Three Ideas for Informally Implementing TBLRelated Practices

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Three Ideas for Informally Implementing
TBL-Related Practices
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Three Ideas

• Short in-class peer involvement.
• EQ.
• Formative assessment.

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In-class Peer Involvement
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Demonstration

• Everyone identify a person sitting near you to be
  your partner.
• Choose which person will be A and which will be
  B.
• All the Bs now take 1 min to explain to the
  As the concept I am trying to convey about
  small in-class peer involvement.
• Now the As explain back to the Bs the same
  concept using different words.
• Now evaluate and repair each others
  understanding.

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Do you understand in-class peer involvement?

• Lets see. Please answer the following questions
  individually
• How does in-class peer involvement differ from a
  traditional lecture format?
• What additional effort will be required by the
  instructor to implement it?
• What are the likely benefits to implementing this
  activity?
• What are the likely challenges?

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EQ

• Elaborative questioning.
• This is a homework assignment.
• Students work outside of class in pairs.
• Partner could be from the class
• Could be another person (Mom, roommate, spouse,
  friend, enemy. . .)
• Students task is to teach the concept learned
  today to the partner.
• The partner then asks questions
• Questions for clarification okay.
• Elaborative questions are required questions
  that begin with the words how or why.

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Formative Assessment

• Informal
• Spontaneously during class
• Both individual and collaborative effort
• Involve several cognitive processes
• Drawing
• Writing
• Teaching
• Evaluation
• Both peer and instructor feedback

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Formative Assessment

• Example
• Draw a diagram that illustrates the how the renal
  tubules handle acid.
• Share your diagram with your neighbor.
• Compare to my diagram.
• Now show what happens if carbonic anhydrase is
  inhibited.
• Repeat cycle
• Now show what happens during metabolic acidosis.
  . .

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Formal Formative Assessment
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Assessments

• 25-min exercise including a major conceptual item
  and a data analysis item
• Completed individually as an exam
• Upon completion, instructor demonstrates optimal
  answers
• Peer collaborative scoring using the instructors
  example.
• Feedback
• Students record relevant information from
  feedback
• Exams collected and retained by instructor

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Formative Assessment Experiment

• Biol 360 Cell Biology
• Very rigorous, students required to apply
  understanding of cell biology to the analysis and
  interpretation of modern experimental data.
• Each week is a new unit (topic)
• Monday is concept day (refine what was read
  before class also informally assure readiness)
• Wednesday is application day (small teams!)
• Friday is assessment day

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In a recent study (Peeper et al Nature 386, 177,
1997), cultured cells were transfected with a
plasmid containing the gene for a DNA-regulatory
protein called hrb or a nonsense sequence (a).
Furthermore, the hrb-treated cells were
transfected with up to two additional plasmids as
indicated in Figure 1. The first contained
either rasasn17, a mutant form of ras that
interferes with the function of wild type ras, or
a nonsensense sequence (b). The second plasmid
contained cdk4, cyclin D1 (a cyclin specific for
cdk4), or a nonsense sequence (c). In Figure
1, the level of phosphorylation of hrb was
measured by SDS-polyacrylamide gel
electrophoresis. In Figure 2, extracts of fresh
cells (no hrb) transfected with rasasn17 or
control plasmid (b) were analyzed by western
blot using antibodies specific for the proteins
indicated to the right of the blots. Write in
one sentence each the conclusions justified by
these data.
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Monday Conceptual (Readiness Assurance)

• Draw a diagram that illustrates the important
  features of cellular respiration and
  photosynthesis. Track how the energy is
  transformed from glucose to ATP then from light
  back to glucose. Also show how the electrons are
  transferred from glucose to water then back to
  glucose.
• Now discuss your diagrams with one or more
  partners and modify as warranted.

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Wednesday Application Exercises (work in small
teams)

• Methanogenic bacteria use electron transport to
  produce ATP, but instead of involving
  carbohydrate, carbon dioxide, oxygen and water as
  in eukaryotes and aerobic bacteria, the overall
  reaction is CH3OH H2 ? CH4 H2O. To examine
  mechanisms involved in these bacteria, methanol
  was added to cultures grown in the presence of
  hydrogen gas. The production of CH4 (dashed
  curves), the size of the proton gradient (solid
  curves), and the intracellular concentration of
  ATP (dotted curves) were assayed. Two types of
  inhibitors, TCS and DCCD, were also included in
  various combinations as shown below. The arrows
  indicate the time of addition of each drug. The
  results are shown in the figure below. What do
  you conclude from these data?

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Sample Assessment

• In your packet

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Grading

• Grades based on performance on the final exam.
• As a back-up (mostly for student feelings of
  security), students were allowed to write a
  one-page justification for the grade they
  believed they deserved based on the data obtained
  from the Friday assessments.
• If the grade on the final was the grade
  proposed by the student, the final exam grade was
  used. Otherwise, I looked at their justification
  and the performance on the assessments and
  reached a fair judgment.
• About 20 of the grades were adjusted
• Average adjustment 1/3 grade, none more than 2/3

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Objectives

• Focus more attention on meaningful feedback.
• Provide opportunity to iterate.
• Call attention away from grades.
• Maintain positive attitude (hope) throughout
  semester.

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Performance on Data Analysis Tasks on Final 4
Semesters Prior to Implementation
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Performance During 3 Semesters of Implementation
p lt 0.0001, (one-way ANOVA)
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Attitudes
Format effects p lt 0.0001 (two-way ANOVA)
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Competition Among Students

• Competition tends to impair learning.
• Criterion-based grading allows students to take
  advantage of benefits of cooperation without fear
  that they hurt their grade.
• Fears of grade inflation are mitigated by setting
  high standards.

• If students are able to achieve those high
  standards, then higher grades is appropriate.

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Acknowledgements

• William Bradshaw
• Richard Sudweeks
• Diane Robison
• Elizabeth Kitchen
• Suzanne Reeve
• Summer King
• U.S. Department of Education (FIPSE)