When marking exams in BIOL 336, Lizelle Odendaal and Gabriel Dall’Alba noticed that students were struggling to connect concepts across different topics in the course. “A pattern started to become clear,” explained Gabriel, “exemplified by our attempt to assess understanding of Macroevolution through open-ended exam questions.” As Lizelle reflected, “There was a disconnect between how students demonstrated their understanding and what we as instructors expected them to be able to do.”
Motivated by these insights, the pair decided to test whether classroom materials focused on promoting higher interconnectivity across topics could better align their learning objectives with students’ actual outcomes.
Below, they describe the classroom materials they developed, the changes they made to the course based on student feedback they received, and what they learned along the way.
What did you do?
Lizelle: I decided to use a case study approach together with peer learning to help students make connections across topics. I used real world data and results from published primary research articles all related to one study system–that of the Pacific field cricket. Articles spanned several concepts and topics discussed throughout the term, allowing students to explore how different evolutionary concepts can be connected under one overarching framework. Six prompts were created, each with study results, a short summary of pertinent background information and some guiding questions. Working in groups, students were exposed to each prompt sequentially (about 8 minutes per prompt) and could discuss their responses to the guiding questions with peers. Because each prompt builds up from the previous one, students were challenged to think about how, for example, a sexual selection study could be related to a study exploring dispersal, and both of these could influence a study on adaptation, which could in turn influence a study on speciation.
Gabriel: We then created pre- and post-activity surveys designed to measure students’ perception of confidence in their own ability to connect terms. We further fine-grained our inquiry by asking specifically which concepts students perceived as harder to connect. We operated under the prediction that if the activity design was successful in promoting students’ ability to connect concepts across topics, we would see an increase in perceived confidence after the activity, relative to their pre-activity perception.
The goal with this assessment was twofold: firstly, we wanted to gather data on the topics students struggle the most with in the course (in other words, the topics students fail to see beyond their immediate context). These data have been helpful in Lizelle’s efforts to make meaningful changes for the course in subsequent terms. Secondly, to evaluate whether the activity was indeed helpful in addressing the issue by encouraging broader evolutionary thinking.
What was the result?
We first felt particularly happy that we retained a good number of students between the pre- and post-activity surveys (>60% of participants). From those, we observed an increase in confidence from both the students that were initially lower in confidence, and the students that were already moderately confident or confident. We also observed that students gravitated towards feeling less certain about specific topics within evolutionary biology, such as speciation, quantitative traits, and adaptation. Retrieving these patterns is important as they may serve as actionable points for future iterations of the course.
Additionally, what we proposed is a very data-centered, evidence-based activity. Evidence for the connection between topics comes in the shape of trends and patterns. This goes in hand with the expectation that students are able to navigate through data coming from multiple sources.
How have students responded to the materials?
Overall they responded positively, here are some of their own thoughts at the end of the activity:
“The prompts were structured in a way that allowed for multiple different concepts to connect to multiple others in a way that was easily digestible and thought provoking.”
“the case study provided great examples that could be applied to real life examples”
“Still not super confident but I think this laid it out in a way that was helpful for my own thought process”
“All the prompts connect different concepts and served as good review.”
What did you learn or find surprising?
We were surprised by which topics students identified as having difficulty integrating when we as evolutionary biologists assumed that these topics would be easiest to understand. In other words what WE think is different than what students experience. It really made us think about how students actually learn against our own perception of their learning.
What challenges did you encounter when creating and implementing these materials?
We struggled a bit with creating the prompts and ensuring that they were aligned with the learning objectives. We also had to determine how to simplify the information to the point where students were both intrigued and challenged at the same time, and we spent a considerable amount of time thinking on how to assess whether the activity was truly helpful, and met our expected learning objectives.
How has your implementation of these materials changed over time?
The main change over time was the creation of student assessment surveys after the first term in which we conducted this activity, allowing us to gather data in two out of three terms.
A challenge we faced was managing the time given the unique format of the activity. The activity also identified a problem with how the course is generally taught, allowing the teaching team to change how topics were taught in class in subsequent terms. Now, we emphasize connections between topics and make an effort to look at ideas holistically.
What advice would you give someone who wanted to do something similar in their course?
We can think of a few things. Firstly, data can reveal patterns we wouldn’t interpret otherwise. Design your assessments as quantitatively as you possibly can and let the data speak. Secondly, design the study to allow for comparisons. This allows us to not only have an “impression” of the activity being useful – we have the data to support that conclusion. Lastly, talk to your colleagues and build relationships – this helps foster the unique ideas that can be implemented in the classroom.
Is there anything else you would like to share?
While we are sad that the activity won’t continue any longer, we’re happy that it provided impactful insights on how to restructure the course to facilitate more meaningful integration of evolutionary concepts across lectures on different topics.