Tag Archives: engagement

Keeping the Connection Alive During Remote Instruction
Candace Receno, PhD
Assistant Professor, Exercise Science & Athletic Training
Ithaca College

As a first year Assistant Professor, making the shift to remote learning during COVID-19 was certainly a gamechanger. As many previous blog posts have highlighted, the way we needed to look at instruction changed and forced both students and faculty to rapidly adapt. There were so many things that needed to be considered when making the transition. How flexible can our students be, now that some have become primary caretakers or have fallen ill or need to seek employment? How do instructors tackle making significant changes to their course, now that they are also dealing with similar issues? How do both groups create and participate in a high-quality course experience with fewer resources and a very short amount of time to adjust? Many of the insightful blogs posted have really highlighted how to keep these considerations in mind in order to create online courses that still meet course objectives and foster a high-quality learning experience. I have learned so much through reading these posts, in addition to numerous resources provided to our community. Through integration of these resources into my own courses, I found myself also trying to think of ways that I could keep the courses inherently “me”. Engaging and connecting with students on a personal level has always been something that I found helpful to my own teaching, but becomes hard when the mode of communication has shifted. This can also be difficult when some classes must be delivered asynchronously, in an effort to accommodate the changing lifestyles of our students. Perhaps just as important to a high-quality learning experience as shifting our instruction methods, is finding new ways to create the human connection that is much easier developed with on-campus learning. Here, I highlight some of the methods I found to be successful in making sure that I was able to keep my students engaged in the course while miles apart. While these may sound like really simple ideas, I’ll admit that I didn’t realize how important they were to the student experience until I had reflective conversations with many students after the Spring semester. With times of uncertainty still ahead, I plan to continue using these methods in the future.

1. Staying online after the class has ended.

This is probably the simplest of the suggestions to integrate, but really seemed to make a difference in getting the students more comfortable opening up over the computer screen. For my synchronous courses, I always ended class time by reminding the students I would stay in the virtual classroom to answer any questions or just to chat. I found that once students realized I would be sticking around for a few minutes regardless of if anyone else stayed, they were more willing to hang around and ask questions they might not have felt comfortable asking in front of other students or e-mailing me about. This also gave me another opportunity to reflect on how I was constructing my online course materials. Hearing what points students needed extra clarification on forced me to consider how topics that were ordinarily well understood in the physical classroom needed to be shifted with remote instruction.

2. Integrating video/audio into online discussion boards.

I needed to teach asynchronously for a particular course where students had concerns about internet availability and meeting other personal obligations, which came with completely different issues from my synchronous course. Posting notes in addition to pre-recorded lectures allowed me to successfully get course material across, but it was still missing the personal component that is fostered via in class discussion. The use of discussion boards where both the students and I posed questions to one another helped with that. Importantly, I asked students to record their questions/answers for the discussion board via video or audio whenever possible. Students continually reported that it was nice to actually hear and see one another even though live sessions were not possible. Moreover, they described how it was nice to laugh and share with one another, as responses did not have to be rehearsed and could closely mimic what might have happened in the physical classroom. 

3. Holding several office hours, varying in day and time.

Disclaimer: This may be harder to implement for some individuals because with COVID-19 comes a host of additional responsibilities and stresses that need to be attended to. But, if possible even for one day, I highly recommend it. The traditional times for which we hold office hours may not be feasible when we take into account the added responsibilities of needing to stay at home. So, why not hold office hours at different times that lend themselves to our new schedules? I found that holding office hours much later than I normally would resulted in many more students coming to them. Moreover, similar to my first suggestion, I made sure that students knew I’d be in the meeting room for my virtual hours regardless of if students signed up or not. Previously, I had always had an “open door policy” where students knew they could stop by my office without prior notice as long as my door was physically open. The new virtual office hours I held helped to mimic that. By having drastically different hours on different days, I tried to make sure that students could stop in whenever suited them. An important memory that stuck with me about this particular method was an instance when I was available at 7 pm on a Tuesday night. I had a student who showed up just wanting to talk, and stated, “I figured I wasn’t bothering you since you were on here anyway.”  Prior to COVID-19, she often stopped in to talk about how things were going. Through our virtual conversation, I learned that this student wasn’t seeking any help related to the class, but just wanted to talk because it helped things feel “normal” again. Even if you can’t hold a large variety of office hours, I truly think that doing something that helps mimic the ways you previously interacted with your students is so helpful during this time.

4. Holding “unofficial” hours.

This was a tip that I originally learned from a colleague, and adapted to fit my own subject matter. This colleague would host “unofficial”  hours, where she would sporadically e-mail students to let them know she would be in an online meeting room partaking in some fun activity. For example, on a random weeknight, she e-mailed students and said they could join in on her quest to make enchiladas. Several students took her up on that offer, and she used it as a time for the class to come together without any defined learning expectations. This gave her students the opportunity to connect as they would have previously, in a class that was now asynchronous during remote learning. She began to take sessions one step further, and would ask her students to describe ingredients in her cooking sessions in the context of her speech language pathology lectures. In an effort to take her advice and put my own spin on it, I began asking students to join me when I would participate in online workouts. It became a great way to have students connect with their classmates using an activity that we all had some interest in. With students in my pathophysiology course, I’d sneak in questions about how students felt after participating in a particular exercise and how this might impact the clinical populations they work with, giving me a way to reiterate what they had learned in a real-world context. 

In my experience, a large part in keeping students engaged was understanding that the human component to a course has the potential to impact student learning irrespective of how well we can pivot our course formats to meet remote instruction needs. No matter how it’s done, showing the students that you are still on the other side of that WiFi signal is an important consideration for all of us. I hope that my experience helps to identify other ways you might do this, and I’d appreciate you sharing your own ways to cultivate the student-instructor relationships via online methods.

Candace Receno is an assistant professor in the Exercise Science & Athletic Training department at Ithaca College in Ithaca, NY. She earned her PhD in Science Education from Syracuse University and served as a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Biological Sciences department at Le Moyne College for two years. Candace just completed her first year as an Assistant Professor at Ithaca College, where her undergraduate and graduate courses include Advanced Exercise Physiology, Cardiopulmonary Assessment for Exercise, Pathophysiology, and Foundations of Human Performance and Wellness. She also hopes to continue engaging undergraduates in research related to exercise performance in special populations.

Teaching an Integrated Human Anatomy and Physiology Course: Additional Lessons Learned and Online Course Adjustments
Jennifer Ann Stokes, PhD
Assistant Professor of Kinesiology
Southwestern University

In my previous blog post, I outlined the lessons learned in my first run teaching a year-long integrated upper-division human anatomy and physiology course. It has been about a year and a half since the original post and after having taught the course for a second time I will review and add to my list of initial lessons learned. Additionally, this spring semester brought new challenges with a very swift move to online coursework due to COVID-19, so I will also comment on the resulting course alterations. As a reminder, this course sequence (A&P I and II) is an upper-division junior and senior level course at my college and class sizes are very small (20-24 students) allowing for maximum time for interaction, questions, and instructor guidance both in lecture and lab.

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First, I will review the previous lessons learned and add additional commentary based on what I learned in my second year. If you haven’t yet, I would check out the previous blog for the initial notes.

1) Use an integrative textbook.

My textbook of choice is still Physiology: An Integrated Approach by Dee U. Silverthorn. For anatomy, I continued to supplement the anatomy information, such as the specifics of the skeletal system and joints, muscles, histology, etc., through the use of models and other reference material in hands-on lab activities. One addition made in the second year was the use of AD Instrument’s Lt online learning platform.  I discuss the addition of Lt in more detail later in this post, but I think it is important to note here too since the Lt lessons directly complemented the textbook material and helped bridge the gap between lecture and lab for the students.

2) Start building and assessing students’ A&P knowledge from the ground up, and build incrementally.

Laying the foundation for the core concepts is critical to the student’s understanding, application, and mastery of the complex integrative content that this course builds. I took this foundation building more seriously the second time around and, in the end, I did not have to spend more time on the basic content but instead I provided more formative assessment opportunities. This helped the students who did not have as strong a background or understanding of the basic material to recognize that they needed additional assistance. In addition to the weekly homework assignments which were graded for completion only, I added weekly low-stake quizzes using our learning management system (LMS). At first I thought the students would dislike the extra work, but an end-of-the-year survey indicated that they appreciated the extra practice and that the quizzes helped them feel better prepared for the exams.

3) Create a detailed course outline, and then be prepared to change it.

This lesson holds true for just about any course, but I found it especially true for an integrated A&P course – even when teaching it a second time. And it is even more important when you have to switch to online delivery. In the second year, I learned to appreciate that no two cohorts of students are the same and what took the previous cohort a day to master took the next cohort up to two days in some cases. Having the “flex days” at the end of each section was crucial for concept review and content integration. These are days where no new content is introduced, but instead we review and practice together.

4) Constantly remind your students of the new course format.

I cannot emphasize this enough: students will want to revert back to what they are comfortable with and what has worked for them in the past. I constantly remind students that their “cram and forget” method will not serve them well in this course and provide them with ample opportunity to practice this both on the formative and summative assessments. In the second year I continued the individual meetings with each student after their first exam to discuss study strategies and new ways to approach this material, but I also implemented additional check-ins throughout the year particularly with those students who were struggling. I continued to remind the students that the course content not only builds throughout the entire semester but also the entire year! I hammered this point home a bit more with the addition of “retention” quizzes which were delivered unannounced throughout the year and tested major core concepts and application.

5) Solicit student feedback.

Students can be brutally honest, so use that to your advantage. A lot of the new things I added in my second year teaching this course came from the first year-student feedback. I send out my own surveys with specific questions throughout the year which the students fill out anonymously. I find that students are happy to help, especially when they can see a course alteration mid-semester which was based on their feedback.

6) Be prepared to spend a lot of time with students outside of the classroom.

Still very true, but that’s probably my favorite part of this job. Even when we switched to online course delivery the virtual office hours were busy and students took advantage of the extra review and time to ask questions. 

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In this second section, I will add additional lessons learned in my second year of teaching this course and comment on the changes made when the course moved online mid-way through the second semester.  

7) Over-communication.

One of the things I am known for with my students is consistent and clear communication, probably to the point of over-communication. I also emphasize that communication is a two-way street, so just as I am constantly communicating information to them, I expect them to do the same to me, including any accommodations, sports travel, or general course questions. I model this behavior with regular use of our LMS announcement page and I use the start of each class to review important deadlines and open the floor for questions. The move to online instruction only made this over-communication even more important. Early on in the transition period I checked in often to let them know the new plan and opened discussion pages to allow them to ask questions and express any concerns. I checked in multiple times a day using the LMS announcement page, posted a “live” course schedule and tables of new homework and quiz due dates all in one central location, and I added silly memes to the discussion boards to up engagement. I also added resource pages on the basics of Zoom and how to be an online student since this was very new territory for them (and me). Looking back this was a lot of information that was constructed and disseminated very quickly, but an end-of-the-year survey indicated they appreciated the information and that it told them that I was prepared and willing to help them during the transition.

8) More assessments. More practice. More activity.

In my second year, I assigned more practice problems from the textbook to help the students prepare for the exams and held problem sessions outside of class for review. This additional time and practice was well received even when it was a greater time commitment for the students. With the move to online instruction I was thankful that I had already established a fairly homework-heavy course as these assignments became even more important. The assigned “lecture” time was switched to virtual problem solving sessions and the course moved even more toward a flipped-classroom model. Since the switch to online occurred after I had already built a pretty solid reputation with this class (about a semester and a half) they were used to reading and problem solving before class, even if that class was now online. All homework and quizzes moved online which allowed for quicker feedback to the students on their progress and, thus, more time for questions before the exams. The switch to fully online homework and quizzes I plan to keep even when the course moves back to in-person as the quick feedback for the students and less time spent hand-grading by me is worth the extra time it takes to set-up the online modules.

9) Utilization of LMS Discussion Forums.

Honestly, the use of the LMS discussion forums did not start until the course moved online, but their quick success made me question why I had not taken advantage of this tool earlier. When the course moved online I added discussion pages with titles such as “What is going on?!? General course questions.” and “What I am most nervous about with the course moving online is…” The goal was to provide an outlet for students to ask questions and share their concerns. I always started the discussion myself, giving them a sort of “jumping off” point and an example. These discussion pages were utilized by almost all members of the course and were rated very highly in the end. Students could comment any time of day enhancing the accessibility of the discussion. I will modify these to be used in my courses moving forward for both in-person and online courses.

10) Online presence for both lecture and lab.

I actually increased my A&P online presence prior to the mandatory switch to online coursework with the implementation of AD Instruments Lt learning platform in the fall semester. My students received free access to both the anatomy and physiology modules thanks to an award from the American Physiological Society. The Teaching Career Enhancement Award supported a year-long study assessing the use of the ADInstruments Lt learning platform and its interactive and immersive lessons aimed at enhancing knowledge, retention, and practical application of the integrative course content. The Lt platform was fully customized to the course material and was used both in the lecture classroom and in the lab. In the lab, students were able to interact with a data acquisition system that is more “game-like” and familiar, while still collecting high-level human physiology data. Lt also allowed for the creation of new lessons that engaged students with the use of embedded questions in multiple formats, including drag-and-drop labeling, drawing, short answers, and completion of tables. These lessons were used in many ways: for pre-lab preparation, in-lab and post-lab assessment, and for active learning activities in the classroom. Lessons were completed individually or in small groups, and questions were set up with hints, immediate feedback, multiple tries, and/or automatic grading.

These modules were also incorporated in the active-learning lecture component of the course, providing additional exposure and practice with the content. The Lt lessons directly complemented the textbook material and helped bridge the gap between lecture and lab for the students. When the course moved fully online I was incredibly thankful that Lt was already in use in my course and that the students were already comfortable and familiar with the platform. I used Lt exclusively for the online labs and supplemental lecture content for the remainder of the spring semester. Just as before, the lessons and modules were customized by me to fit my course learning objectives and prepare the students for their new online assessments. Students could complete the online coursework at their leisure and stop by the virtual office hours for help or post questions on the discussion boards for feedback. Student feedback indicated that the addition of Lt to this course enhanced accessibility of the course content, provided extra practice and exposure to the material, and overall was rated highly by the students.  

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And just as I did before, now I turn the conversation over to the MANY seasoned educators who read this blog. What did you learn in your quick move to online coursework? Did you implement any new pedagogical tools which you will continue to use even with in-person instruction? Please share!

Jennifer Ann Stokes is a soon-to-be Assistant Professor of Kinesiology at Southwestern University in Georgetown, TX, after spending the last three years at Centenary College of Louisiana. Jennifer received her PhD in Biomedical Sciences from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and following a Postdoctoral Fellowship in respiratory physiology at UCSD, Jennifer spent a year at Beloit College (Beloit, WI) as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology to expand her teaching background and pursue a teaching career at a primarily undergraduate institution. Jennifer’s courses include Human Anatomy and Physiology (using an integrative approach), Nutritional Physiology, Exercise Physiology, Medical Terminology, and Psychopharmacology. Jennifer is also actively engaged with undergraduates in basic science research (www.stokeslab.com) and in her free time enjoys cycling, hiking, and yoga.

Involving students in the teaching experience
Karen L. Sweazea, PhD, FAHA
Arizona State University

As faculty, we often find ourselves juggling multiple responsibilities at once. Although many of us are interested in adding hands-on or other activities to our classes, it can be difficult to find the time to develop them. This is where more advanced students who have already taken the class or graduate students can help.

A couple of summers ago I requested the help of an extra teaching assistant in my Animal Physiology course. The role of the position I was requesting was unique as I was not seeking a student to help with grading or proctoring exams. Rather, the role of this student was to help develop in-class activities that would enhance the learning experience of students taking the course.

For each lesson, the special graduate student TA was tasked with finding an existing (ex: https://www.lifescitrc.org/) or creating a new activity that could be implemented in the classroom during the last 10-20 minutes of each session, depending on the complexity of the activity. This enabled me to begin converting the course into a flipped classroom model as students enrolled in the course were responsible for reading the material ahead of time, completing a content comprehension quiz, and coming to class prepared to discuss the content and participate in an activity and/or case study. Special TAs can also assist with developing activities for online courses.

While the benefits of having such a TA for the faculty are clear, this type of experience is also beneficial to both the TA as well as the students enrolled in the course. For the TA, this experience provides an opportunity to develop their own teaching skills through learning to develop short lesson plans and activities as well as receiving feedback from the faculty and students. For the students, this is a great way to build cultural competence into the course as TAs are often closer in age to the students and may better reflect the demographics of the classroom. Cultural competence is defined by the National Education Association as “the ability to successfully teach students who come from a culture of cultures other than our own.” Increasing our cultural competency, therefore, is critical to student success and is something that we can learn to address. Having special TAs is just one way we can build this important skill.

Karen Sweazea is an Associate Professor in the College of Heath Solutions at Arizona State University. Her research specializes in diabetes and cardiovascular disease. She received her PhD in Physiological Sciences from the University of Arizona in 2005 where her research focused on understanding glucose homeostasis and natural insulin resistance in birds. Her postdoctoral research was designed to explore how poor dietary habits promote the development of cardiovascular diseases. 

Dr. Sweazea has over 40 publication and has chaired sessions and spoken on topics related to mentoring at a variety of national and local meetings. She has additionally given over 10 guest lectures and has developed 4 graduate courses on topics related to mentoring and professional development. She has mentored or served on the committees for undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral students and earned an Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award from the Faculty Women’s Association at Arizona State University for her dedication towards mentoring.   

Building a Conceptual Framework to Promote Future Understanding
Diane H. Munzenmaier, PhD
Program Director
Milwaukee School of Engineering

For most of my career, I taught physiology and genetics to medical students and graduate students.  My experiences with many students who had difficulty succeeding in these courses led me to the realization that the way high school and college students learn the biological sciences does not translate to effective physiology learning and understanding at the graduate level.

Medical students, by virtue of their admission to medical school, have, by definition, been successful academically prior to matriculation and have scored well on standardized exams.  They are among the best and brightest that our education system has to offer.  Yet, I have always been amazed at how many medical students truly struggle with physiology.  It is considered by many students to be the most difficult discipline of the basic medical sciences.  Most students come into medical school as expert memorizers but few have the capacity or motivation to learn a discipline that requires integration, pattern recognition, and understanding of complex mechanisms.  My overall conclusion is that high school and college level biological science education does not prepare students to succeed in learning physiology at the graduate level.  Furthermore, I believe if students were prepared to better appreciate and excel in basic physiology at earlier grade levels, the pipeline for graduate education in the physiological sciences would be significantly increased.

Over the past 5 years, it has become a passion of mine to promote a new way of teaching biology and physiology: one that helps students make connections and that lays a conceptual framework that can be enhanced and enriched throughout their educational careers, rather than one that promotes memorization of random facts that are never connected nor retained.  I recently joined the Center for Biomolecular Modeling at the Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE CBM) in order to focus on developing materials and activities to promote that type of learning and to provide professional development for K-16 teachers to help them incorporate this type of learning into their classrooms.

One of my first projects was to develop resources to allow students to study the structure-function relationships of a specific protein important in physiology and use that understanding to relate it to relevant physiology/pathophysiology concepts.  The program is called “Modeling A Protein Story” (MAPS) and, so far, I have developed resources for 3 different project themes: aquaporins, globins, and insulin.

The overall concept is for the students to build their understanding slowly and incrementally over time, usually as part of an extracurricular club.  They start by understanding water and its unique properties.  Then they learn about proteins and how they are synthesized and fold into specific 3D conformations in an aqueous environment based largely on their constituent amino acids and how they interact with water.  Eventually they progress to learning about the unique structure of their protein of interest and how it is related to its function.  Once they have developed a solid understanding of that protein, they work in teams to choose a specific protein story that they will develop and model.  This includes finding a structure in the Protein Data Bank, reading the associated research paper to determine what was learned from the structure, designing a model of the structure in Jmol, an online 3D visualization software, and 3D printing a physical model of the protein that helps them tell their story.  Stories can be anything related to the theme that the students find in their research and consider interesting.  For example, student-developed aquaporin stories have ranged from AQP2 in the kidney to AQP4 in the brain to the use of AQP proteins to develop biomimetic membranes for water purification in developing countries.  By choosing projects that students are interested in, they more readily accept the challenge of reading primary research literature and trying to piece together a confusing puzzle into an understandable “story”. 

In the past year, I have used the insulin theme resources and piloted an active learning project-based curriculum at the undergraduate, high school, and middle school levels on insulin structure-function, glucose homeostasis, and diabetes mellitus.  The type of learning environment in which this curriculum was introduced has varied.  Middle school level children participated in the active learning environment as part of a 2-week summer camp.  High school students from an innovative charter school in downtown Milwaukee were introduced to the project-based curriculum as a 9-week seminar course, and the activity was taught to freshman biomolecular engineering students at the Milwaukee School of Engineering as a team project in their first quarter introductory course.

Some of the activities utilized materials that we have developed at the MSOE CBM and were subsequently produced for distribution by our sister company, 3D Molecular Designs.  Others utilize resources that are readily available online such as those available at the Protein Data Bank at their educational site, PDB-101.  Finally, still other resources have been developed by us specifically for this curriculum in order to help the students move between foundational concepts in an attempt to help them make important connections and to assist them in developing their conceptual framework. 

One of the activities that helps them try to make sense of the connection between glucose and insulin is this “cellular landscape” painting by Dr. David Goodsell at Scripps Research Institute and available at PDB-101.

They learn the basic concept that when blood glucose increases after a meal, insulin is released from the pancreas and allows glucose to be taken up and stored by the cells.  But how?  When they are given this landscape and minimal instructions, they must look closely, connect it to what they already know and try to make sense of it.  They work together in a small group and are encouraged to ask questions.  Is this a cell?  If so, where is the plasma membrane and the extracellular/intracellular spaces?  What types of shapes do they see in those spaces?  What is in the membrane?  What are those white dots?  Why is one dot in one of the shapes in the membrane?  Why are there yellow blobs on the outside of the cell but not on the inside?  Eventually they piece together the puzzle of insulin binding to its receptor, leading to trafficking of vesicles contain glucose transporter proteins to the plasma membrane, thereby allowing the influx of glucose into the cell.  By struggling to make detailed observations and connections, a story has been constructed by the students as a logical mechanism they can visualize which is retained much more effectively than if it had been merely memorized.

In other activities they learn how insulin in synthesized, processed, folded, stored, and released by the pancreatic beta cells in response to elevated blood glucose.  They use a kit developed by MSOE CBM that helps them model the process using plastic “toobers” to develop an understanding of how insulin structure is related to its function in regards to the shape and flexibility required for receptor binding but also related to its compact storage in the pancreas as hexamers and the importance of disulfide bonds in stabilizing monomers during secretion and circulation in the blood.  

As the students build their understanding and progress to developing their own “story”, the depth of that story depends on grade level and the amount of time devoted to the project.  Undergraduate students and high school students who have weeks and months to research and develop their story tend to gravitate to current research into protein engineering of insulin analogs that are either rapid-acting or slow-release, developed as type 1 and type 2 diabetes medications, respectively.  The basic concepts behind most of these analogs are based on the structure-function relationships of hexamer formation.  Rapid-acting medications usually include amino acid modifications that disrupt dimer and hexamer formation.  Slow-release medications tend to promote hexamer stability.  Middle school students or high school students with limited time to spend on the project may only focus on the basic properties of insulin itself.  The curriculum is driven by the students, so it is extremely flexible based on their capabilities, time, and motivation.  Students ultimately use their understanding of insulin structure-function to design and 3D-print a physical model that they highlight to show relevant amino acid modifications and other details that will help them to present the story they have developed based on their learning progression and research. 

In conclusion, we have found that this type of open-ended project-based active learning increases learning, retention, and motivation at every educational level  with which we have worked.  Students are initially frustrated in the process because they are not given “the answer” but they eventually learn to be more present, make observations, ask questions, and make connections.  Our hope is that introduction of this type of inquiry-based instruction in K-16 biological sciences education will eventually make the transition to graduate level physiology learning more successful.

Diane Munzenmaier received her PhD in Physiology studying the role of the renin-angiotensin system on skeletal muscle angiogenesis. This was followed by postdoctoral study of the role of astrocytes in stroke-induced cerebral angiogenesis. She joined the faculty of the Department of Physiology at the Medical College of Wisconsin in 1999 and the Human and Molecular Genetics Center in 2008. As Director of Education in the HMGC, Dr. Munzenmaier lectured and developed curriculum for medical and graduate school physiology and genetics courses. She developed an ACGME-accredited medical residency curriculum and Continuing Medical Education (CME) courses for physician education. She also enjoyed performing educational outreach to K-12 classrooms and the lay public. She is passionate about education and career mentoring for students of all levels. Her specific interests in biomedical science education are finding engaging ways to help clarify the link between structure and (dys)function in health and disease.

Lighting the Spark: Engaging Medical Students in Renal Physiology
Jessica Dominguez Rieg, PhD
Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Physiology
University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine

Recently, I spent some time reflecting on the way we teach physiology at my institution. One thing that kept coming to my mind- why does renal physiology get such a bad reputation? We often hear medical students commenting that renal physiology was the hardest topic of the first year, that there’s too much math involved, and concepts like acid-base and electrolyte disorders are too difficult to grasp. Does a negative attitude about renal physiology really matter in the long run? If the students can successfully pass USMLE Step 1, can I rest easy knowing they are competent in understanding how the kidneys function? Or can I, a basic science faculty, make a bigger impact on how these students view the renal system?

Chronic kidney disease is a growing public health concern in the United States, affecting roughly 40 million adults. Given the increasing burden of disease, an aging population, and modern medicine that is keeping patients with end-stage kidney disease alive longer, we need a robust workforce in nephrology. However, the field of nephrology is in the middle of a major crisis, and there is significant concern that there will not be an adequate workforce to meet the healthcare needs of patients afflicted with kidney disease. Only 62% of available nephrology fellowship positions were filled in the 2019 National Resident Matching Program match and less than 45% of positions were filled by U.S. MD graduates, making nephrology one of the least competitive subspecialties1. When does the waning interest in nephrology begin? Many think it starts early in a medical student’s academic journey.

I recently surveyed our medical students at the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine (250 respondents) and found that 60% of students agreed or strongly agreed that the topic of nephrology is interesting and yet close to one-third of them agreed or strongly agreed that renal pathophysiology is too complex and challenging for them. When asked what makes the biggest impact on their future career choice, 60% indicated that having role models and mentors in the specialty field was high impact; however, less than half of the students felt they had been exposed to encouraging role models or mentors in nephrology. Students ranked rotations during clerkships as having the highest impact in career choice; and yet our students are first exposed to nephrology during their Internal Medicine clerkship in their 3rd year, which only last 8 weeks. Not surprisingly, students ranked didactics in the preclinical years as having the lowest impact on career choice. What if we can change that? Perhaps there is too little done too late- and we just can’t get enough momentum going to gain a critical mass of students interested in nephrology. Is there anything that we, as medical physiology educators, can do to help? We can light the spark!

1. Make it matter. The complexity of renal physiology must be taught with meaningful clinical context. Students need to understand the clinical importance of what they are learning or there is a high chance they will get turned off from the very beginning. One of the best ways I have found to make it matter, is to work closely with my clinical colleagues. Not only can they provide (and co-teach) examples of how to

2. Make it digestible. Students often get overwhelmed by the level of detail that is expected in the renal block. We must ensure we are giving them the important content in bite-sized pieces so they have time to think about it, apply it, and understand it. I give our students a blank nephron map2 at the beginning of the renal block and ask that they work together to fill it out. On the last day of the renal block, we go through the maps together as a summary of renal function. Students like having all the transporters, hormones and key characteristics about each region of the nephron in one place. It helps them organize their knowledge and also gives them something to refer to in Year 2 and beyond.

3. Make it relatable. At our institution, students get renal physiology at the end of Year 1, so they’ve had all other organ systems besides reproductive physiology. I use many analogies throughout the renal system and always to try to highlight the similarities with the intestinal tract, which they are more familiar with at that point in time. After all, the nephron is like a “mini-intestine”, with similar histological features and transporter profiles. By relating the new renal content to something they’ve seen before, it can help make it a little easier to understand (and allows them to make systemic connections).

4. Make it stick. Students struggle with grasping acid-base disturbances. Consistent repetition and practice problems is key! Many times, students learn multiple ways to approach interpreting acid-base disturbances (different formulas, different values for expected compensatory responses, etc.) depending on who is teaching. This can be frustrating and confusing for students. We have found that having all faculty that teach some aspect of acid-base balance use a single resource, a step-by-step guide to interpreting acid-base disturbances3, has been very helpful in ensuring consistency in what we teach. Students also work through many practice problems in interpretation of arterial blood gases, starting in Year 1, again in Year 2, and again during the clerkships. The result is that students have gone from scoring less than 50% on NBME acid-base questions, to close to 90%- it’s sticking!

5. Make it fun! One of the notoriously challenging lectures in our preclinical years is integration of acid-base, volume, and electrolyte disorders. Traditionally, it was a lecture given by a nephrologist and was very technical and clinically oriented. However, students were lost and overwhelmed. So, I partnered with an internal medicine physician and we revamped the session into a fun, interactive series of cases where we co-facilitated discussion. Students were introduced to the 14th book of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Hazardous Hospital, where they were asked to investigate the mysterious health issues of Sir Cornelius. The cases we presented were challenging and framed with very relevant basic science concepts, and students loved it! Not only did they have fun while learning, but they really appreciated having a basic scientist and clinician teaching together.

In conclusion, renal physiology is challenging and may be contributing to a lack of interest in a career in nephrology. As medical physiology educators, we have the ability to work with our clinical colleagues and revamp how we teach the renal system. We can get students engaged and excited about renal physiology by making the content clinically relevant, digestible, relatable and fun. After all, there needs to be a spark to light the fire!

References:

  1. National Resident Matching Program, Results and Data: Specialties Matching Service 2019 Appointment Year. National Resident Matching Program, Washington, DC. 2019
  2. Robinson PG, Newman D, Reitz CL, Vaynberg LZ, Bahga DK, Levitt MH. A large drawing of a nephron for teaching medical students renal physiology, histology, and pharmacology. Advances in Physiology Education. 42:2, 192-199, 2018.
  3. DeWaay D, Gordon J. The ABC’s of ABGs: teaching arterial blood gases to adult learners. MedEdPORTAL. 2011;7:9038.

Dr. Dominguez Rieg is a faculty member in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology & Physiology at the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine. She is the Course Director for the Gastrointestinal, Endocrine, Renal and Reproductive Systems block and the Physiology Integration Director that is responsible for mapping physiology content objectives across the entire curriculum. She teaches endocrine, renal and reproductive physiology and renal pathophysiology in multiple courses in the pre-clerkship years. She received her PhD in Physiological Sciences from the University of Arizona. Her research interests are kidney-intestine crosstalk and intestinal function in the context of systemic diseases such as obesity and diabetes. When she’s not at work, she is enjoying time with her young daughter and four German Shepherds.

Can the Flipped Classroom Method of Teaching Influence Students’ Self-Efficacy?
Chaya Gopalan, PhD, FAPS
Associate Professor
Departments of Applied Health, Primary Care & Health Systems
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

Self-efficacy is the belief in one’s ability to succeed in a specific situation or accomplish a specific task (Bandura, 1977). Students with high self-efficacy have higher motivation to learn and, therefore, are able to reach higher academic goals (Honicke & Broadbent, 2016). Gender, age, and the field of study are some factors that are known to affect self-efficacy (Huang, 2013). Genetics plays a significant role (Waaktaar & Torgersen, 2013). Certain physiological factors such as perceptions of pain, fatigue, and fear may have a marked, deleterious effect on self-efficacy (Vieira, Salvetti, Damiani, & Pimenta, 2014). In fact, research has shown that self-efficacy can be strengthened by positive experiences, such as mastering a skill, observing others performing a specific task, or by constant encouragement (Vishnumolakala, Southam, Treagust, Mocerino, & Qureshi, 2017). Enhancement of self-efficacy may be achieved by the teachers who serve as role models as well as by the use of supportive teaching methods (Miller, Ramirez, & Murdock, 2017). Such boost in self-efficacy helps students achieve higher academic results.

The flipped classroom method of teaching shifts lectures out of class. These lectures are made available for students to access anytime and from anywhere. Students are given the autonomy to preview the content prior to class where they can spend as much time as it takes to learn the concepts. This approach helps students overcome cognitive overload by a lecture-heavy classroom.  It also enables them to take good notes by accessing lecture content as many times as necessary. Since the lecture is moved out of class, the class time becomes available for deep collaborative activities with support from the teacher as well as through interaction with their peers. Additionally, the flipped teaching method allows exposure to content multiple times such as in the form of lecture videos, practice questions, formative assessments, in-class review, and application of pre-class content. The flipped classroom therefore provides a supportive atmosphere for student learning such as repeated exposure to lecture content, total autonomy to use the constantly available lecture content, peer influence, and support from the decentered teacher. These listed benefits of flipped teaching are projected to strengthen self-efficacy which, in turn, is expected to increase students’ academic performance. However, a systematic approach measuring the effectiveness of flipped teaching on self-efficacy is lacking at present.

References:

Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological review, 84(2), 191.

de Moraes Vieira, É. B., de Góes Salvetti, M., Damiani, L. P., & de Mattos Pimenta, C. A. (2014). Self-efficacy and fear avoidance beliefs in chronic low back pain patients: coexistence and associated factors. Pain Management Nursing, 15(3), 593-602.

Honicke, T., & Broadbent, J. (2016). The influence of academic self-efficacy on academic performance: A systematic review. Educational Research Review, 17, 63-84.

Huang, C. (2013). Gender differences in academic self-efficacy: A meta-analysis. European journal of psychology of education, 28(1), 1-35.

Miller, A. D., Ramirez, E. M., & Murdock, T. B. (2017). The influence of teachers’ self-efficacy on perceptions: Perceived teacher competence and respect and student effort and achievement. Teaching and Teacher Education, 64, 260-269.

Vishnumolakala, V. R., Southam, D. C., Treagust, D. F., Mocerino, M., & Qureshi, S. (2017). Students’ attitudes, self-efficacy and experiences in a modified process-oriented guided inquiry learning undergraduate chemistry classroom. Chemistry Education Research and Practice, 18(2), 340-352.

Waaktaar, T., & Torgersen, S. (2013). Self-efficacy is mainly genetic, not learned: a multiple-rater twin study on the causal structure of general self-efficacy in young people. Twin Research and Human Genetics, 16(3), 651-660.

Dr. Chaya Gopalan received her PhD in Physiology from the University of Glasgow, Scotland. Upon completing two years of postdoctoral training at Michigan State University, she started her teaching career at St. Louis Community College. She is currently teaching at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Her teaching is in the areas of anatomy, physiology, and pathophysiology at both undergraduate and graduate levels for health science career programs. Dr. Gopalan has been practicing evidence-based teaching where she has tested team-based learning and case-based learning methodologies and most recently, the flipped classroom. She has received several grants to support her research interest.

Creating a Community with Faceless Students
Lynn Cialdella Kam, PhD, MA, MBA, RDN, CSSD, LD
Case Western Reserve University

Creating a Community with Faceless Students

As I enjoy the last bit of summer “break”, I am grappling with how I connect with my students if I never see them. This is not the first time teaching online. In fact, I did it back in the day before it was popular and I had really thought about how to teach.  However, a core element of my teaching now is to develop a sense of community and engage students in experiential learning experiences.  Online courses makes this more challenging than courses held in the traditional face-to-face classroom setting.

My Dreams of Online Teaching

As I create elaborate videos with animation and careful editing for each class, I envision I am the next Steven Spielberg of online teaching – and my students are at the edge of their seats taking in every second. Exchanges between students follow such as:  

Student 1: “You know the part where Dr. Kam talked about the role leptin plays in bone health, I was just blown away!”

Student 2: “I know, and it is so cool —  it is called an adipokine. I can’t wait for the next episode!”

Student 3: “Hey, do you all want to come over to my apartment for a Binge-Watching Party? We can start with the first episode and then watch the new one together!”

Student 1 and 2: “Yeah, let’s do it.”

The Reality

Online learning makes it challenging for students to get to know me and each other – and my guess is most students are likely multitasking while they watch the video. So, do I have to change my teaching philosophy and succumb to the faceless environment? I decide the answer is “No” and want to share with you three simple ideas of how I intend to bring online off of virtual reality into real life.

  1. Zoom In for a Meet and Greet: At the beginning of each semester, I offer my students a chance to stop by my office for a “Meet and Greet”. This is a short session where I talk with the student maybe 10 to 15 mins and learn a little about their interest, goals, and concerns. Zoom is an easy way to set up a meeting with a student virtually (reference below). For free, you can have unlimited one on one meetings.
  2. Student Led Discussion: I often engage my students in small group experiential learning activities. With online courses, I have used discussion boards in the past where I posed a question or post an article to discuss. However, this semester, each student in my online class will take a turn at leading a discussion. I have given them the broad theme like “Obesity and Genetics”, and they are then tasked with posing a compelling question and/or thought. The discussion will be open for a week. At the end of the week, the student leader will write up and share a short recap of key points made during the discussion.
  3. Game Time with Kahoot!: Kahoot! is a game-based platform that can be used to create quizzes and/or challenges that students can take using their phone or computer. You can set it up so a student can challenge another student to a dual of the minds or have a quiz that the student can take on their own for self-assessment.

Looking for other ideas?

Tools are out there for students to create their own podcast, video, diagrams, or pretty much anything that you can imagine. Here are some resources for you to explore:

Information on Online Learning

Free Online Tools:

Images displayed in the post are rightfully owed and licensed from Creative Commons.

Lynn Cialdella Kam joined CWRU as an Assistant Professor in Nutrition in 2013. At CWRU, she is engaged in undergraduate and graduate teaching, advising, and research. Her research has focused on health complications associated with energy imbalances (i.e. obesity, disordered eating, and intense exercise training). Specifically, she is interested in understanding how alterations in dietary intake (i.e., amount, timing, and frequency of intake) and exercise training (i.e., intensity and duration) can affect the health consequences of energy imbalance such as inflammation, oxidative stress, insulin resistance, alterations in macronutrient metabolism, and menstrual dysfunction. She received her PhD in Nutrition from Oregon State University, her Masters in Exercise Physiology from The University of Texas at Austin, and her Masters in Business Administration from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business. She completed her postdoctoral research in sports nutrition at Appalachian State University and is a licensed and registered dietitian nutritionist (RDN).

My Summer Reading: Discussion as a Way of Teaching: Tools and Techniques for Democratic Classrooms 2nd Edition by Stephen D. Brookfield and Stephen Preskill

Jessica L. Fry, PhD
Associate Professor of Biology
Curry College, Milton, MA

Ah Summer – the three months of the year when my To Do list is an aspirational and idealistic mix of research progress, pedagogical reading, curriculum planning, and getting ahead.  Here we are in July, and between hiring, new building construction, uncooperative experiments and familial obligations, I am predictably behind, but my strategic scheduling of this blog as a book review– meaning I have a deadline for both reading and digesting this book handed out at our annual faculty retreat — means that I am guaranteed to get at least one item crossed off my list!

My acceptance of (and planning for) my tendency to procrastinate is an example of the self-awareness Stephen D. Brookfield and Stephen Preskill advocate for teachers in their book “Discussion as a Way of Teaching”.  By planning for the major pitfalls of discussion, as well as the reasons behind why both teachers and students manage discussions poorly, they catalog numerous strategies to increase the odds of realizing the major benefits of discussion in the classroom.  At fifteen years old, this book is hardly dated; some of the discussion formats will be familiar to practitioners of active learning such as snowballing and jigsaw, but the real value in this book for me was the frank discussion of the benefits, drawbacks, and misconceptions about discussion in the classroom that are directly relevant to my current teaching practice.  

My lowest moments as a professor seem to come when my students are more focused on “finding the right answer” than on exploring a topic and fitting it into their conceptual understanding.  Paper discussions can fall flat, with students hastily reciting sentences from the discussion or results sections and any reading questions I may have assigned.  This book firmly makes the case that with proper groundwork and incentive, students can and will develop deliberative conversational skills.  Chapter 3 describes how the principles for discussion can be modeled during lecture, small group work, and formats designed for students to practice the processes of reflection and analysis before engaging in discussions themselves. Chapters 4 and 5 present the nuts and bolts of keeping a discussion going by describing active listening techniques, teacher responses, and group formats that promote rather than suppress discourse, and chapters 9 and 10 illustrate the ways students and teachers talk too much… and too little.  One of the most emphasized concepts in these chapters and threaded throughout the book is allowing silence.  Silence allows for reflection and should not be feared – 26 pages in this book cover silence and importantly, how and why professors and students are compelled to fill it, which can act as a barrier to all students participating in the discussion.   

Preskill and Brookfield emphasize the need for all students to be active listeners and participants in a discussion, even if they never speak a word, because discussion develops the capacity for the clear communication of ideas and meaning.  “Through conversation, students can learn to think and speak metaphorically and to use analogical reasoning…. They can get better at knowing when using specialized terminology is justified and when it is just intellectual posturing” (pg. 32).  What follows is an incredibly powerful discussion on not only honoring and respecting diversity, but a concise well-written explanation of how perceptions of social class and race affect both non-white and non-middle-class students in American college classrooms.  Their explanation of how academia privileges certain patterns of discourse and speech that are not common to all students leading to feelings of impostership should be read by everyone who has ever tone-policed a student or a colleague.  The authors advocate for a democratic approach to speech, allowing students to anonymously report if, for example, another student banging their hand on their desk to emphasize a point seemed too violent, which then allows the group to discuss and if necessary, change the group rules in response to that incident.  The authors note that “A discussion of what constitutes appropriate academic speech is not lightweight or idle.  It cuts to several core issues: how we privilege certain ways of speaking and conveying knowledge and ideas, who has the power to define appropriate forms and patterns of communication, and whose interests these forms and patterns serve” (pg 146).  The idea that academic language can be gatekeeping and alienating to many students is especially important in discussions surrounding retention and persistence in the sciences, where students seeing themselves as scientists is critical (Perez et al. 2014).  Brookfield and Preskill argue that through consistent participation in discussion, students will see themselves as co-creators of knowledge and bring their authentic selves to the community.   

All in all, this book left me inspired and I recommend it for those who imagine the kinds of invigorating discussions we have with colleagues taking place with our students and want to increase the chances it will happen in the classroom.  I want to cut out quotes from my favorite paper’s discussion section and have my students justify or refute the statements made using information from the rest of the paper (pg. 72-73 Getting Discussion Started).  I want my students to reflect on their journey to science and use social media to see themselves reflected in the scientific community (pg. 159-160 Discussing Across Gender Differences), and I want to lay the groundwork for the first discussion I have planned for the class of 2023; Is Water Wet?  All this and the rest of that pesky To Do list with my remaining month of summer. Wish me luck!  

Brookfield, S. D., & Preskill, S. (2005). Discussion as a Way of Teaching: Tools and Techniques for Democratic Classrooms (2nd ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Perez, T., Cromley, J. G., & Kaplan, A. (2014). The role of identity development, values, and costs in college STEM retention. Journal of Educational Psychology. http://doi.org/10.1037/a0034027

Jessica L. Fry Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Biology at Curry College, a liberal-arts based primarily undergraduate institution in Milton, Massachusetts.  She currently teaches Advanced Physiology, Cell Biology, and Introduction to Molecules and Cells for majors, and How to Get Away with Murder which is a Junior Year Interdisciplinary Course in the General Education Program.  She procrastinates by training her dog, having great discussions with her colleagues, and reading copious amounts of science fiction. 

Engaging students in active learning via protocol development

Physiology, particularly metabolic physiology, covers the fundamentals of biophysics and biochemistry for nutrient absorption, transport, and metabolism. Engaging pre-health students in experimentation may facilitate students’ learning and their in-depth understanding of the mechanisms coordinating homeostatic control. In addition, it may promote critical thinking and problem-solving ability if students are engaged in active learning.

Traditionally, students are provided instructions that detail the stepwise procedures before an experiment or demonstration. Although students are encouraged to ask questions before and during the experiments, an in-depth discussion would not be possible until they understand each step and the underlying principles. This is particularly true nowadays when commercial kits come with stepwise instructions where no explanation can be found of principles behind the procedure. The outcomes may contrast in three ways: (1) students are happy with the perfect data they acquire by following the instructions provided by the manufacturer, but they miss the opportunity to chew on the key principles that are critical for students to develop creative thinking; (2) students are frustrated as they follow the instruction but fail the experiments, without knowing what is wrong and where to start for trouble shooting; and (3) driven by self-motivation, students dig into the details and interact intensively with the instructor to grasp the principles of the procedure. As such, the students can produce reliable data and interpret the procedure and data with confidence, and in addition, they may effectively diagnose operational errors for trouble shooting. Evidently, the 3rd scenario demonstrates an example of active learning, which is desirable but not common in a traditional model of experimentation.

To engage students in active learning, one of the strategies is to remove the ready-to-go procedure from the curricular setting but request the students to submit a working protocol of their own version at the end of an experiment. Instead of a stepwise procedure (i.e., a “recipe”), the students are provided with reading materials that discuss the key principles of the analytical procedures. When students show the competency in the understanding of the principles in a formative assessment (e.g., a 30-min quiz), they are ready to observe the demonstrations step by step, taking notes and asking questions. Based on their notes and inspiration from discussion, each student is requested to develop a protocol of their own version. Depending on how detail-oriented the protocols are, the instructor may approve it or ask students to recall the details and revise their protocols before moving forward. Once students show competency in the protocol development, they are ready to conduct the steps in groups under the instructor’s (or teaching assistant, TA’s) supervision. Assessment on precision and accuracy is the key to examine the competency of students’ operation, which also provides opportunities for students to go back to improve or update their protocols. In the case of unexpected results, the students are encouraged to interpret and justify their results in a physiological setting (e.g., fasting vs. feeding states) unless they choose not to. Regardless, students are asked to go back to recall and review their operation for trouble shooting under the instructor’s (or TA’s) supervision, till they show competency in the experiment with reproducible and biologically meaningful data. Trouble shooting under instructor’s or TA’s supervision and inspiration serves as an efficient platform for students to take the lead in critical thinking and problem solving, which prompts students to go back to improve or update their protocols showing special and practical notes about potential pitfalls and success tips.

Often with delight, students realize how much they have grown at the end of experimentation. However, frustration is not uncommon during the troubleshooting and learning, which has to be overcome through students’ persistence and instructor’s encouragement. Some students might feel like “jumping off a cliff” in the early stage of an experiment where a ready-to follow instruction is not available. Growing in experience and persistence, they become more confident and open to pursue “why” in addition to “what”.

Of note, logistic consideration is critical to ensure active learning by this strategy. A single experiment would take up to 3-fold more time for the instructor and students to work together to reach competency. To this end, the instructor needs to reduce the number of experiments for a semester, and carefully select and design the key experiments to maximally benefit students in terms of skill learning, critical thinking, and problem solving. Furthermore, group size should be kept small (e.g., less than 3 students per group) to maximize interactive learning if independent experimentation by individuals is not an option. Such a requirement can be met either by increasing TA support or reducing class size.

 

 
Zhiyong Cheng is an Assistant Professor of Nutritional Science at the Food Science and Human Nutrition Department, University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS). Dr. Cheng received his PhD in Analytical Biochemistry from Peking University. After completing his postdoctoral training at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) and Harvard Medical School, Dr. Cheng joined Virginia Tech as a faculty member, and recently he relocated to the University of Florida. Dr. Cheng has taught Nutrition and Metabolism, with a focus on substrate absorption, transport, and metabolism. As the principal investigator in a research lab studying metabolic diseases (obesity and type 2 diabetes), Dr. Cheng has been actively participating in undergraduate and graduate research training.
The Large Lecture: Minor Adjustments, Major Impacts

Large lecture courses are hard, for both students and faculty alike, and while an exhaustive body of Scholarship of Teaching & Learning (SOTL) research boasts benefits of smaller classes (Cuseo, 2007), budgetary and a myriad of other restrictions leave many higher education institutions with few options for reducing class sizes.  Accordingly, many instructors are forced to figure out a way to best serve our students in this unideal setting.

Three years ago, in my first year as a full time faculty member, I found myself teaching one of these large lecture classes.  There were ~250 students, split across two sections, piled into an outdated auditorium.   The setting was intimidating for me, and if one thing was certain, it was that however intimidated I felt, my students felt it even harder (and as an aside, three years later, I still find myself, at times, intimidated by this space).  So, in a high-stakes, pre-requisite course like Anatomy & Physiology that is content-heavy and, by nature, inherently intense, what can be done in a large lecture hall to ease the tension and improve student learning?

When looking to the SOTL research for evidence-based recommendations on student engagement and active learning ideas in high-enrollment courses such as mine, I quickly became overwhelmed with possibilities (not unlike a kid in a candy store).  Before I knew it, finding meaningful ways to reshape my class in the best interest of the student became defeating – how was I supposed to overhaul my course to integrate best-practice pedagogy while still juggling the rest of my faculty responsibilities?

Thankfully, last year a colleague introduced me to a book, Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning, by James Lang.  Admittedly – I still have not finished this book (rest assured – I am currently in a book club studying this book, so I WILL finish it!); that being said, Lang’s powerful message about the significance of small changes resonated with me pretty early on in the text.  Minor, thoughtful adjustments to the daily classroom routine are capable of eliciting substantial impacts on student learning.  In other words, I did not need to reinvent the wheel to better serve my students; instead, I set a goal for myself to try out one or two small, reasonable adjustments per semester.  While I am still navigating best-practice teaching and experience a healthy dose of trial-and-error, here is what I have found useful thus far:

 

1. Learning names. This is perhaps the most straightforward, obvious classroom goal, but when you have a large number of students, something as simple as learning student names can quickly slip through the cracks.  Now, I appreciate that implementing this goal takes considerable time and intention, and depending on the structure of your high-enrollment course, it may or may not be feasible.  In my course, for example, it is a two-part series, which means I have the same students for an entire academic year rather than one semester.  Moreover, in addition to lecture, I have all of my students in smaller lab sections.  Accordingly, I have plenty of opportunity to interact with students and pay attention to names.

From a purely anecdotal observation, if and when a student musters up the courage to ask a question in the large auditorium, addressing them by name appears to increase the likelihood of the student asking again.  Moreover, it seems to have an impact on other students in the classroom, too; anecdotally, I have noticed in lectures where I address student questions using student names, the number of different students asking questions appears to increase.  Overall, addressing students by name seems to communicate a message that students in our classrooms are not simply a body in a seat or a number in the system, but they are a member of a learning community.

2. Finding an inclusive platform for voicing questions. Despite reaching a point in the academic year where everyone knows each other by name, some students will never feel comfortable enough raising their hand to ask questions in the big lecture hall. Knowing this, along with the notion that student confusion rarely exist in isolation, this semester I made it a point to explore alternative platforms for asking questions during lecture.  Cue in the Google Doc: this handy, online word-processing tool gave me a platform for monitoring student questions in real time during lecture.  On the logistical end, it is worth noting that I have a TA monitoring our Google Doc during lecture, so that when a stream of questions comes through, common themes in questions are consolidated into one or two questions.  A few times during the lecture, I will check in with our TA and address questions.  It is also worth mentioning that the document has been set up such that student names are linked to their comments; this was implemented as a measure to keep comments appropriate and on track.  So far, this has turned out to be a great platform, not only for students asking lecture questions in real time, but also for facilitating some really great discussion amongst students.

 

3. Holding students accountable for in-class activities.  I quickly realized in my large lecture class that students were generally unmotivated to participate in any in-class activity unless I collected it and assigned points (which, by the way, can be a logistical nightmare with 250 students).  Yet, as I learned in Making it Stick: The Successful Science of Learning, by Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel (a previous book club endeavor of mine), engaging students in activities like 5 minute recall exercises is widely supported as an effective tool for long-term learning and retention.  So, I decided to piggy back off my previous idea of the Q&A Google Doc, and open up an entire classroom folder where, in addition to our Q&A doc, students had daily folders for submitting in-class activities (again, in real time).  As of now, the way that it works is as follows: upon completing the short recall exercise, or other in-class activity, students will snap a photo of their work and upload it to our Google drive.  Then, I choose a piece of student work to display as we review the activity prompt, which has proven to be a great method for maintaining student accountability (I disclosed to the students that I will randomly choose a few days in the semester to award extra credit for those who submitted during class).  Additionally, this provides quick feedback to me (in real time) regarding student comprehension and common misunderstandings; in fact, I will occasionally choose to review a student submission that represents a common mistake to highlight and address a common problem area.

In summary, implementing these small changes has offered realistic approaches to improving my students’ experience and creating community in an otherwise challenging setting: the large lecture.  While I retain other long-term teaching goals that require more of a time commitment, Lang’s sentiment that small ≠ insignificant provides a solid ground for improvement in the present.

References:

Brown, PC, Roediger, HL, and McDaniel, MA (2014). Making it Stick: The Successful Science of Learning.  Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Cuseo, Joe. (2007). The empirical case against large class size: Adverse effects on the teaching, learning, and retention of first-year students. Journal of Faculty Development: 21.

Lang, James (2016).  Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

 

Amber Schlater earned her B.S. from the University of Pittsburgh in Biological Sciences, and her M.S. and Ph.D. from Colorado State University in Zoology; she also completed a two-year post-doctoral fellowship at McMaster University.  Currently, Amber is an Assistant Professor in the Biology Department at The College of Saint Scholastica in beautiful Duluth, MN, where she teaches Human Anatomy & Physiology, Super Physiology (a comparative physiology course), and mentors undergraduate research students.  Outside of work, Amber enjoys hiking, biking, camping, canoeing, and doing just about anything she can outside with her family.