Julie Reynolds, Mellon Instructor in Writing & Biology, Arts & Sciences

Project Description

Julie Reynolds and her colleagues Paula Lemons and Ahrash Bissell are developing a methodology for designing valid and reliable, discipline-specific, critical-thinking questions and grading rubrics that simultaneously measure student’s content knowledge and specific critical-thinking skills (e.g., application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation). Using this methodology, they are generating questions and grading rubrics, and beginning to use these questions to gather data on student learning of both content and critical-thinking skills.

To share their work and allow others to contribute, they are looking for a web-based tool that can manage this type of collaborative assessment design and modification. This grant funded an assistant to assess web sites that might be suitable for a critical thinking assignment repository. The ultimate goal is to find an appropriate on-line tool to build a scholarly community around critical thinking assignments and rubrics for grading. Criteria used to assess websites:

1. free
2. user friendly
3. contains a downloadable database of critical-thinking assignments related to the teaching of biology
4. allows for collaborative writing of critical thinking assignments
5. claims to measure critical thinking in student responses
6. actually can measure critical thinking in student responses

Of the 13 software or websites assessed, none met the criteria. Investigated software/websites included: CPR, FLAG CDT, LE3, InsightAssessment, CornellCT, 2Mpower, SmartPrim, Theseus, Trackstar, DevelopingCTSkills, Critical Thinking Co, Writeboard, and CLAQWA.

The assistant suggested designing a new system to meet the needs of the project.

Project Started: August 20, 2007
Funding: $2000

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Sherryl A Broverman, Associate Professor of the Practice, Biology, Arts and Sciences

Project description

Dr. Broverman participated in a Faculty Fellows group focused on teaching large classes. This fellowship group discussed a number of techniques, described in McKeachie’s Teaching Tips: Strategies, Research, and Theory for College and University Teachers and Angelo and Cross’ Classroom Assessment Techniques.

Broverman has been teaching very large (200-300) lecture courses and was concerned that students were passive learners. She also wanted to include more formative assessment projects to benefit both the students learning and her understanding of their needs. She was particularly interested in group work (beyond “think, pair, share” using PRS), portfolios, and peer education to promote students abilities to synthesize and make connections.

For the Spring 2006 Fellows program, she explored concept maps, one minute summaries, and structuring team based presentation assignments in preparation for teaching a large class. She found the self-assessment by the students, where they summarized concepts of a lecture or presentation, helpful in understanding what students were learning at various points in the course. Students also felt that the creation of a concept map would be helpful when structuring a paper, but thought the process of creating them was difficult. Broverman restructured her presentation assignments, based on her work in the past, to be more manageable in a 300 student course.

Project start date: January 1, 2006
Funding awarded: $1,000

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Alyssa Perz-Edwards, Lecturing Fellow, Biology, Arts & Sciences

Project Description

Perz-Edwards created digitized movie clips that her students used to explore experimental methods and embryo development. The students accessed the streaming video through Blackboard, which provided the students with a better understanding of processes they used to plan and execute experiments during lab sessions.

The availability of video outside of class allowed the instructor to use class time for discussion and other activities. Students also collected video and time lapse data in the class to use in presentations describing their work.  A poster describing the project is available.

Project Started: 5/1/2004
Funding awarded: $2500

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