principles of Scientific Inquiry–Student.*Significant at .05 **Significant at .01


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Reformed undergraduate instruc-tion and its subsequent impact on secondary school teaching practice and student achievement. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 40, 939–958.

American Association for the Ad-vancement of Science. (1989). Sci-ence for all Americans. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Campbell, T., Abd-Hamid, N., & Chapman, H. (2010). Development of instruments to assess teacher and student perceptions of inquiry experiences in science classrooms. Journal of Science Teacher Educa-tion, 21, 13–30.

Campbell, T., & Bohn, C. (2008). Sci-ence laboratory experiences of high school students across one state in the U.S.: Descriptive research from the classroom. Science Educator, 17, 36–48.

Carlone, H., & Webb, S. (2006). On (not) overcoming our history of hierarchy: Complexities of univer-sity/school collaboration. Science Education, 90, 544–568.

Dehaan, R. L. (2005). The impending revolution in undergraduate sci-ence education. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 14, 253–269.

Fogarty, R., & Pete, B. (2009/2010). Professional learning 101: A syl-labus of seven protocols. Phi Delta Kappan, 91, 32–34.

Gordon, M. (2008). Between con-structivism and connectedness. Journal of Teacher Education, 59, 322–331.

Handelsman, J., Ebert-May, D., Beichner, R., Bruns, P., Change, A., DeHaan, R., . . . Wood, W. (2004). Scientific teaching. Sci-ence, 304, 521–522.

Handelsman, J., Miller, S., & Pfund, C. (2007). Scientific teaching. New York, NY: Freeman.

MacIsaac, D., & Falconer, K. (2002). Reforming physics instruction via RTOP. The Physics Teacher, 40, 479–485.

National Council of Teachers of Math-ematics. (2000). Principles and standards for school mathematics. Reston, VA: Author.

National Research Council. (1996). National science education stan-dards. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

National Research Council. (2005). America’s lab report: Investiga-tions in high school science. Wash-ington, DC: National Academies Press.

National Research Council. (2007). Taking science to school; Learn-ing and teaching science in grades K–8. Washington DC: National Academies Press.

National Research Council. (2008). Ready, set, science: Putting research to work in K–8 science classrooms. Washington, DC: Na-tional Academies Press.

O’Sullivan, C. Y., & Weiss, A. R. (1999). Student work and teacher practices in science (NCES 1999-455). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Of-fice of Educational Research and Improvement, National Center for Education Statistics.

Piburn, M., Sawada, D., Turley, J., Falconer, K., Benford, R., Bloom, I., & Judson, E. (2000). Reformed teaching observation proto-col (RTOP): Reference manual (ACEPT Technical Report No. INOO-3). Tempe, AZ: Arizona Collaborative for Excellence in the Preparation of Teachers.

Senge, P. (1990). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learn-ing organization. New York, NY: Currency Doubleday.

Windschitl, M. (2003). Inquiry proj-

ects in science teacher education: What can investigative experiences reveal about teacher thinking and eventual classroom practice? Sci-ence Education, 87, 112–143.

Todd Campbell ([email protected]) is an associate professor in the School of Teacher Education and Leadership, Paul G. Wolf is a professor in the Department of Biology, and Eric Packenham is a senior lecturer in the School of Teacher Education and Leadership, all at Utah State University in Logan. Joshua P. Der is a research associate in the Biology Department at Penn State University in University Park, Pennsylvania. Nor Hashidah Abd- Hamid is an instructional services specialist in the College of Public Health at the University of Iowa in Iowa City.


Instructors who take constructiv-ist, learner-centered approaches to teaching know that students come to the classroom with

their own histories of learning that influence the way they respond to and process new information. It is important to acknowledge and en-gage these learning histories so that students can connect their prior knowledge with the new knowledge presented to them. Often, the topics covered in science courses are not entirely new to students; they have had perhaps nearly 20 years to expe-rience the world and construct their own notions of how it works. The question is: What do students think about these topics when they come into the classroom? Are their ideas similar to the ideas presented in class, or are they radically different from the understandings the instruc-tor hopes to engender?

This paper presents the qualitative analysis of data from a large long-term project, which aims to analyze the science knowledge and attitudes toward science of undergraduate students who were enrolled in intro-ductory astronomy courses at the Uni-versity of Arizona (Impey, Buxner, Antonellis, Johnson, & King, 2011). The students were predominantly freshman and sophomore nonscience majors taking a science class as part of a general education requirement. The data described in this paper were col-

lected via a written survey from nearly 10,000 students in the first week of introductory astronomy courses at the University of Arizona over the course of 20 years, from 1989 to 2009. The survey was adapted from the science literacy questions analyzed by the National Science Foundation as part of its biannual report to Congress (Na-tional Science Board, 1988, 2010). The qualitative data are derived from four open-ended questions designed to delve deeper into respondents’ understandings of concepts than the forced-response questions.

In addition to the student data, in 2009 we collected data from 170 University of Arizona science faculty members, postdocs, and graduate stu-dents; three questions from this online survey inquired into the scientists’ criteria for assessing students’ re-sponses to three of the questions from the student survey. The first of these questions posed to students is the quintessential question for assessing scientific literacy: What does it mean to study something scientifically? We also inquired into students’ knowl-edge and scientists’ assessments for two content-knowledge questions: (a) What is DNA? and (b) Briefly, define computer software. Students were also asked: What is radiation? Although this question was not in-cluded on the scientists’ survey, we had a substantial literature base on the topic from which to draw.


Surveying Science Literacy Among Undergraduates: Insights From Open-Ended ResponsesBy Jessie Antonellis, Sanlyn Buxner, Chris Impey, and Hannah Sugarman

This paper presents the qualitative analysis of data from a 20-year project analyzing the knowledge and attitudes toward science of undergraduate students enrolled in introductory astronomy courses. The data were collected from nearly 10,000 students between 1989 and 2009 via a written survey that included four open-ended questions, inquiring into students’ knowledge of scientific inquiry, DNA, computer software, and radiation. Trends in students’ responses were arranged into concept maps that depict patterns in student thinking. Students’ responses were also compared with criteria established by a sample of scientists. Students were familiar with empiricism in science and understood that science tries to explain the world but were not as attuned to the need to support arguments with evidence as scientists would expect. Students had a narrower conception of DNA, yet often related a blend of accurate and inaccurate ideas. The accuracy of students’ descriptions of software increased over time, though they were more likely to approach software from a consumer rather than computer science perspective. Students attended overly much to the dangers of radiation, and the accuracy of responses decreased over time. This research demonstrates that students’ ideas about science are less focused than scientists would like.

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Our analysis of trends in students’ responses allowed us to create a pic-ture of student thinking relative to these four topics. Thus, we can assess both the range and the incidence of these different ideas, which provides us with a wealth of information about what conceptions students may have constructed prior to entering the class-room and assess them in comparison with the scientists’ criteria for success.

MethodsFor the purposes of understanding how this group of students conceptu-alized the subjects represented by the four questions, we developed meth-ods that went beyond classifying re-sponses as more or less “correct” and provide a more fine-grained picture of students’ thinking. With the large number of responses (ranging from 5,700 responses for the radiation item to 7,800 responses for the DNA item), the method captured both the complexity of the variation in stu-dents’ responses and systematically distilled the data into a manage-able form for analysis. Each coding scheme (a) documented the frequen-cy of common themes, (b) brought to the forefront the more unusual ideas that were nevertheless elucidating patterns in student thinking, and (c) noted the scarcity of other ideas that were less prevalent than anticipated or hoped for. The rich and varied landscape of responses to the open-ended questions, and the challenge of comparing students’ and scien-tists’ responses, meant that we de-cided early on to develop a coding scheme, driven by the data, so that we could draw inferences quantita-tively. This approach was also nec-essary to track changes in responses over time, a core goal of the survey. The responses were coded iterative-ly by monitoring the responses for

common ideas and classifying and sorting the ideas that appeared to be related, making adjustments as the schemes continued to develop, until the entire data set had been analyzed. This technique allowed for analysis that was informed by the richness of the data, rather than prejudging what we might find. The final number of codes included 63 for science, 41 for DNA, 18 for software, and 87 for ra-diation. Taken together, these bodies of codes represent an extensive map of collective student thinking about these topic areas, with some ele-ments arising more frequently than others. To allow for the visualization of the realms of student thought on the topics and the frequencies with which different elements arise, we created color-coded concept maps arranging the codes into meaningful categories. Dashed lines around the code represent misconceptions, and colors represent frequencies of the codes in the dataset, according to the following scheme:

Black: 0Red: 1 to 99Orange: 100 to 499Yellow: 500 to 999Green: 1,000 to 1,499Blue: 1,500 to 1,999Purple: 2,000 or more

Overarching categories were color-coded as well and the n sizes reported, though it is important to note that the category n sizes often differ from the sums of the codes that fall under them because the codes are not mutually ex-clusive and because often the category totals include less-frequent codes that are not included in the concept maps.

In order to seek out any changes over time, the data were grouped into four time periods with roughly

similar n sizes and number of years. The group of the earliest years—1989, 1990, 1991, and 1993—has 2,587 total participants; 1996–1999 has 1,851 participants; 2001–2005 has 2,273 participants; and 2006–2009 has 3,041 participants. The trends over time indicate changes in the population, not changes in the individuals, as new students were surveyed each year.

The scientists’ data, all of which were gathered through an online sur-vey tool in 2009, were analyzed in a similar manner, as the schema creat-ed to capture the ideas of the students also applied to the vast majority of ideas represented by the scientists. The results from the scientists drove our assessment of the comparison between what students reported for the three shared questions and what professionals in the field would hope and expect for them. The following sections describe the results of these analyses of the four open-ended questions.

Results and discussionWhat does it mean to study something scientifically?The coding scheme for this question was informed by the Views of the Nature of Science (VNOS) literature (Lederman, Abd-El-Khalick, Bell, & Schwartz, 2002). The VNOS is an instrument designed to assess views about the values and philosophies underlying the scientific enterprise and identifies five characteristics of the nature of science chosen for their relevance to students’ learn-ing about science. They are that sci-ence is (a) tentative, (b) empirically based, and (c) subjective (theory laden); that it (d) involves infer-ence, imagination, and creativity on the part of the scientist; and that it is (e) socially and culturally embed-ded. The characteristics of science


presented in the VNOS literature and refined by the research team were placed into a coding scheme that categorized students’ responses in three main ways. The first was by how they described what science is and what it does; the second was by the activities they identified as be-ing part of scientific study; and the third was by their perceptions of the underlying philosophies of the sci-entific enterprise. Individual codes were developed from this frame-work and further refined on the basis of patterns that arose out of the student data. As with the other coding schemes, the codes are not mutually exclusive, and individual student responses were often coded with a variety of different codes to capture all the meanings present.

Figure 1 shows a piece of the cod-

ing scheme representing our inves-tigation of responses (n = 7,523) to this question, grouped thematically by ways of thinking, activities related to science (including a disaggrega-tion of student uses of “theory”), science as knowledge building, sci-ence as evidence based, and science as a human endeavor. The full image can be viewed online at http://www.nsta.org/college/connections.aspx. The numbers of respondents in the sample whose answers fit each code are also included. The categories of scientific activities and ways of thinking are especially prominent. Students were more than twice as likely to discuss science on the basis of its activities (n = 5,961) than on ways of thinking associated with science (n = 2,525). That is, students were much more likely to talk about

what scientists do rather than why or how they do it. They were also more preoccupied with analyzing activities (analyze, reductionism, in-depth; n = 1,900) than synthesizing activities (inference, develop theory, explain, model, holistic, relationships; n = 686).

Students were more familiar with the empirical element of science (n = 2,657) than virtually any other char-acteristic. This idea was categorized under Activities because it was com-monly only referred to indirectly as observation and/or experimentation. Though students may not have been very well-informed about the details of doing science, many recognized that it is a way of building knowl-edge about the world (knowledge building; n = 1,802). Nevertheless, it was much more likely for students

FIGURE 1

Partial map of codes related to students’ concepts of science. The full image can be viewed online at http://www.nsta.org/college/connections.aspx.


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to only implicitly refer to theory as determining the “how” and “why” for phenomena (total n = 999) than to use the word accurately (n = 448); they were about half as likely to use the word inaccurately or vaguely (n = 408). Not surprisingly, students sometimes conflated scientific theory with the common-language use of the word (total n = 154).

Also unsurprising, the most popu-larly referenced terms are those as-sociated with “school” science, that is, the ones that are typically covered in textbooks when covering the sci-entific method (n = 1,057): observe/experiment (n = 2,657), hypothesis (n = 1,182), theory (n = 1,855). Concepts associated with more sophisticated understandings of science were more rare (e.g., supporting ideas with

FIGURE 2

Frequencies of scientist-defined criteria for “study scientifically” in the scientist and student data sets.

FIGURE 3

Map of codes related to students’ concepts of DNA.


evidence, n = 452; questioning, n = 179; inference, n = 29). Neverthe-less, though the notion of science “proving” ideas was prevalent (n = 383), so too were using evidence (n = 196), building support for and validating ideas (total n = 527), dis-proving hypotheses (n = 180), and scientific ideas as tentative (n = 425). Unfortunately, however, it was rare for students to make any reference to science as a human endeavor (total n = 40).

The science responses over time showed no significant changes: Discussion of activities related to science arose in 75%–81% of re-sponses consistently, with no trends by year; knowledge building arose between 34% and 38%; empiricism (observation and experimentation) in 30%–39%; and scientific method between 12% and 15%. It appears that the general understanding of science of this population as a whole is not changing discernibly over time.

The themes from the scientists’ expectations for “study scientifi-cally” (n = 144) were examined for their overlap with, as well as dissimi-larities from, students’ responses. Because students and scientists asso-ciate science with similar concepts, yet conceive of these concepts in different ways, there was a good but not perfect correspondence between the two coding schemes. Figure 2 is a comparison of the most prominent criteria for students’ responses that arose from the scientists and the frequency with which students ad-dressed those criteria. The scientists and students were similar in their emphasis on empiricism as well as theory and ways of thinking (in this analysis we compiled only the student responses related to ways of thinking that reflected those identi-fied by scientists: objectivity, logic, and skepticism). However, students fall short in the areas of supporting an argument and being systematic.

With their emphasis on theory build-ing, students seem to understand that science is meant to explain the natural world but not to understand that such explanations need to be supported by evidence. This notion is not getting through to students, despite their ease in repeating the scientific method and their recogni-tion that science involves certain ways of thinking.

What is DNA?Unlike the coding for students’ re-sponses about science, the scheme for DNA was not framed by previ-ous literature. The codes for this question arose purely from trends in students’ responses, similar to the methodology used by Lewis, Leach, and Wood-Robinson (2000) in their study of students’ ideas related to genes. The codes were organized into three main categories: accurate descriptions, trivial or uninformative descriptions, and misconceptions. An additional category for meta-phors used by students was added because of the frequency with which these metaphors appeared, in nearly 30% of responses (n = 2,301).

Figure 3 depicts the codes used to characterize students’ understandings of DNA. A greater proportion of stu-dents responded to the DNA question than any other question (n = 7,806). Nevertheless, the overall number of responses that contained trivial, vague, or inaccurate information is fairly high (total n = 5,353) compared with the number containing accurate elements (total n = 6,515). Consider-ing the total n size is under 8,000, this indicates that for the most part, students’ responses were a blend of both on-target and off-target concep-tions of DNA. For instance, students commonly identified DNA as genetic (n = 4,067), as representing informa-

FIGURE 4

Frequencies of scientist-defined criteria for “What is DNA” in the scientist and student data sets.


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tion (n = 2,137), and as that which defines organisms and/or is unique to each organism (n = 2,156), but they frequently merely spelled out “deoxyribonucleic acid” (n = 1,968) or erroneously suggested that DNA is solely a property of humans (n = 1,263).

We hypothesized that with the greater visibility of genetics in the media in the past 20 years, students would show an increase in accurate ideas and a decrease in inaccurate ideas over time, but this was not the case. In fact, the most recent group of students, from 2006–2009, were on par with the earliest group of students from 1989–1993. Mystify-ingly, students in the groups from 1996–1999 and 2001–2005 showed an almost 30% increase in inaccurate and trivial ideas compared with stu-dents from the other two eras, though the frequency of accurate ideas in all four groups was similar.

Although our previous hypothesis did not stand up, our hypothesis that more students would be willing to tackle this question over time did.

FIGURE 5

Map of codes related to students’ concepts of computer software.

Our rationale was again that with increased visibility of the topic, more students would be familiar with it and would be willing to put their knowledge on the line. The difference from the early years to the later years was more dramatic than anticipated, however; 71% of students from the 1989–1993 group responded to the question, whereas percentage response rates were in the low to mid-80s for the 1996–1999, 2001–2005, and 2006–2009 groups.

Although the number of codes arising from the student data was fairly small, the trends in the sci-entists’ criteria were strikingly similar, though in distinctly differ-ent proportions. Figure 4 shows the comparison; students and scientists (n = 143) are on par in terms of characterizing DNA as genetic, but students were far less likely to mention that DNA is information, a property of all life, and hereditary, among other attributes. Interestingly, although students’ use of metaphors was high, scientists anticipated more; a greater proportion of scientists

cited examples of metaphors in their expectations of students’ responses (44%) than the students actually used (29%).

Briefly, define computer software.Students’ responses for software were categorized into 18 codes, di-vided into four categories: primary components of a definition of soft-ware (that it is programming, or more specifically code, that directs the computer to perform a func-tion), which were the most frequent codes (total n = 4,803); additional but secondary elements, such as that software is an interface between the computer and user and that it must be installed (total n = 2,510); vague or trivial elements, such as software as “technology” (total n = 899); and misconceptions (total n = 1,283). The most common misconception in this data set involved students’ con-flating the media containing the pro-grams with the programs themselves (n = 724).

The results for this topic area are


displayed in Figure 5. Accurate re-sponses outnumbered inaccurate or vague responses almost three to one (n = 5,675 and 2,179, respectively). However, the total number of respon-dents was low overall (n = 6,743), so a self-selection effect likely influenced this outcome. Neverthe-less, the increase in the prominence of computer technology in students’ lives over the two decades of the data collection appears to have had a significant effect on their responses. The percentage of the sample citing accurate ideas increased from 82% in both the 1989–1993 and 1996–1999 samples to 87% in 2001–2005 and 86% in 2006–2009. Even more noteworthy, the prevalence of vague and inaccurate responses decreased from 40% in 1989–1993 to 20% in 1996–1999 and less than 10% in the latter two groups (9% and 7%, respectively).

The comparison between the stu-dents’ responses and the scientists’

expectations in Figure 6 reveals that, although the frequencies are different because of the discrepancy in n sizes (scientist, n = 138), the shape of the distributions among the different concepts are similar. There are two main disconnects: (a) students were more likely to reference that software is added to the machine, and (b) stu-dents were far less likely to speak of software as a code or as the interface between the user and the hardware. Both of these trends suggest that although scientists would like stu-dents to understand software from the perspective of computer science, students are more likely to identify with the consumer perspective.

What is radiation?The scheme for coding students’ re-sponses about radiation (n = 5,782) was based on research literature pertaining to students’ understand-ing of radiation and radioactivity and on trends arising from the data

(Boyes & Stanisstreet, 1994; Hen-riksen, 1996; Klaasen, Eijkelhof, & Lijnse, 1990; Lijnse, Eijkelhof, Klaasen, & Scholte, 1990; Prather, 2005; Prather & Harrington, 2001; Rego & Peralta, 2006). The catego-ries were designed to be inclusive enough to compare our results with the frequencies of trends cited in the literature as well as the frequen-cies of other trends in these data. Although certain codes are used very infrequently, we were able to document the relative absence of certain ideas in the data set, as well as the relative abundance of other ideas. Hence, this is the only coding scheme in which codes with zero re-spondents are found.

Figure 7 depicts a selection of students’ conceptions about radiation. The full image can be viewed online at http://www.nsta.org/college/con-nections.aspx. Students were overly attentive to the perceived dangers of radiation, focusing much more on the high-energy (total n = 455) than low-energy (total n = 142) wavelengths of light and on its dangers (total n = 2,635) than its uses (total n = 325). The association with environmental danger is important because it helps explain why students’ responses include so many references to other, unrelated phenomena that are also associated with environmental danger, such as “by-products” and the atmosphere. It seems that students have learned to be afraid of radiation but have not been so successful at learning why they should be afraid, so they have associated it with other frightening things they have learned about.

Although students expressed a range of inaccurate beliefs about the nature of radiation (e.g., that it is sound, gas, magnetism, a by-product, or an effect; total n = 1,499), many more students correctly

FIGURE 6

Frequencies of scientist-defined criteria for “Briefly, define computer software” in the scientist and student data sets.


89Vol. 41, No. 3, 2012

characterized it as energy, light, electromagnetism, or radioactivity (total n = 3,220). However, among the different wavelengths of light, the one most commonly referenced (n = 233) was some distinct part of the electromagnetic spectrum that, in these students’ minds, is the only part that counts as radiation. This could be a half-step between “all radia-tion is bad” and “there are different types of radiation, some harmful and some harmless” and may be an accommodation of, on the one hand, what students “know” from media and common-sense understandings of radiation as “dangerous” and, on the other hand, what they have been taught in school—that radiation is the transmission of energy.

Students have myriad ideas about where radiation comes from, most of them vague. Many students referred to the Sun as a source (n = 464) but most frequently referred to radiation coming from nebulously defined substances (n = 813). The majority of other student-defined sources are misconceptions (total n = 713). How-ever, if students identified a source of radiation (n = 1,827), they were far more likely to identify natural sources (n = 1,401) than human-made sources (n = 603). As well, when students identified natural sources, they were far more likely to be accurate (n = 1,324) than to have a misconception (n = 99). In contrast, when students identified a human-made source, they were far more

likely to have a misconception (n = 532) than to be accurate (n = 103).

Surprisingly, students seemed to become less informed about radia-tion over time. Although this ques-tion was consistently the least likely to be answered (62% response rate and lower throughout), there was a slight increase in the prevalence of inaccurate ideas over time, from 24% in the 1989–1993 group up to 28% in the 2006–2009 group. Even starker is the steady decrease in accurate ideas, from 66% in the 1989–1993 group to 49% in the latest group. Whatever the reason, these students’ conceptions of radiation have become more nebu-lous and less correct over time. The radiation question is the only one for which we do not have a scientist data

FIGURE 7

Partial map of codes related to students’ concepts of radiation. The full image can be viewed online at http://www.nsta.org/college/connections.aspx.


set to which to compare and so we cannot speculate on the gap between the ideas of scientists and students.

ConclusionsPatterns in undergraduate students’ responses to four open-ended ques-tions about science and science top-ics were derived from a sample of nearly 10,000 students spanning 20 years. Rather than making knowl-edge models or coding according to prior expectations, the coding categories were driven by the data. Few significant trends with time are seen. On the core issue of their un-derstanding of how science works, students tend to emphasize empiri-cism over theory, and they seem gen-erally unaware of how the two relate. Responses for the other open-ended items also favor specific examples over broader conceptual frame-works.

This research demonstrates that students are able to communicate a wealth of ideas about the scientific endeavor and three areas of its con-tent. However, if the incidence of misconceptions and trivial or shallow characterizations is taken as a sign of insufficient depth of knowledge for true understanding, then science literacy is a continuing concern for educators of undergraduate students; students do not have as solid a grasp of the fundamental core of these sub-ject areas as scientists and science educators would like. The data are consistent with the supposition that knowledge of facts or terminology in a scientific subject does not connote a general understanding of either the content or the process of science or the ways that new knowledge is gained by scientists.

This investigation also begs the question of whether students’ re-sponses to these questions are indica-

tive of their overall scientific literacy and, if so, how our qualitative cod-ing capturing the many intricacies of student thinking can be used to assess that literacy. Our preliminary inquiries into these questions, to be presented elsewhere, have found that students’ open-ended responses are not tied to their scores on the forced-choice component of the survey, calling into question existing assess-ments of public science literacy. We welcome collaboration to extend our findings to other populations in order to delve further into unraveling this mystery. n

References Boyes, E., & Stanisstreet, M. (1994).

Children’s ideas about radioactivity and radiation: Sources, modes of travel, uses and dangers. Research in Science and Technological Education, 12, 145–160.

Henriksen, E. K. (1996). Laypeople’s understanding of radioactivity and radiation. Radiation Protection Dosimetry, 68, 191–196.

Impey, C., Buxner, S., Antonellis, J., Johnson, E., & King, C. (2011). A twenty-year survey of science literacy among college undergraduates. Journal of College Science Teaching, 40(4), 31–37.

Klaasen, C. W. J. M., Eijkelhof, H. M. C., & Lijnse, P. L. (1990). Considering an alternative approach to teaching radioactivity. In P. L. Lijnse, C. W. J. M. Klaasen, & H. M. C. Eijkelhof (Eds.), Relating macroscopic phenomena to microscopic particles: A central problem in secondary science education (pp. 304–315). Utrecht, the Netherlands: CDB Press.

Lederman, N. G., Abd-El-Khalick, F., Bell, R. L., & Schwartz, R. S. (2002). Views of nature of science questionnaire: Toward valid and

meaningful assessment of learners’ conceptions of nature of science. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 39, 497–521.

Lewis, J., Leach, J., & Wood-Robinson, C. (2000). All in the genes? Young people’s understanding of the nature of genes. Journal of Biological Education, 34, 74–79.

Lijnse, P. L., Eijkelhof, H. M. C., Klaasen, C. W. J. M., & Scholte, R.L.T. (1990). Pupils and mass media ideas about radioactivity. International Journal of Science Education, 12, 67–78.

National Science Board. (1988). Science and engineering indicators 1988. Arlington, VA: National Science Foundation.

National Science Board. (2010). Science and engineering indicators 2010. Arlington, VA: National Science Foundation.

Prather, E. (2005). Students’ beliefs about the role of atoms in radioactive decay and half-life. Journal of Geoscience Education, 53, 345–354.

Prather, E. E., & Harrington, R. R. (2001). Student understanding of ionizing radiation and radioactivity: Recognizing the differences between irradiation and contamination. Journal of College Science Teaching, 31(2), 89–93.

Rego, F., & Peralta, L. (2006). Portuguese students’ knowledge of radiation physics. Physics Education, 41, 259–262.

Jessie Antonellis (jcantone@email. arizona.edu) and Sanlyn Buxner are graduate students in the College of Education at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Chris Impey is a University Distinguished Professor and Hannah Sugarman is a research specialist, both in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Arizona in Tucson.


Communication is a critical aspect of all scientific endeavors. Formal publication of results in respected venues is an appro-priate goal of capable researchers. Because authorship in these venues suggests high-quality contributions to the field, such au-thorship is increasing considered a reflection on the scholarly productivity of investigators. This statement delineates the roles and responsibilities of authors of papers considered for potential publication in the Journal of College Science Teaching (JCST). Further questions should be addressed to the Assistant Executive Director of Publications for Journals, Ken Roberts, at [email protected].

Definition of AuthorshipJCST requires that authorship credit be afforded to those who con-tributed to the work in each of the areas listed below. Each listed author must have contributed to the work on each of the three listed areas. Every individual who has contributed in all of the manners listed below should be listed as an author.

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version to be submitted to JCST and the right and duty to ap-prove all modifications made in revision.

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Acknowledged ContributorsContributors to the work who do not meet the criteria for author-ships should be included in an acknowledgments section. It is ap-propriate to indicate the nature and level of the contribution in this section in brief terms. Note that the acknowledgments section of a manuscript should not be included in a blinded submission of the manuscript, but may be added to the manuscript subsequent to suc-cessful review and acceptance for publication in JCST.

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Reference International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. www.icmje.

org/ethical_1author.html

Policy on AuthorshipJournal of College Science Teaching

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Lone Star College,Kingwood, TX 77339

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T he traditional method for teaching a large introductory science course at many re-search-intensive institutions

is for a lecturer to dispense infor-mation in a lecture hall containing hundreds of students, for students to complete related laboratories once a week in smaller groups with a teaching assistant, and for students to read large amounts of expository text on their own. Although students are expected to relate the knowledge they have learned in these various settings, very little time is spent helping students read texts, organize information, and build study skills. To address this issue, this study ex-amined the effects of utilizing con-tent-area literacy strategies in intro-ductory biology laboratory sections in order to better support students in learning course content and linking lecture topics and readings to labo-ratory investigations.

Despite evidence suggesting that college-level science courses should be more active and experiential (To-manek & Montplaisir, 2004; Welling-ton & Osborne, 2001), the majority of introductory biology courses at the college level remain primarily lecture based. A survey of 123 research-intensive (Research I and II) univer-sities nationwide by the Reinvention Center at Stony Brook (2001) found that only 20% of survey respondents

reported inquiry-based teaching, one possible form of active and ex-perimental teaching, in introductory courses across disciplines. Studies of lecture-based college science courses have found that although they may lead students to acquisition of fac-tual knowledge, they often do not lead students to the development of meaningful understanding (Tomanek & Montplaisir, 2004).

Introductory biology courses are an example of a class in which stu-dents often experience high failure rates (Twigg, 2005). Preenrollment preparation is cited as one of the major factors affecting students’ performance in college science courses (Gonzalez-Espada & Napoleoni-Milan, 2006). Uno (1988) identified four main reasons that students often struggle in introductory biology courses:

• a lack of a solid science back-ground,

• an inability to think critically,• a negative or indifferent attitude

toward science, and• a lack of self-discipline and study

skills.

Previous studies have also suggest-ed that many college students have reading difficulties thatmay hindertheir abilities to learn in college- level introductory courses. Only 51% of ACT test takers who planned


Literacy Strategies Build Connections Between Introductory Biology Laboratories and Lecture ConceptsBy Lisa L. Harmon and Jerine Pegg

Content area literacy strategies, which support students in developing literacy skills and better understanding disciplinary concepts, are a promising approach to teaching science at the college level. In this study, we examined the effects of incorporating literacy strategies with laboratory sections in a General Biology course. In particular, we focused on the role of literacy strategies in learning course content and linking lecture topics and readings to laboratory investigations. Laboratory sections in which literacy strategies were used had a larger increase between pretest and posttest scores, higher semester grade averages, and a lower dropout rate than did sections that did not use literacy strategies. This study suggests that restructuring laboratory sections to incorporate literacy strategies can be an effective way to further the learning of students in the classroom.

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to continue their education after high school met the college-readiness benchmark in reading, minimum ACT scores recommended for suc-cess in particular college courses (ACT, Inc., 2006). Maaka and Ward (2000) also found that community college students commonly expe-rienced difficulties in content areareading and that instructors had con-cerns about their abilities to help stu-dents.

Although many universities com-bine large lecture courses with smaller laboratory sections that incorporate active learning and build on labora-tory concepts, students often struggle to make connections between lecture and laboratory (Burrowes & Nazario, 2008). Furthermore, many students whom the primary author of the present study has observed through classroominteractionshavedifficultymaking connections between labora-tory experiments and lecture material in their college science classes with-out guidance from their instructors. For example, students often end the semester not being able to express in writing the necessary connections between the information presented in lecture and the experiments complet-ed in their weekly laboratories. Using content-area literacy strategies may be a way to provide some necessary tools to help improve student learning in their introductory classes.

Content-area literacy strategies support students in learning disciplin-ary concepts by infusing strategies focused on literacy (i.e., reading, writing, and vocabulary) with content instruction (Sejnost & Thiese, 2007). Studies that have explored the use of literacy strategies in the content areas contain common suggestions on how to improve content-area reading instruction (Anders & Guzzetti, 1996; Brent & Felder, 1993; Grant, 1994).

These suggestions include instructors presenting clear course objectives, helping students link prior knowledge to new information, using graphic organizers in classes to show infor-mation, helping students learn how to select key information from text, discussing new concepts in classes, allowing students to formulate or ask questions during reading, and encour-aging students to develop new ideas (Anders & Guzzetti, 1996; Grant, 1994). These are in line with Uno’s (1998) arguments that college instruc-tors need to increase their efforts to teach learning skills. He suggested that biology instructors should “(1) promote student self-discipline and learning skills, (2) broaden student perception of and improve student attitudes toward science and biol-ogy, (3) train students to use critical thinking skills, and (4) provide a solid background in biological concepts” (p. 216).

Although a few researchers have started to investigate the use of lit-eracy strategies in college classrooms (Grant, 1994; Maaka & Ward, 2000), the majority of research on the use of literacy strategies has focused on elementary and secondary schools (e.g., Dempsey & Betz, 2001; Horton et al., 1993; Milligan & Orlich, 1981). This project studied the use of literacy strategies in college introduc-tory classes. The purpose of this study was to explore the effectiveness of using literacy strategies in laboratory settings to help students build connec-tions between lecture and laboratory concepts and improve their learning in the course.

Embedding literacy strategies into biology laboratory sectionsIn this study, we decided to take ad-vantage of the smaller class size and

active learning environments of biol-ogy laboratory sections to help stu-dents better understand the lecture material. Laboratories embedded with literacy strategies were used to help students build connections be-tween hands-on experimentation and the lecture concepts in the course. We focused on addressing one key research question with this study: Does the implementation of literacy strategies in laboratories improve student performance in understand-ing lecture material?

Several literacy strategies were used with students during this study, including concept mapping, unit focus question writing, comparison charts, drawingoutscientificprocesses,andidentifying word-part meanings of vocabulary terms. Literacy strate-gies were paired with material from lecture and laboratories to highlight the key concepts students needed to learn to be successful in this intro-ductory biology class. In particular, literacy strategies addressed learning targets that were common to both the lecture and laboratory portions of the course. Literacy strategies were modeled to students at the beginning of the semester, but students were encouraged to become more and more independent from the instructor when completing these activities as the semester progressed.

Concept mapping was used at the beginning of each unit to show an overview of the entire semester. Joel Mintzes(2006)definedaconceptmapas “a two dimensional, hierarchical node-link diagram that depicts the most important concepts and propo-sitions in a knowledge domain” (p. 67). Studies have shown that literacy strategies like concept mapping help learners perform better than the use of only underlining text (Amer, 1994) and standard note-taking skills


(Reader & Hammond, 1994). Forthisproject,studentswerefirst

given a general overview of concept mapping and, with the instructor, completed a semester overview con-cept map containing the four main unit topics as large nodes on the map with supporting concepts linked around these four main themes. As the semester unfolded, students fo-cused on one unit topic at a time that corresponded to information being learned in lecture and the laboratory. With the help of the primary author, students expanded on each unit map as new information was presented. As the semester progressed, the students carried out more of this concept map-ping on their own.

Unit focus question writing had students, with the guidance and modeling of the instructor, read the textbook chapter headings and dark printed vocabulary words to create sets of focus questions for the unit. The questions could then be used to guide student reading and re-view of material throughout the unit (LeSourd, 1988). For example, three to four questions were developed for each of the main topics or themes from the original concept map for the class. By the end of the semester, students were encouraged to write questions with only minimal input from the instructor.

Many types of comparison charts including Venn diagrams, comparison tables, or other comparisons were used to point out significant differ-ences in biological concepts. For example, students, with the help of the instructor during the introduction to a laboratory on Polymerase Chain Reactions (PCR), created a table com-paring PCR and DNA replication to better understand how the laboratory technique involved in PCR is similar to and different from this important

cellular process. Other comparison charts and Venn diagrams were de-veloped during class introductions to compare processes like mitosis and meiosis or structures like chlo-roplasts and mitochondria. Students were encouraged to develop their own comparison charts, which they then shared among peer groups with input from the instructor.

Drawing out scientific processes represented in text has also been shown to help increase students’ observational skills and understand-ing of concepts (Dempsey & Betz, 2001; Van Meter, 2001; Wellington & Osborne, 2001). In this study, students were given several opportunities to draw out different cellular processes like DNA replication, protein syn-thesis, mitosis, meiosis, and many others and compare their drawings to other students’ ideas. The instructor suggested possible labels for draw-ings and presented some of her own diagrams to the class as examples. Drawing was used to help students visualize how these processes func-tion in science and quickly determine what questions students had about the topic.

Additionally, students discussed how to break up complicated vocabu-lary terms into smaller parts. Using linguistic approaches to learning new science vocabulary words is an effective teaching tool because it al-lowsstudentstomasterwordprefixes,suffixes,androotsthatareoftenre-peated in science literature (Milligan & Orlich, 1981). A linguistic approach was used in the course to introduce new vocabulary words and help guide student discussions throughout the semester.

MethodsIn this study we examined students in nine laboratory sections, each

with 16 to 24 students (see Table 1 for sample sizes) associated with one introductory lecture class during one semester at a four-year research uni-versity. This course is required for all biology majors at the university. Stu-dents attend three 50-minute lectures each week and one laboratory that usually lasts two and a half hours. Students attended their laboratory sections and completed a laboratory experiment to demonstrate a concept under study in the lecture component of the class.

The primary author taught two “treatment” sections using literacy strategy methods integrated with traditional laboratory experiments to help enhance student knowledge (sec-tions A and B). The primary author also taught one “comparison” section using only a laboratory experiment to demonstrate a concept (section C). Six other sections were taught at the same time by other teaching assistants (Figure 1). All laboratory teaching as-sistants used a standardized introduc-tion before starting the experiment, similar to the approach used in section C above. Laboratory sections A, B, and C were taught in the morning or midday hours in the spring semester of 2009. The other laboratory sections (sections D through I) were taught during afternoon to evening hours. Students had no advance knowledge of what kind of teaching techniques or teaching staff would be used in their laboratory sections when they enrolled for the class. All procedures carried out on human subjects were approved by the institutional review board (Project Approval 08-120).

The semester-long course was di-vided into four content units. During thefirstofthesefourcontentunits,alllaboratory sections received the same instruction. During the second and third units, students in the treatment


95Vol. 41, No. 3, 2012

sections A and B were given addi-tional instruction in small groups on literacy strategies to help them make connections between lecture concepts and laboratory material. During the last unit, no additional instruction was used because students met for labora-tories during only one week for this unit, and there was a need to switch teaching assistant schedules. Section C was not given the same additional instruction in literacy strategies but did complete the same laboratory for any given week. Section C was treated similarly to the other sections taught by other teaching assistants.

During the firstweek of the se-mester, 186 students took a pretest for the course. This pretest contained 40 multiple-choice questions test-ing learning targets for the semester course and was created by the Biology Department as a course assessment tool. Notably, the questions on this test covered both lecture and lab mate-rialbutwerenotspecificallyfocusedon lab activities. During the last labo-

ratory, the 166 students remaining in the class took an identical posttest that contained the same 40 questions as the pretest, but in a randomized order.

At the end of each unit in which literacy strategies were used, students in the treatment groups A and B com-pleted a survey about the impact of the different learning strategies used in their laboratory class. Questions focused on the students’ experience with the learning strategies and the general helpfulness of the laboratories completed. The survey questions were

kept the same throughout the entire semester so that scores could be com-pared at the end of the semester. The primaryauthoralsorecordedreflec-tions and informal interviews with students in the treatment sections in a professional journal throughout the semester. Unit test scores and semes-ter grade averages were collected for students in all sections, and dropout rates were collected for the treatment and comparison sections. The pretest and posttest scores, the differences between pretest and posttest scores,

TABLE 1

Sample sizes and average scores on pretests and posttests for treatment groups that experienced literacy strategies, a comparison group that had the same instructor but no literacy strategies, and other sections in the same course.

Groups Pretest sample size

Pretest mean score

Posttest sample size

Posttest mean score

Difference between pretest and posttest

Treatment groups 14.7 23.5 +8.8A 21 15.6 ± 0.9 16 23.3 ± 1.2 +7.7B 23 13.8 ± 0.8 22 23.7 ± 1.1 +9.9Comparison group 14.9 20.6 +5.6C 16 14.9 ± 1.2 9 20.6 ± 2.8 +5.6Other sections 16.0 21.0 +5.0D 23 17.1 ± 0.9 20 16.4 ± 1.5 -0.7E 21 15.7 ± 0.6 21 21.3 ± 1.2 +5.7F 19 14.4 ± 0.7 19 19.4 ± 1.4 +4.9G 23 17.5 ± 0.7 23 21.5 ± 0.9 +4.0H 24 17.1 ± 0.8 21 24.2 ± 1.0 +7.1I 16 14.3 ± 1.1 15 23.1 ± 1.2 +8.7

Note: Values presented are mean ± standard error.

FIGURE 1

Diagram of the experimental design used in this study.


and semester grade averages were compared using analysis of variance (ANOVA). We compared means be-tween the treatment and comparison groups, all of which were taught by the primary author; other sections were taught by other instructors and are not included in statistical analyses. Dropout rates were compared using Fisher’s exact test to test for differ-ent proportions of dropouts between treatment and comparison groups.

ResultsAll sections scored similarly on the course pretest, with the range of mean scores between 13.8 points and 17.5 points (out of 40 possible).

There were no differences among treatment and comparison sections in pretest scores (ANOVA), F(2, 57) = 1.0, p = .36. The posttest mean scores for all sections ranged from 16.4 to 24.2, and differences in individual student scores between pre- and posttestsrangedfrom−13to+20,al-though most students improved. Ta-ble 1 shows the mean pre- and post-test scores and average differences for all nine laboratory sections. The difference between pre- and posttest scoresdifferedsignificantlybetweentreatment and comparison sections, F(1, 43) = 7.3, p = .01; students who dropped the course were not included in this analysis. Treatment

groups improved substantially more (average+8.8)comparedwithcom-parison(average+5.6)andallothersections(average+5.0).

Table 2 summarizes the class drop-out rates andfinalgrades thatwerereported for students in the treatment group, comparison group, and entire class. The treatment sections had significantlylowerdropoutratesthandid the comparison section (Fisher’s exact test, p = .03). In the section that did not include literacy strategies, stu-dents were more than six times more likely to quit the course than stay in until the end of the semester when compared with the treatment group (Table 2). The semester grade aver-ages were also higher in the treatment groups compared with the comparison group and the entire class, although we did not statistically analyze these differences (Table 2).

Results from two survey questions documented students’ feelings about the success of the use of literacy strategies after the second and third unit (Table 3). We do not report re-sults from thefirst unit becausewehad not yet implemented literacy strategies. The two questions dealing with the study are presented here, and all questions that pertained to other laboratory and classroom teaching practices were not considered for this study. In general, students agreed or strongly agreed that the literacy strategies were effective and should be continued. There were only slight differences (mean scores differed by 0.1–0.4 points) in the students’ perceptions of the use of literacy strategies throughout the semester as measured by the survey. The results of the surveys seem to suggest that students found value in the literacy strategies for their learning in the class and would like to see more of these strategies used in the future.

TABLE 2

Dropout rates and class averages for semester for treatment and comparison groups, and the entire class.

Section Group dropout rates Semester grade averagesTreatment groupsA 4.0% 80.0%B 4.0% 77.0%Comparison groupC 26.7% 72.7%Other sectionsSections D-I N/A* 73.1%

* Not available due to IRB approval.

TABLE 3

Survey average scores for students in the treatment groups.

QuestionAverage Likert score*

Second unit average

Third unit average

Question 1: The unit question writing and concept mapping helped me learn the information in the unit.

4.0 4.4

Question 2: I would like to continue to create unit questions and concept maps for each of the remaining units.

4.3 4.4

*5 = strongly agree to 1 = strongly disagree


97Vol. 41, No. 3, 2012

Throughout the semester, the pri-mary author kept a professional jour-nal with notes about how the project was going and informal interviews with students. During the semester, students in the treatment groups made statements such as “the focus question writing helps me know what to focus on for the unit” or “thanks for help-ing us start the unit with questions and themes in mind.” Comments such as these suggest that the literacy strategies facilitated student learning by helping students focus on the key concepts in each unit.

ConclusionOur results suggest that the imple-mentation of literacy strategies in laboratories does indeed improve the performance of our students in understanding lecture material. The useofliteracystrategiessignificant-ly improved student performance on a postcourse assessment compared with students in sections that did not use literacy strategies. The pre- and posttest included questions covering the core material from the lecture portion of the class that were not fo-cused on lab concepts. Students in the treatment groups, which received literacy activities in the lab, showed greater improvements of their scores on this test. This provides evidence that the students are better able to connect material from the lecture and the lab. Students participating in sec-tions using literacy strategies were also found to be less likely to drop the class. According to the student surveys, students felt that these lit-eracy strategies helped them develop an understanding of unit concepts, and most students recommended that these strategies continue to be used in the future.

There are several limitations to this study. First, it was completed at one

university over a short period of one semester. This study also focused on only one course and included a single instructor for the treatment sections. Future studies could expand this project to include more university introductory courses. Other studies could involve training graduate stu-dent teaching assistants in the use and practice of teaching literacy strategies in laboratories. Student surveys could be improved to include more types and numbers of questions to better evaluate students’ attitudes about learning literacy strategies. Finally, it is impossible to say with complete certainty that all of the differences we describe between treatment and control groups are due only to the use of literacy strategies. For example, it is possible that our treatment sections had lower dropout rates partially be-cause of increased interaction with the instructor during the implementation of the literacy strategies.

Despite these caveats, there are two main implications of this study. Thefirstimplicationisthattheuseofliteracy strategies or similar methods in small group settings like labo-ratories may help support student learning of content taught in lecture through additional practice and skill development. Students in introduc-tory courses often struggle to make connections between laboratory experiments and lecture concepts. Literacy strategies like concept map-ping, focus question writing, main idea comparison charts, drawing-to-learn processes, and many others help students organize information in new ways to further their learning of the science concepts under study. The second implication is that the use of literacy strategies may help students feel as if they have a better understanding of the content they are learning in their classes. This might

have made them less likely to feel overwhelmed and drop an introduc-tory course. This study suggests that incorporating literacy strategies into laboratory instruction can be an ef-fective way to further the learning of students in introductory science courses.

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Lisa L. Harmon ([email protected]) is a lecturer in the Biology Department at the University of Idaho in Moscow. Jerine Pegg is an assistant professor in the Department of Elementary Education at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada.

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