A Commentary on Innovations in Education: Promoting Active Learning in the Classroom
Given increasing enrollments and introductory lecture classes numbering several hundred students, how do we stimulate intellectual curiosity and inspire students to become enthusiastic, active participants in the learning process?
Professor of Biological Sciences Steve Wasserman has, in recent years, turned his attention and energies toward exploring new ways to teach introductory biology classes that will more fully engage students in the learning process, enhance their overall learning experience, and hopefully encourage more of them to consider a career in science. Here he discusses some of the innovative teaching methods he and other biology faculty are starting to implement.
Biology is the study of life itself. As such, biologists research topics ranging from the effects of global warming on biodiversity to stem cell research to questions of human reproduction. These are complicated and compelling issues about which students can acquire solid information in introductory biology courses.
As educators we face the challenge of how to best engage and educate the broadest spectrum of students. The traditional teaching method is to lecture and either write notes on the board or provide outlines as transparencies or, increasingly often, as PowerPoint slides. According to various studies, students in this type of lecture are optimally attentive for about 10—15 minutes, after which time they become less and less receptive. In addition, lectures in introductory biology courses are typically designed to provide huge amounts of information across a variety of specialty areas with little incentive for students to integrate what they are learning. Yet it is well documented that the way students learn best is through making associations that place new knowledge into the framework of knowledge they already have. Although the instructor has an idea of how all the information fits together, students often don’t appreciate and grasp that structure.
What happens if we alter the status quo by introducing active learning techniques into the lecture class? Let’s imagine the instructor has just lectured on a difficult topic. Traditionally, he or she might ask, “Are there any questions?” Since any response carries with it the suggestion that the lecturer has failed to teach well and that the responder is not bright enough to fill in the gaps, silence typically ensues. Consider what happens instead if every student in the class has a remote that allows them to provide immediate feedback to the instructor. Instead of asking for questions, the instructor challenges the students to test their understanding by asking them to identify the correct answer to a question about the topic presented. Student responses are instantly and anonymously projected at the front of the classroom as a histogram, a breakdown of the number of students selecting each of the possible answers. If the feedback indicates that the class “got it,” the instructor can say so and the students know they can move on. If the instructor sees that a high percentage of the students have selected incorrect answers, he or she can introduce another active learning technique called peer learning. The instructor does not indicate which answer is correct, but instead directs the students to talk in small groups to the classmates seated around them and collaboratively determine the correct response. The classroom suddenly becomes animated; 300 people are talking about the question, debating back and forth which choice is correct. The instructor lets the discussions continue for a minute or two and then asks the students again to choose an answer with their individual remotes. What you often find is that there is a significant shift toward the correct answer. Instead of sitting passively, the students are now invigorated. At the same time, they have begun to see the benefit of discussing class material with their peers. Students actively engaged in these ways master the subject matter more readily and also begin to view themselves not as individuals competing with each other, but as members of a community of learners.
I conducted my own experiment in active learning last winter quarter when I taught BILD 2, the middle third of the year-long introductory course sequence. Students responded enthusiastically in their e-mails and course evaluations, as well as discussions during office hours and comments after lecture. Furthermore, class attendance was up significantly from when I have taught the same class using traditional methods.
With such positive results, one might wonder why there aren’t more classes employing active learning principles. One reason is that the technology is fairly new and, until recently, not completely reliable. Furthermore, because of the time involved in posing and discussing questions, the amount of material that can be covered in lecture is about 10—15 percent less than in a traditional format. Nevertheless, because the proof-of-concept experiment went so well, I was motivated to revamp the complete core sequence along these lines. To achieve this goal, I submitted a proposal to send a UCSD team to participate in the Summer Institute on Undergraduate Education in Biology held each summer at the University of Wisconsin—Madison. Sponsored by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the National Academies of Science, the objective of the weeklong institute is to help professors teach so that students think about concepts critically and put knowledge into a larger context, then retain and apply that information effectively in subsequent courses. The institute specifically targets active researchers. There is a further emphasis on faculty teaching introductory classes, because such courses form and shape students’ approach to learning biology. For many students, introductory biology is the sole science course they will take in college. It is therefore essential to help ensure that students gain an understanding of the scientific method, understand biology as an experimental science, and learn key biological concepts that are important for biology majors and informed citizens alike.
As the senior member of the UCSD team, I was joined by an assistant professor, Hopi Hoekstra, and a postdoctoral fellow, Michelle Juarez. Hopi teaches in a different part of the introductory course sequence at UCSD and Michelle has also been active in teaching introductory biology, focusing particular attention on minority students. Each of us brought a different perspective to teaching, and together we represented the entire first year of biology instruction. In support of our endeavor, the UCSD Instructional Improvement Program provided funding for travel to the meeting and for dissemination of the ideas and activities we would be bringing back from the institute.
At the institute, we worked in groups of eight or so individuals, including a trained facilitator who had participated in previous institutes. One of the tasks for each group was to put together a teachable unit, an activity in the classroom that would help convey a particular topic. This endeavor gave us familiarity with another active learning tool, that of interactive demonstrations. In one such demonstration, several participants were asked to stand on opposite sides of a barrier. The students were given a set of soft foam balls and rules established that resulted in balls being thrown over the barrier much more frequently in one direction than the other. At intervals, the activity stops and the group counts up the number of balls that have accumulated on each side of the barrier. This demonstration enables students to form a much clearer concept of what approaching and reaching equilibrium means.
To implement ideas generated at the institute and to initiate change in the UCSD biology core courses, I organized a monthly meeting for faculty who teach introductory biology. The faculty colleagues who attend these meetings represent a mixture of experienced instructors who want to transform the way they teach and of junior faculty who are just starting to teach. These informal meetings provide a forum not only for presenting the strategies we learned at the institute, but also for talking about a range of instructional topics–from structuring a course syllabus to the use of web-based discussion boards to address student questions and concerns. We are using these meetings as an opportunity to look at education from both a faculty and student perspective. For example, in discussing the purpose of exams, we came to realize the importance of instructors helping students understand how evaluation is an integral part of the learning process.
In the course of our regular, informal meetings, we have learned from each other, mentored each other, and become more effective teachers. We have also come to recognize that researchers become good teachers through practice, reflection and dialogue with other teachers. As a consequence, we will implement in the upcoming school year a seminar for graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in which these young scientists use their experience supervising undergraduates in the lab as a starting point for talking about how to teach and how to respond to challenges that arise in instructional interactions.
It’s important for both instructor and student to realize that it’s not a question of learning from the lecture or from the textbook, or from active learning tools such as demonstrations and feedback. Each technique contributes to a student’s learning in different ways. The lecture is an opportunity for the instructor to explore topics, engage students actively, and to place information and knowledge in context. The textbook provides solid and clearly delineated explanations and as much detail as students want on a topic. Each learning tool fulfills a distinct purpose. The instructor needs to help the student appreciate the potential of each tool and how to use it effectively. Thus, effective teachers provide students with the opportunity to interact with the material in different ways, so that through this experience students develop their own most effective learning method.
To become successful academically, students must understand that they need to take charge of their learning, that it is their responsibility to engage with the textbook and the lecture material, and to make full use of opportunities to evaluate their understanding throughout the learning process. The teacher supports this through question and answer. Questions help students gauge what they know or don’t know. It helps them appreciate different ways of thinking about a specific subject and it makes clear that just listening to a topic doesn’t constitute learning.
Because we have failed to teach our students that learning facts is not the same as understanding, a change in how we teach and interact in the classroom is mandatory. Most of the students coming to college have categorized science and especially biology as a set of discrete bits of data to be memorized. Students need to experience the beauty of a thought process that leads to the design of an experiment or the challenge of interpreting imperfect data. Currently, that is not the case. We know that because the number one question we are asked by students is, “Will this be on the exam?” We need to help students to realize that if they focus on learning, the exam will not be a problem. If they don’t focus on learning, they’re really wasting their time regardless of what is on the exam.
There is also the challenge of getting faculty interested enough to commit to experimenting with a new teaching style. We need to get more faculty exposed to these ideas, get them to try them out, and provide them with the tools they need–not just the technology, but also sets of questions and sets of activities and demonstrations they can use in the classroom. To avoid duplication of effort, we’re planning to create and collect these resources and make them available on a website, with feedback from faculty who have already used them. One of the most powerful things we can do is make it easy and effective for faculty to implement these changes.
These initial steps are the start of a grassroots effort. We will be training people to go out and train other people. I believe in time it will catch on because it is a much more enjoyable and rewarding way to teach. If instructors and students interact in more meaningful ways in the classroom and during office hours, instructors will see that they are making a significant difference.
I am an active researcher because I love doing experiments, know the importance of science, and appreciate the beauty of biology. I’m concerned that if we don’t make fundamental changes in how we teach introductory biology we will alienate and discourage exactly those creative individuals the discipline most needs. We will also miss informing in a meaningful and vitally important way the voters, jurors, and leaders of our community. I am now teaching exclusively at the undergraduate introductory level because I see a genuine opportunity for significant positive change.
More information on Steven Wasserman.
Contributing Writer: Steve Wasserman
From BioSphere Magazine, 2006-2007 issue, page 6.