Lecture 14 What % of sexually active women have HPV

(human papilloma virus, causes genital warts)?

A. 10%

B. 20%

C. 50%

D. 70%

E. 90%

Fostering Critical Thinking in a large

lecture Microbiology course

Erica Suchman, Ph.D.

Department of Microbiology, Immunology

and Pathology

Colorado State University

My class Junior and Senior level students 10% micro majors 90% from 30 other majors 70-200 students/section 3, 1 hour lectures, separate lab

The Problem: Students were unable to “think” about

microbiology on exams.

The Solutions:1. Daily handouts with ungraded

problems This did not really work

2. Interactive Demos

3. Group Exams.

4. Clicker questions

The Problem Students don’t know each other

making it difficult to form study groups.

The SolutionStudents card exchange, the first day of classGroup Exams

Forming Groups Students are allowed to self select

groups minimum 4 students can have as

many as they want

Big Debate: self selection vs. assigned groups

Group Exams Group exams are designed to make

students use the material & critical thinking to solve problems.

Students are told the types of questions asked on the group exams will be used on their individual exams.

Group exams are designed to be too difficult to answer during one class period.

Group Exams Students are given the exams 1 week before they

are to take them.

They are told they are expected to work on these outside of class, & that they will not be able to finish them if they come to class unprepared.

They have 35 minutes, the last 15 minutes of class we go over the answers.

Group Exams Exam day the group decides on best answer, fills

out answer sheet & turns it in for a group score.

Students may fill in a page of dissent.

If the dissenter is correct only they will get the points, if they are wrong only they will lose points.

Students must be present during the group exam to get credit. I verify the presence of students during the exam, helps me to learn their names.

The last 15 minutes of class the students develop the key by answering questions about the group exam using their clickers.

Metabolism Group exam 1. Your first assignment is to provide

information to the firm BigMoney Inc, interested in using microbes to clean toxic spills (bioremediation). BigMoney Inc. has had a major spill of inorganic N02

- . They want to know on a strictly theoretical basis if there are any types of bacteria that could metabolize N02

- to give rise to NH4?

ANSWERN02

- NH4 Nitrite is reduced. Which means

that Nitrite is accepting electrons. As this is a non-Oxygen acceptor it is by definition anaerobic. Nitrite could serve as the final electron acceptor in either anaerobic respiration or anaerobic chemolithotrophy. In anaerobic respiration Nitrite would accept electrons from organic materials and in chemolithotrophy Nitrite would accept electrons from inorganic materials.

Group exams we do1: Determining the identity of field isolated

organism based on their characteristics: comparing eubacteria, archea, & eukaryotes; classification.

2: Metabolism & bioremediation

3: Transcription, translation and mutations

4: Viral life cycles and anti-viral drugs.

The Problem Students can’t visualize and see how

they might use complicated biological processes from traditional lectures

The Solution In class student centered

demonstrations

Clicker questions

Now for a little movie

Student centered Demos

Conjugation and Hfr mapping Transduction Transcription Translation The Ames test Isolating auxotropic mutants (His-) Herd immunity

Clicker questions should have a goal My goals:

1. Make sure I see if they are understanding difficult topics so I will know if I need to talk more about this topic

(studied, ~84 times went over a concept again due to poor response on clicker question)

2. Let them see the ways they need to be able to use and think about concepts, re-enforce that memorization alone is not going to get them an A

3. Keep them involved with the topic during class, reduce the passive nature of our exchange

4. Review information discussed in a previous class period that will be needed for today

Questions should not be

Used only as an attendance tool

Used only as a quizzing tool

Used only infrequently

Used when use will not augment learning

Extra Credit Questions The second class starts the students are asked

to answer a question from the previous lecture.

They have 45 seconds to answer

If they get it correct they can get extra credit.

15 times during the semester I pick the start of class question to be worth extra credit, if they got the correct answer on that day they can get 1 point for a total of 15 points (out of 600).

Not for credit questions to increase learning

The following are examples of questions I use to ensure that I can see if the students understand the concepts

Students can see the ways I expect them to be able to use information, not just memorize information

A technique I often use is to have students answer alone, I show them the class’ answers, but no correct answer, they then talk about it and re-answer

The percent answering correct increases on average of 22%

Example: Shapes, & arrangements cocci (s. Coccus): round, spherical

Diplococci, remain together, pairs

Streptococcus, remain together, long chains

Staphylococcus, in random planes, grape like clusters

Tetrads, in 2 planes, 4 cell groups

Sarcina, in 3 planes, 8 cell groups

Bacilli (s. Bacillus): rods, different length to width ratios, different ends, flat, round

Coccobacillus, short and wide, resemble cocci

Justice and Suchman

Diplobacillus, remain together, pairs

Streptobacillus, remain together, long chains

Vibrios, curved rods, commas

Justice and Suchman

Spirals, long rods twisted into corkscrews

spirilla, corkscrew with flagella

spirochete, corkscrew no external flagella

5. What is the correct shape and arrangement for the following bacteria?

A. Staphylococcus D. Streptobacillus

B. Staphylobacillus E. Streptococci

C. Sarcina

Example 2: lymphocytes respond to Epitopes on Antigens

complex molecules proteins polysaccharides glycolipids

Antigens may have more than 1 epitope which elicits lymphocyte response

BacteriaAntigen with 2 epitopes

Antibodies bound to epitopes

A. 3: 1 for each antigen

B. 1: that is specific for this bacterium

C. 9: 1 for each epitope

2. You have 3 proteins on the surface of one bacterium that serve as antigens. Protein A has 3 antibody binding sites, Protein B has 4, and Protein C has 2. How many different B lymphocytes will be specific for this bacterium?

No Answer

Start of class Hook questions Class starts with a “Hook question” that is up

while I set up for class and I start ~2 minutes before class officially starts. Misconception about microbiology Usually about a disease Something they find interesting

Allows students to get their clicker ready and gets them thinking about micro before class starts

Not worth any credit

How many women a year get diagnosed with HPV related cervical cancer in the US?

A. 140

B. 1000

C. 6000

D. 14000

E. 100,000

Something New I tried S08 On any given day ~20% of my class was not in

attendance.

I gave extra credit for near perfect attendance. Each student will get credit for clicking each day. If they don’t miss more than 2 classes they can get an extra 5 points of extra credit (out of 600 points) All or nothing 0 or 5 no partial credit

Interesting things I learned By giving them 5 points for not missing more than

2 classes 80% of the class did not miss more than 2 lectures (compared to 45.6% in F07)

The % of students who chose to purchase the clickers went up from 95.3 to 99.8%

The % of students who attended class each day increased to an average of 89.2% (from 80.52%)

The % of lectures attended by students increased to 90.6% (from 80.52%)

Grading Individual exams

3 midterms 100 points eachfinal 200 points cumulative

Total points possible600 points500 from individual exams100 from group work (4 group exams 25 points each) Up to 20 points extra credit 15 getting start of class questions correct, 5

for not missing more than 2 classes (average ~14)

Things I Have Learned Marketing matters.

Pay attention to your goals while writing questions.

Although fostering critical thinking increased my workload, I feel it is worth the effort.

Our clicker study:

The Literature tells us that New students or students with lower achievement levels

have trouble in larger classes (Bordon and Burton 1999; Dillon and Kokkelenberg, 2002 ).

Research on learning shows that individuals make meaning in a variety of ways and that these ways may not be the same for each individual (Denig 2004 )

Learning takes place in social settings through interaction with others. In other words, some learners need to interact with others in order to make sense of new information prior to internalizing it (Vygotsky,1978). .

Research has documented a variety of benefits of using CRS(Best Reference Duncan, 2005)

Increased Attendance Preparation for class Enthusiasm Attentiveness Participation Confidence in learning

What they have not looked at is - does how you use the clickers have an effect on these benefits?

The Study

Instructor A (me) integrated CRS use throughout my lectures as well as beginning each lecture with an extra credit question covering the material from the previous lecture.

Instructor B (Ralph Smith) only used CRS for beginning of class extra credit questions

The following parameters were compared between the classes

1. The number of times students worked cooperatively during the semester

2. The number of times the instructor changed lecture due to lack of student comprehension

3. Performance on shared questions on exams that were either only covered by lecture in both sections, or by both lecture and CRS questions in section A

4. Attendance

5. Responses to a end of semester survey

I reported making changes in lecture due to lack of student comprehension 83 more times than my teaching partner in section B that used CRS as only a quizzing tool

Total # of CRS questions asked during semester

# of formal student interactions with other students

# of changes in planned lecture due to CRS questions

Section A 112 27 84

Section B 28 7 1

Student’s scores improve dramatically when they discuss the question with peers

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

Avera

ge

Question Number

Per

cen

tag

e C

orr

ect

% correct 1

% correct 2

Students in section A did better on all test questions, not just the ones that were covered by CRS questions as we predicted

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

CRSQ E1 Non-CRSQE1

CRSQ E2 Non-CRSQE2

CRSQ E3 Non-CRSQE3

CRSQ E4 Non-CRSQE4

CRSQ All Non-CRSQAll

Question type and exam number

Ave

rag

e S

co

re o

n Q

ues

tio

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Section A

Section B

Performance on beginning of class questions

The average percent correct was ~75% for both section A and B

This suggests the 2 classes should have performed similarly on exams

Statistics

When student performance was compared between the 2 classes for Section Exam Question type (CRS covered or not)

The only significant difference was between sections

With Section A performing significantly better on all types of questions and on all exams

Attendance?

•There was no difference between the sections in the students who purchased the clickers

•However in section A 8% more students chose to purchase the optional clickers

And the survey says….

Students in section A reported feeling more confidence about their knowledge More interaction with other students than usual More ability to give the instructor feedback than

they usually do Less doubt about their progress Greater confidence in their ability to form

relationships between concepts

Than students in section B

Want more info, or to see all the exciting statistics showing what I am telling you is true?

Evaluating the Impact of a Classroom Response System in a Microbiology Course. Erica Suchman, Kay Uchiyama, Ralph Smith, Kim Bender, Journal of Microbiology Education, May 2006 Volume 7 pg 3-11

Other References Blackman, M. S., Dooley, P., Kuchinski, B. and Chapman, D. 2002. It worked a

different way. College Teaching 50:27-28 Borden, V. M. H., and Burton, K. L. 1999. The impact of class size on student

performance in introductory courses: AIR 1999 annual forum paper. AIR 1999 Annual Forum Paper, 21.

Bullock, D. W., LaBella, V. P., Clingan, T., Ding, Z., Stewart, G. and Thibado, P. M. 2002. Enhancing the student-instructor interaction frequency. The Physics Teacher 40 p.535-541

Denig, S. J. 2004. Multiple intelligences and learning styles: Two complementary dimensions. Teachers College Record 106:96-111

Dillon, M., and Kokkelenberg, E. C. 2002. The Effects of Class Size on Student Achievement in Higher Education: Applying an Earnings Function. In 42nd Annual AIR Forum. Ontario, Canada.

Duncan, D. 2005. Clickers in the classroom. Pearson, Addison Wesley, Boston, MA.

Elliott, C. 2003. Using a personal response system in economics teaching. International Review of Economics Education 1:80-86.

Roschelle, J., Penuel, W. R., and Abrahamson, L. 2004. Classroom response and communication systems: Research review and theory, p. 8. AERA 2004 paper proposal, San Diego, CA

Vygotsky, L. S. 1978. Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. p. 131. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.

Slain, D., Abate, M., Hodges, B. M., Stamatakis, M. K., and Wolak, S. 2004. An interactive response system to promote active learning in the doctor of pharmacy curriculum. American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, 68:1-9

Wit, E. 2003. Who wants to be...The use of a personal response system in statistics teaching. MSOR Connections 3.

Want more info? Contact me at…

Erica.suchman@colostate.edu The group exams can be found on the

ASM Education Resources Web Page at: http://www.microbelibrary.org/

Curriculum/page2.htm