Workshop Biology for Non-Majors--Promoting Scientific Literacy Through Investigative Laboratories and Issue-Oriented Activities

Purpose

It's winter term at the University of Oregon, and the students in introductory biology are about to learn the anatomy of the heart.

In one laboratory, the instructor draws diagrams of the heart on the board, labels each part with its anatomical name, and explains exactly how the dissection should proceed. Students copy the drawings and learn the terms and then begin the actual dissection.

In the Workshop Biology laboratory across the hall, students are handed sheep hearts and dissection tools. Guided only by a handout that asks a series of leading questions, students attempt to figure out the function of the different areas of the heart and the path of blood flow from what they see on their dissection trays. They make their own diagrams and record their observations. As the students discuss their findings, the instructor introduces key terms but only where necessary to facilitate understanding.

By the end of the session the class has inferred the double-loop blood flow--a concept new to most students--and has grasped the basic form and function of the heart. In addition, despite their initial fears about going into the laboratory cold, students have learned an important lesson in making observations and inferences, and gained insight into the workings of the scientific method.

Workshop Biology, a three-term laboratory-based introductory sequence, seeks to improve science literacy among non-science majors. In the context of this project, science literacy means the individuals ability to make informed, critical decisions, consistent with his or her values, on science-related issues. The course acquaints students with scientific inquiry, critical thinking and decision-making, and the relationship of scientific knowledge to social issues.

The belief that new roles for the students imply new roles for the faculty is fundamental to this project. Accordingly, as the course was being designed and taught project staff worked to foster a teaching culture in the department.

Innovative Features

Whereas traditional instruction focuses on increasing knowledge, the goal of Workshop Biology--to help students make decisions on science-related matters--requires that attention be paid to their background knowledge and ways of learning, their thinking skills and their values.

Workshop Biology reverses the proportions of laboratory and lecture time, so that students spend only an hour and a half each week in lecture, and four hours per week in the laboratory. Instruction centers on open-ended, investigative activities for re latively small groups. Each term, laboratories revolve around one of two general workshop themes such as human genetics or the biology of cancer. Students choose one workshop or the other at the beginning of the term.

Lectures are replaced by assemblies, which all students attend together. Assemblies include special presentations and small group activities, and give students the opportunity to generalize abstract concepts from their concrete workshop experiences, to link important ideas, and to discuss the implications of their knowledge.

Workshops and assemblies consist of three kinds of activities:

1. Concept activities, which teach the key concepts of biology through discovery and hypothesis-testing exercises (i.e., the heart dissection described above). These activities are often designed to confront the fundamental misconceptions about the natural world that many students share.

2. Investigative activities, which emphasize the skills and attitudes necessary for scientific inquiry and an understanding of current scientific controversies. Students design, conduct, and evaluate studies, and present their findings in writing.

3. Issue-oriented activities, which require students to use scientific concepts, reasoning, and awareness of their own values to confront personal and social issues. Students address topics such as pesticide regulation, forest management or genetic engineering through library research, group discussion, writing, poster sessions and class presentations. As their projects evolve, students maintain a constant dialogue with their instructor by handing in a series of outlines, rough drafts, problem statements and bibliographies for the instructor s comments.

In addition to the course materials, project staff developed four software modules, interactive simulations that allow students to correct their misconceptions and design their own investigations of phenomena and their impact on society. The simulation entitled Demography, for example, not only helps students to investigate the relationships between age structure, birth and death rates, and population growth, but stimulates them to reflect on major current social issues.

The magnitude of these pedagogical reforms has necessarily had as much impact on faculty as on students. The Workshop Biology model, the creators felt from the beginning, should obtain for instructors too. They needed to reflect on epistemology, values, and critical thinking. They had to be as free as their students to question, take risks, and obtain feedback. Workshop Biology could succeed only if faculty were immersed in a teaching culture.

Frequent contact among project staff was essential to the project. During the first two years, all faculty and teaching assistants involved in the course met weekly. Eventually, electronic communication became a practical means of communication as wel l as record-keeping.

In the third year of the project, the weekly meetings led to the formation of a Science Education Journal Club, in which project staff as well as faculty and graduate students from biology, chemistry, English, philosophy and other programs discuss current research in science education, collaborative learning and writing across the curriculum.

Furthermore, to document teaching and professional development project faculty instituted teaching portfolios, which include annotated syllabi and handouts, student feedback, classroom research, and reflective writing. Most of this work is available electronically.

Evaluation

Course evaluation techniques included pre- and post-tests of concepts, reasoning skills, values, and attitudes towards science; frequent student evaluation of course activities and goals; analysis of student work; classroom observation; and tracking of enrollment and demographics. Students in the traditional introductory biology course were used as a comparison group throughout the project.

The four interactive software simulations are presently being beta-tested at a number of colleges, universities and secondary schools.

Project Impact

The comparative data gathering posed some inferential and logistic difficulties. By "triangulating" our results through gathering a variety of data and by constantly varying the "experiment," the project staff tried to build a persuasive body of evidence. The results varied as the project matured. Overall, in comparison to their peers in traditional introductory biology classes, Workshop Biology students:

• show greater improvement in conceptual learning and understanding of scientific reasoning. Women and non-traditional students display particularly high levels of learning and motivation, and non-native English speakers do not seem to be at a disadvantage;
• develop a greater understanding of and willingness to address complex issues--students consistently cite the course s relevance as its most important aspect; and
• become more involved in their learning experiences and value them more highly. As might be anticipated, these students expect more from the course, and offer unusually sophisticated critiques of its various components.

While the project staff have sufficient evidence to support these generalizations, they admit to limitations in interpreting these complex data. For detailed clarification of each research conclusion, consult their 1994 final report which is available from the project director.

In practice, the laboratory-intensive format of Workshop Biology turned out to be less important than the structure of activities themselves. Using lessons learned in the first three years, the project is now getting similar (sometimes better) results in a less resource-intensive, more sustainable course format. Workshop Biology now meets for 90 minutes on Tuesdays and Thursdays in a large-lecture setting, and for 90 minutes on Wednesdays in the laboratory. This has allowed the instructors to use lec ture time to plan and discuss laboratory activities, so that the laboratory is still the focal point of the course. For example, on Tuesdays students can work on formulating a hypothesis or carrying out a conceptual activity to prepare for Wednesday's laboratory session. Then, on Thursdays, they can discuss the laboratory's results and use that as a basis for a larger discussion of concepts and issues. Many conceptual and critical thinking activities have adapted well to the large-lecture setting, and still allow students to work in small groups.

Beyond the classroom, the efforts to maintain the teaching culture continue: faculty meet in person regularly and confer electronically. Those who are not teaching Workshop Biology observe classes and provide feedback. The Science Education Journal Club continues to attract faculty and graduate students from a number of disciplines.

The issues-oriented activities using posters are currently being adapted and used by more biology faculty at other institutions than any other workshop activity. They are flexible, require no special resources, and seem to fill a gap in most introductory biology curricula--the need for relevance and a focus on critical thinking. Poster sessions are also an effective dissemination tool in their own right; sessions are held in the main atrium of the science complex and are visible to other faculty, who are stimulated to try them. Posters are now used frequently in other biology courses and in other departments, most recently in introductory psychology and education courses.

Lessons Learned

Project staff feel strongly that continuing assessment of Workshop Biology is imperative. Like the student who wrote the major thing I have learned in this class has been that questions are O.K. without answers, that questions are the most important thing, faculty believe that it is less important to aim for a perfect course than to ask the right questions as the teaching process itself evolves to adjust to the changing needs of students. Assessment and collaboration on its design and interpretation make the teaching culture possible--a culture in which teaching presents an intellectual challenge similar to that of disciplinary research.

Workshop Biology has revealed that inquiry-based learning can teach content better than can traditional, transmission-oriented activities such as lectures. Initial expectations were that Workshop Biology students would gain more than their traditionall y taught peers in the areas of investigative and critical thinking skills, and attitudes toward science. Project faculty hoped that they would not fall behind in content learned. In fact, the most dramatic results achieved in Workshop Biology are content-oriented--not that students have memorized more facts or learned a broader range of content, but they have a better understanding of fundamental concepts that they can use effectively in new situations. Some science instructors assume that inquiry-based activities can motivate students and help them learn about the process of science, but that in order to learn content students must be talked at. An even more common assumption is that students must learn some content before they can participate in inquiry. Project results provide evidence that neither of these assumptions is true.

All college teachers are familiar with students who think they know more than they do. The staff has encountered the opposite problem: project students do not realize how much they have learned. When learning outcomes are unfamiliar, students may not value them, and in fact may not recognize them. Project students often complained that they "weren't learning anything," which, upon probing, turned out to mean they were not memorizing facts. Frequent reflective writing and self-evaluation helps students to recognize and value other kinds of learning. This, in turn, helps their performance on unfamiliar kinds of exercises and assessments, which reinforces the fact that they are, indeed, learning something.

Project Continuation and Recognition

Workshop Biology continues to be offered and assessed. Its pedagogy has influenced teaching in many courses throughout the department, and has led to the implementation of a similar project for majors, funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The assessment principles and methods developed for this project are now in use at several other institutions, and staff frequently consult on other curriculum development projects, including those of FIPSE and NSF. Assistance with assessment and the process of continuous improvement has proven to be the area of greatest need among dissemination participants.

In 1994 the project received a new Comprehensive Program award from FIPSE to disseminate Workshop Biology, and now has also been funded by the National Science Foundation.

Available Information

A Workshop Biology curriculum handbook is now available. It includes laboratory activities with instructor notes and student handouts, a manual for designing issues projects, a guide to assessment and course improvement strategies (including assessment instruments) and several bibliographies of useful resources, in addition to discussion of Workshop Biology philosophy and goals.

Project staff now publish a quarterly newsletter on college biology teaching, Biology Education Review, available in hard copy and on the WWW. Additional information about the project may be obtained from:

Daniel Udovic
Department of Biology
University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403
503-346-5092

Those interested in the curriculum handbook or assistance with assessment should contact:

Deborah Morris
Workshop Biology Project Coordinator
541-346-6092

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