Does the Transition to an Active-Learning Environment for the Introductory Course Reduce Students’ Overall Knowledge of the Various Disciplines in Biology?

Abstract

As biology education is being redesigned toward an interdisciplinary focus and as pedagogical trends move toward active-learning strategies and investigative experiences, a restructuring of the course content for the Introductory Biology course is necessary. The introductory course in biology has typically been a survey of all the biosciences. If the total number of topics covered is reduced, is the students' overall knowledge of biology also reduced? Our introductory course has been substantially modified away from surveying the biological sciences and toward providing a deep understanding of a particular biological topic, as well as focusing on developing students' analytical and communication skills. Because of this shift to a topic-driven approach for the introductory course, we were interested in assessing our graduating students' overall knowledge of the various biological disciplines. Using the Major Field Test -Biology (Educational Testing Service (ETS), Princeton, NJ), we compared the test performance of graduating students who had a traditional lecture-based introductory course to those who had a topic-driven active-learning introductory course. Our results suggest that eliminating the traditional survey of biology and, instead, focusing on quantitative and writing skills at the introductory level do not affect our graduating students' overall breadth of knowledge of the various biosciences.

Problem-Solving Exercise for Undergraduate Students Involving the Japanese Fermented Food Natto

“…Previous studies have shown that active-learning programs result in greater learning than lecture-based programs (12, 13). The students successfully achieved the goal of finding spices that improve natto flavor.…”

Tempered Radicals: Faculty Leadership in Interdisciplinary Curricular Change Authors

“…While there is a growing body of literature examining faculty innovation in individual classrooms, little research has examined faculty-led efforts to bring about broader institutional change (Lloyd & Eckhardt, 2010;Marbach-Ad et al, 2007;May, Susskind, & Shapiro, 2013;Simurda, 2012). This study contributes to the literature by describing faculty leadership in interdisciplinary change focused on improving community college STEM education.…”