Life Sciences

Students struggle with mastering concepts in microbiology. Journaling is a method that is documented to help students learn science courses. We implemented journaling recently and wanted to see if there is any significant impact after 3 semesters of collecting data.

Spoiler alert - nope, at least with the way we are implementing journaling currently. We are regrouping and will restructure the directions to hopefully guide students to be more successful in their journaling. 

The allied-health/biology course sequence includes BIO56/181, BIO201, BIO202, and BIO205.  A significant portions of students in these courses have the EMCC Nursing Program as their goal. Data have shown that only approximately 10% of pre-nursing students succeed in getting into the highly competitive EMCC nursing program. The fate of the remaining 90% of allied health students is unclear.

Introductory Biology for Allied Health, Bio 156, is a course many students take for the nursing major.  This course teaches a number of concepts that are important and repeated throughout other biology prerequisite courses (Bio 201 Anatomy and Physiology I, Bio 202 Anatomy and Physiology II, and Bio 205 Microbiology), nursing block 1-4 courses, and the NCLEX, nursing certification exam.  The purpose of this CATS is to question whether the concepts we teach are retained through the courses. We decided to pick one topic and study this process.

Having now completed 3 semesters teaching BIO 182 - General Biology II for Science Majors, the area consistiently identified by student surveys as in need of improvement is the "Quality of the Textbook."  The book is expensive (>$100), and yet, I have observed that many/ most students do not read the supplemental chapters that align with lectures / activities / labs unless I assign end-of-chapter comprehension questions.  Following being awarded a FRACTYL grant last spring, I have been developing an OER, consisting of a series of engaging, supplemental videos that focus on case

46 students took an exam with 50% multiple choice and 50% written. A  t test showed no significant different between the grades from the 2 question types. Linear regression analysis showed an R squared value of .6.  A student getting -8 on the MC, was likely to get close to a -8 on the written.  This suggests to me that test preparation is more important than the type of question asked, but written portions will encourage additional development of writing skills. 

Students do poorly on exam 1. Students participated in a study activity during one class period one week before exam 1. The activity emphasized novel presentation of material (puzzle), repetition, additional study time, interaction with other students and the instructor.  The material studied accounted for about 50% of the first exam. Averages of the exam 1 did not differ from averages of 7 previous classes, but grades of A and B almost doubled in the activity group.

Students in microbiology struggle with osmosis - the movement of water in and out of cells according to solute content of the environment. This is covered in the pre-req course (BIO 156 or 181). Bio fac have articulated these concepts across the courses. Unfortunately for the last couple of years students were directed to skip the pre-req since HS bio counts. Usually osmosis is taught by introducing terms first then numbers (the conceptual piece) to describe the relative differences in solute concentrations  internal and external to cells.

Looking at EMCCi data the following data have been discovered

Introductory Chemistry (CHM130) instructors have been using a pre/post test at the beginning and end of the semester in the hope of using the data to determine how conceptual understanding changes as a result of instruction. The original test was not personalized to the curriculum with several topics not even addressed and as a result it was insufficient for detecting student misconceptions. A new Concept Inventory (EMCCi) was developed, thanks to an EMCC learning grant, that was personalized to the CHM130 curriculum.

Writing lab reports is something all students, even strong writers, struggle with.  It is a different style and format to all most other writing that they have experienced before.

BIO 201 is considered a ‘sieve’ class, in that it often weeds out the students who are not ready to advance to more difficult classes, and it is not uncommon for 40-50% of the class to fail, making the holes in the sieve rather large.

High school biology is the only prerequisite to enroll in BIO201 and it seems that students who have taken a BIO 156/181 prior to 201 have performed better.  To evaluate this observation, an informal survey was given to students to gather information about their previous biology experience.  

At the end of the semester, students in BIO160 take a cumulative lab practical.  A practical exam is set up in stations, the students physically move from station to station and has a “set up” from a lab.  There are 2-3 questions for each station; the exam is timed.  The first semester giving the practical, the scores were very low.  In an attempt to improve the scores, I gave the students a review and the grades improved slightly.  This has been the routine for a few semesters.  At the end Fall16, I tried a practice practical.  After an informal survey, I

Many might agree that hiring new faculty is one of the most important faculty responsibilities. As hiring manager for the 2016/2017 Biology Faculty search, I used my past experience and best practices from the FCRRC to plan and implement specific strategies to focus on teaching to hire the best candidate for the position: removal of PhD in desired qualifications, post the position longer than minimum requirement, separate the micro teach from the interview, conduct an assessment of the process.

Many students who take the Introductory Biology for Allied Health (BIO156) course are new to the field of biology. As with other introductory courses, BIO156 students must begin to learn how to effectively synthesize and present challenging technical information, in a way that is meaningful to them, in the form of notes. Departmental colleagues introduced me to the concept of the Learning Journal. This semester BIO156 students are required to compile a Learning Journal, with the aim of developing their note taking skills.

In my F 2016 BIO181 classes, I noticed several students checking email, texting, sleeping. Those students  usually sat alone in the back of the room. I use “think-pair-share” activities to promote collaborative learning and communication, but this is challenging when disengaged students are spread out all over the classroom. To boost engagement, I established a seating policy mid-semester.  All front seats must be filled first, and no one sits alone at a table. I asked students to get up and move, and late comers could not avoid being directed to open seats.