Restructuring Biology Curriculum to Incorporate Vision & Change Core Concepts and Competencies Department of Biology, Elmhurst College Elmhurst, IL Eve M. Mellgren, Stacey L. Raimondi, Tamara L. Marsh, Paul E. Arriola

!o  Institution type: Small, comprehensive, private, liberal arts college

o  Department size:

•  8 full-time tenure-track faculty

-  3 Tenured Professor rank

-  1 Tenured Associate professor rank

-  4 Untenured Assistant professor rank

-  10 adjuncts, usually 5-6 teach in a semester

•  Approximately 200 majors

o  Department Offerings:

•  Major in Biology with a BS or BA

•  Majors generally follow one of four tracks:

-  Professional School Track – For Medical School, Dental School, Optometry School, Pharmacy School, and Veterinary School

-  Graduate School Track – For MS in Biological Science, and PhD in Biological Science

-  Allied Health Programs – For Physician’s Assistant, Master of Physical Therapy, 3+1 Certification Programs in Clinical Lab Science, Diagnostic Medical Sonography, Radiation Therapy, and Nuclear Medical Technology

-  Secondary Education Track – For Middle and High School Science Teacher

•  Also teach core science courses for nursing, chemistry, education

o  Institution size and Demographics: 2,900 traditional full time undergraduate students, 325 adult bachelors-level students and 285 masters-level students

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Demographics

Vision and Change Success

Department Evaluation Rubric !

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Connections and Collaborations

Raimondi, S.L., Marsh, T.L., and Arriola, P. (2014) Integrating Vision & Change to a Biology Curriculum at a Small Comprehensive College. Journal of College Science Teaching. 43 (5)

Reference

Midwest and Great Plains Regional Network

The PULSE Midwest and Great Plains Regional Network is supported by award #1355894 from the National Science Foundation

Elmhurst!

College

Table 2. Categories of courses offered in the biology department and respective writing assignments (* indicates course in development)

Core Courses Cellular/Molecular-Level Organismal-Level Population/Ecosystem-

Level Scientific Paper (Introductory) Grant Proposal Annotated Bibliography Scientific Paper

(Advanced)

General Biology I Microbiology Comparative Chordate Anatomy General Ecology

General Biology II Developmental Biology Plant Anatomy & Morphology Animal Behavior

Genetics Immunology Invertebrate Zoology Evolution of Vertebrates

Molecular and Cellular Biology of Cancer

Advanced Human Anatomy

Evolution & Population Genetics

Behavioral Genetics Plant Physiology Microbial Ecology

Molecular Genetics Animal Physiology Aquatic Biology*

Advanced Cell Physiology Conservation Biology*

Plant Biotechnology* Systematics*

Table 1. Elmhurst student demographics

Figure 1. Student research presentations at Capstone (Alyssa Beck, current graduate student at University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, School of Integrative Biology), and 2012 ACCA conference (Daniel Kelpsch, current graduate student at the University of Iowa, Program in Molecular and Cellular Biology).

We recently instituted a new curriculum in 2011/2012 to more broadly train our students and ensure that they encounter Vision & Change Core Concepts throughout their education at Elmhurst College. In addition to three broad core courses, students take at least one upper level course in each of the three following levels of biology: cellular/molecular, organismal, and population/ecosystem. We believe that taking an advanced course within each level ensures that students encounter and revisit core concepts in a more intellectually challenging class. This way we ensure a developmental curriculum that hits all of the core concept areas identified in the Vision & Change document. Other Vision & Changes Core Competencies that we introduced include an integration of communication and collaboration through written, visual and oral methods. We have employed a developmental writing requirement where in the lower level core we employ a “learning to write” model, and in the upper level we utilize a “writing to learn” model. To ensure that all students encounter several communication methods common to biology, we distributed three specific advanced assignments to each of the three levels mentioned above. Students are required to complete an annotated bibliography for the organismal level courses, a research paper for population level courses, and a grant proposal for the cell/molecular level courses (Table 2). Finally, we instituted a new capstone requirement for our biology majors. Our capstone program requires a pre-requisite of an independent learning experience, either an independent research project with a faculty member for credit, an off-campus internship, or a research proposal writing experience. All three pre-requisites require a specific writing assignment rooted in the writing to learn methodology. Once the students complete the pre-requisite, they take the Capstone course, where they give a formal oral presentation on their experience to their peers and faculty members (Figure 1). Independent research students are also encouraged to present their research as posters or oral presentations at conferences such as the annual Associated Colleges of the Chicago (ACCA) conference or the Elmhurst Research and Performance Showcase.

Strengths:

•  Authentic In class/lab research In each of our three core curriculum courses (General Biology I and II, and Genetics), students must design their own research projects and write scientific papers with their results. The students learn how to develop a hypothesis, design a simple experiment of their choice, collect the data, and write their introduction, methods, results and discussion. This way all students are familiar with experimental design and scientific writing by the time they finish the core, and further develop these skills in the upper level biology courses.

•  Student Core Concepts/Competencies

Once students complete the core biology courses, they must take one upper level class in each of three categories, cellular/molecular, organismal and population level. This way they are exposed most, if not all, of the core concepts in Vision & Change. Each of the three categories also has a specific writing assignment, to fulfill several of the core competencies in Vision & Change. Students also complete a Capstone their senior year with either independent research, an internship, or faculty guided research proposal writing as a pre-requisite. The capstone is a presentation of the pre-requisite work to departmental faculty and students, and is meant to integrate what they have learned as a biology major with their pre-requisite experience.

•  Independent research

Independent research with a faculty member is promoted as an “ideal” for a pre-requisite to the senior Capstone presentation required of our majors. Students who wish to do research fill out applications and the department decides which faculty member will mentor each student. The students are matched by their interests, not by just choosing a specific faculty member. Each faculty member has 2-5 students per semester in their lab doing research. As an incentive to promote research experiences, students receive ½ credit for research, and two semesters of research for credit can count as one of the 5 upper level biology courses required for graduation.

Areas for enhancement: •  Assessment •  Best Pedagogies •  Student Metacognitive Skills

We!are!just!beginning!to!assess!the!changes!to!our!curriculum,!and!are!seeking!more!informa8on!on!assessment!strategies.!The!

Biology!Major!Field!Test!(through!ETS)!is!currently!being!administered!to!freshmen!and!gradua8ng!seniors!to!assess!the!broad!

training!of!our!students!and!if!they!are!mastering!core!concepts!aCer!comple8ng!the!major.!!We!are!also!collec8ng!data!on!

student!wri8ng!assignments!throughout!the!curriculum.!Specifically,!we!will!be!assessing!if!the!“wri8ng!to!learn”!assignments!in!

our!upperHlevel!courses!improve!student!success,!as!there!is!a!lack!of!research!in!this!area.!

In!addi8on,!we!are!looking!for!outside!assessment!to!help!us!con8nue!to!incorporate!Vision!&!Change!principles!into!our!

curriculum.!!We!have!recently!gone!through!an!internal!preliminary!program!assessment,!and!would!like!to!con8nue!to!gain!

feedback!on!our!goals!and!assessment!efforts.!!The!next!phase!of!the!college’s!program!assessment!protocol!would!require!

external!review!of!the!department!and!we!are!hoping!associa8on!with!the!PULSE!program!would!help!us!achieve!the!college’s!

requirement!as!well!as!keep!us!on!track!with!Na8onal!trends!in!undergraduate!biology!educa8on.!

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Figure 1. Student research presentations

Total No. of Undergraduate Students (Fall 2013) = 2900

N Percent Female 1740 60.0% Male 1160 40.0%

African American 134 4.6% American Indian/Alaskan Native 9 0.3% Asian 133 4.6% Hawaiian-Pacific Islander 4 0.1% Hispanic 364 12.6% Nonresident Alien 14 0.5% Multiracial 82 2.8% White 2097 72.3% Ethnicity Unknown 63 2.2%

First Generation 708 24.4% !