Transcript Slide 1

Diagnostic Question Clusters and student active
learning: Their role in faculty development of
scientific teaching
Alan B. Griffith, University of Mary Washington, Barbara J. Abraham,
Hampton University, Chris Picone, Fitchburg State College, Charlene
D'Avanzo, Hampshire College, Andy Anderson, Michigan State University
Nancy J. Pelaez, Purdue University
Introduction
Undergraduate science educators have been
called on to approach their teaching more like they
approach disciplinary research. Much like research,
teaching should be: 1) based on knowledge of
practices that improve student learning, 2) assessed
in the context of specific learning goals, and 3)
altered in response to analysis of student outcomes
(Boyer 1990, Handelsman et al. 2004). Since the
lecture format has been a staple for teaching
undergraduate science for generations (Bligh 2000),
this change in teaching practices (i.e. scientific
teaching) may have a steep learning curve for many
educators. For example, while a large majority of
faculty from across the US agreed they should collect
data to assess student learning, less than half of
these faculty used data to guide their teaching
decisions (Ebert-May et al. 2003).
We have completed one year of a project (NSF
DUE 0736943) that asked a group of 15 faculty from
colleges and universities across the US to implement
Diagnostic Question Clusters (DQCs) as tools to
assess student reasoning about mass and energy
transfers in biological systems. DQCs are sets of
questions that consistently and reliably 1) identify
content especially difficult for students, 2) identify
problematic PATTERNS in student thinking, and 3)
frame content to help students apply biological
reasoning at all scales, cells to ecosystems. These
faculty used active learning strategies, both of our
design and their own design, to teach the biological
concepts and reasoning related to mass and energy
transfers at one or more scales. We report the
experiences of two participants here in order to
highlight the successes and challenges of faculty
adopting scientific teaching approaches.
Faculty Development Challenges
• Our idea of complete adoption of assessment
tools and active teaching is illustrated in Fig. 1.
• We asked faculty to
1) Understand concepts behind the
development and use of DQCs,
Faculty Implementation and Outcomes
(cont.)
Faculty Development Challenges (cont.)
2) incorporate DQCs as pre- and post-tests,
3) evaluate student strengths and weaknesses in
biological reasoning,
4) implement student active strategies that specifically
address their students’ weaknesses,
5) Re-check student reasoning through formative
assessment and evaluation,
6) Re-visit continued student reasoning weaknesses.
Project Faculty Participants
• From 15 colleges and universities across the US
• Majority from primarily undergraduate institutions
• Majority teach in small to medium sized classrooms (<100)
• Moderately experienced practitioners of student active
learning strategies
 >10% class time dedicated to active learning (15 out of
15)
 >10% class time is students speaking (13 out of 15)
• Courses taught: Introductory Biology, Ecology, and
Environmental Science (12 out of 15)
Implementation and Outcomes of Two Participants
• Abraham and Picone expressed the same motivations for
joining the group: working with colleagues with similar
interests in scientific teaching and formulating strategies to
teach more quality and less quantity of content
•Both of these faculty, like all other faculty
participants, used active learning materials
provided on project website or activities adopted
from other sources (i.e. TIEE, http://tiee.ecoed.net)
• Both implemented DQC’s as pre- and post-test for
teaching units
• Both used cursory analysis of student reasoning
as discussion points in class
• Both faculty completed analysis of DQC
responses at the end of the semester. Abraham
used DQC responses from Fall semester to focus
teaching in Spring semester course
• Importantly, both Abraham and Picone expressed
surprise at the low level of student understanding
coming into their classes and the kinds of
reasoning errors students make.
• Picone observed students correctly describing
concepts in one context, but reverting to old ways
of reasoning when given new situations
• Both continue to struggle with conflicting
constraints to using scientific teaching approaches
in their teaching, such as
- need to cover prescribed material
- time required to implement DQCs
References
-Bligh, D. A. 2000. What’s the Use of Lectures?
San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass
-Boyer, E. L. 1990. Scholarship reconsidered:
priorities of the professoriate. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
-Ebert-May, D., J. Batzli, and H. Lim. 2003.
Disciplinary research strategies for assessment of
learning. BioScience 53: 1221 – 1228.
-Handelsmam J, D. Ebert-May, R. Beichner, P.
Bruns , A. Chang, R. DeHaan, J. Gentile, S.
Lauffer, L. Stewart, S.M. Tilghman, & W.B. Wood.
2004. Scientific teaching. Science 304: 521-522