Diane Ebert-May Department of Plant Biology Michigan State University Pathways to Scientific Teaching

Engage

Question 1 Where on the continuum is the ideal classroom ?

Question 2 Where on the continuum is your classroom ?

Teacher to Learner Centered Continuum: What does it look like? Where are you?

How People Learn Bransford et al 1999, 2004

Explore: Out of Thin Air

What is going on? Teaching without Learning! Brainstorm: Diagnose situation - the learning challenge Where is the missing link?..misconception?

How and when do you identify student learning difficulties? Don’t have to grade Pre-test (e.g., diagnostic questions - identify misconceptions) Engagement activity - brain teaser, discussion starter, ‘need to know’ questions Surveys or polls (clickers?) Others May use pretest or diagnostic (clicker) question

Example Problem Experimental setup: Weighed out 3 batches of radish seeds each weighing 1.5 g. Experimental treatments: 1. Seeds placed on DRY paper towels in LIGHT 2. Seeds placed on WET paper towels in LIGHT 3. Seeds placed on WET paper towels in DARK

Problem (cont) After 1 week, all plant material was dried in an oven overnight (no water left) and plant biomass was measured in grams. Predict the biomass of the plant material in the various treatments. No Water, light Water, light Water dark No idea

Results Mass of Radish Seeds/Seedlings 1.46 g 1.63 g 1.20 g Write an explanation about the results. Explain the results. Write individually on carbonless paper.

Photosynthesis as Energy Biomass from Soil Energy as Biomass All Green Plant Altruism Thin Air Respiration as ‘breathing’ One Earth - All together now Misconceptions about Photosynthesis, Respiration, and the Carbon Cycle

What is assessment? Data collection with the purpose of answering questions about… students’ understanding students’ attitudes students’ skills instructional design and implementation curricular reform (at multiple grain sizes) Informing BOTH instructors and students about learning.

Jigsaw New groups: 5 groups of 4 Count off -- 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 All 1s work on same paper....2s, 3s, 4s, 5s Return to ‘home’ groups and share what you found in each of the papers. Report out

Paper Assignments Group 1: Climate change.... Group 2: Novel assessments... Group 3: Practicing scientific inquiry... Group 4: Unleashing problem solvers... Group 5: Active homework...

In your groups: Read the paper, discuss, record What are the student learning goals? 2. What is the Bloom-level of each goal? 3. Describe the type of assessment used in the unit. Do the assessments align with the goals? 4. What are the active learning strategies?

Return to “home” groups: Select two types of assessments that you learned about in the papers. 1. Compare two types of assessments. 2. Brainstorm other types of assessments.

Explain

Subsample= You don’t need to grade everything!! Classroom Assessment Techniques (Angelo & Cross 1993); Muddiest Point, Minute papers etc.. Pyramid Exams- Individual 75% + Group 25% Diagnostic Questions & Clickers Rubrics Assessment and Feedback Approaches

Assessment Gradient High Ease of Assessment Low Multiple Choice, T/F Diagrams, Concept maps, Quantitative response Short answer Essay, Research papers/ reports Oral Interview Low Potential for Assessment of Learning High Theoretical Framework Ausubel 1968; meaningful learning Novak 1998; visual representations King and Kitchner 1994; reflective judgment National Research Council 1999; theoretical frameworks for assessment

How do you go about developing a unit on the Carbon Cycle? How would you start? What would you do? Instructional Design

Learning Objective Identify desired results Learning Outcome Determine acceptable evidence Assessments Data collected & Feedback given Instructional Design & Activities Planned learning experiences and instruction Like This? Backward Design Adapted from Wiggins and McTighe 1998, 2005

Backward Design

How do you go about developing a unit on the Carbon Cycle? Activity: Misconception- List a common misconception for carbon cycle. Learning objective- Write the correct version of the concept. Learning outcome- Describe the specific performance or behavior that will demonstrate student understanding. (Use Bloom’s Taxonomy of another resource to help articulate the outcomes.) Activity- Describe the activity that will engage students and help them achieve the learning objective Assessment- Describe the evidence you will collect and the type of feedback you will give students to define their progress towards understanding. Instructional Design Worksheet

How am I going to grade all this stuff??

Case: Workshop Woes? “I attended a workshop about assessment, and the main thing I learned is that I am suppposed to assess students before class so I can target what the students need to know. So, I created a series of pre-class quizzes for the students, but most students don’t do them because they are not graded. However, I don’t have time to grade 320 of these each week--- much less the 16 other assessments that the workshop suggested. I’ll just go back to trusting my gut to know how well the students are doing.”

What issues might be contributing to this situation? What is the professor’s definition of assessment? Other than grades, what strategies could motivate the students to participate in assessments? What suggestions do you have for the professor? Have you faced similar challenges? Case: Workshop Woes?

What are students learning well? What are students learning poorly? How to promote learning by improving instruction, learning activities, assignments, classroom climate What do the instructors need to know?

What are they learning well? What are they learning poorly? Information on how to improve-- not just grades, but feedback. What do the students need to know?

How do we develop rubrics? Describe the goal/objective for the activity, problem, task... Select the assessment tasks aligned with goals Develop performance standards Differentiate levels of responses based on clearly described criteria Rate (assign value) the categories

Results Mass of Radish Seeds/Seedlings 1.46 g 1.63 g 1.20 g Write an explanation about the results. Explain why the LIGHT, WATER gained mass, while the other treatments lost mass.. Write individually on carbonless paper. Practice with sample responses How would you go about grading these responses? What criteria would you use?

Scoring Rubric for Quizzes and Homework Ebert-May

Advantages of Scoring Rubrics Improve the reliability of scoring written assignments and oral presentations Convey goals and performance expectations of students in an unambiguous way Convey “grading standards” or “point values” and relate them to performance goals Engage students in critical evaluation of their own performance Save time but spend it well

Write a scenario that explains the phenotypic changes in the trees and animals. Use your understanding of evolution by natural selection.

Coding Student Responses MisconceptionsCorrect Change in the individualChange in the population Need to Change/ Must Change/ Choice Change due to genes All members of a population are equally fit Individuals within a population have varying fitness levels Traits acquired during a lifetime are passed on Genetic traits help the individual to survive and reproduce

Assessment Database Faculty Computer Student Data Spreadsheet Questions Spreadsheet Link Qs and student answers Student ID Spreadsheet De-identified student data Upload Search Results eg. Excel, SAS, SPSS Search Download EdML FIRST III Database Database Server

“Educational Metadata Standard” EdMD Based on Ecological Metadata Standards (Michener 1997) Describe what collected, who collected, where collected, when collected, how collected, why collected

What is in the Educational Metadata Standard? Where Institution, class size How Experimental and sampling design Administration of assessments Instructional design Who Project personnel What Assessment instruments Rubrics and assessment concepts Why Classroom study

Finding assessment instruments Administer the instrument, teach, and prepare student data Prepare metadata and upload student assessment data Analysis and download Results of analyses How do I use the database?

Do students learn better?

Team at MSU Rett Weber - Plant Biology (postdoctoral researcher) Deb Linton - Plant Biology (postdoctoral researcher) Duncan Sibley - Geology Doug Luckie - Physiology Scott Harrison - Microbiology (graduate student) Tammy Long - Plant Biology Heejun Lim - Chemistry Education Rob Pennock - Philosophy Charles Ofria - Engineering Rich Lenski - Microbiolgy Janet Batzli - Plant Biology [U of Wisconsin]

“...we note that successful people are the ones who take advantage of those around them to ultimately benefit students.” Ebert-May D, Weber R, Hodder J, Batzli J (2006) Finally...