General Biology (BI 10X) at OregonStateUniversity

General Information

Prepared by: Lesley Blair (BI 10X Course Coordinator), Mark Lavery (BI 10X Laboratory Coordinator)

Updated January 20, 2002

OVERVIEW

General Description

BI 10X (BI 101, 102, and 103) is a series of four-credit general biology courses for non-biology majors offered at OregonStateUniversity. BI 101 is offered fall and summer terms (quarter system), BI 102 is offered winter and summer, and BI 103 is offered spring and summer. Approximately 720 – 1080 undergraduate students enroll each school year term, primarily to meet baccalaureate core science requirements. Students can take any number of the three courses, in any sequence. For many of these students, a BI 10X course will be the last formal science course they will take.

All three courses are designed around two basic outcomes: students understanding the way science works, and students possessing the basic conceptual understandings and skills necessary to make decisions about biological issues. The courses have been designed to build on the K-12 national science standards, extending those standards to a level appropriate to university students. An additional focus is maintaining professional development for the graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) and faculty teaching within the courses. These course goals necessitate continual curricular revision and evaluation to accommodate the changing needs of course participants, the university, and greater community.

Students taking a BI 10X course attend lectures, activities (laboratory/recitation), have assigned textbook readings, and submit three portfolios. There are two fifty-minute lectures each week, and the traditional three-hour laboratory section has been replaced by a one-hour and fifty-minute laboratory and a fifty-minute recitation. Both of these activities involve hands-on experiences with live materials and models. The textbooks utilized are not traditional biology textbooks, but rather “trade” books providing exceptional illustrations and Pulitzer-prize winning writing. Portfolios are primarily used to assess skill outcomes. There are three portfolios due during the term. In addition to scheduled course meetings and readings, students generally spend time studying and working on course projects.

The BI 10X courses are prepared and taught by a team consisting of the course coordinator, laboratory coordinator, eight to twelve GTAs, and lecturing faculty (winter term only). The course coordinator lectures, designs the curriculum, and interacts with students. The laboratory coordinator sets up the activities, interacts with the GTAs (including preparation), works with students, manages the media technologies, manages the BI10X website, and assists with curricular development. Lecturing faculty give up to half of the lectures in a given term, and may assist with other aspects of curricular development.

The BI 10X series has enjoyed ever increasing popularity among OSU students. Summative evaluation scores are generally extremely high for all teaching staff, and students often select the BI 10X courses from a pool of introductory science course offerings. This popularity occurs in the context of a challenging “C as average” course in which criterion-reference grading allows a balance between sufficient intellectual rigor and fair assessment.

BI 10X Curriculum Goals

The BI 10X courses are structured around achievement of specific outcomes for the undergraduate students taking the courses, and the graduate students and faculty teaching the courses.

Desired Student Outcomes

Upon completion of a BI 10X course, students will

  1. understand how science works, including
  2. scientific inquiry, in terms of both exploration and experimentation,
  3. historical development of foundational concepts,
  4. the nature of science, particularly tentativeness, and creativity, and
  5. links between science, technology, and society.
  1. be able to research a life science topic for citizenry and consumer decisions, including
  2. an understanding of basic concepts, processes, and keywords necessary to investigate topics,
  3. skills for accessing and critiquing information,
  4. decision-making processes for specific biology issues, and
  5. ways to present and discuss information.
Desired Graduate Teaching Assistant Outcomes

Upon completion of teaching a BI 10X course, a GTA will

  1. have acquired a variety of teaching skills, including
  2. preparation of materials and strategies for presenting concepts,
  3. maintaining a safe classroom environment,
  4. forms of communication appropriate for assisting student learning,
  5. assessment techniques that are fair and promote learning, and
  6. supervision techniques that encourage collaboration and self-evaluation.
  7. have learned more about biological concepts, including
  8. specific topic areas not commonly addressed in majors courses, and
  9. a variety of ways specific concepts can be presented.
Desired Faculty Outcomes

Upon completion of teaching a BI 10X course, faculty will

  1. acquire a variety of data indicating curricular issues to address, including
  2. student outcomes (grades, TA and student conversations),
  3. teaching effectiveness (evaluations, reflective notes, conversations), and
  4. scope and sequence (multiple data sources including science education research).
  5. learn about topics that enhance the courses, including
  6. biological concepts in emerging research areas,
  7. issues that are relevant to consumers and citizens, and
  8. changing course participant needs.

Scope and Sequence

General Topics

BI 101: Communities (Diversity, Ecology, Environmental Science)

BI 102: Populations (Genetics, Evolution, Behavior)

BI 103: Individuals (Botany, Physiology, Disease)

Term Projects:

BI 101: Environmental Issues Poster Session and Water Quality Experiment

BI 102: Genetic Technologies Debate and Earthworm Population Experiment

BI 103: Disease PowerPoint Presentation and Seedling Growth Experiment

Integrated Topics:

BI 101: Math (graphical representation of data), Geoscience (geologic time), Chemistry (nutrient cycles), Physics (energy), History (science interacts with society), Communications (poster presentation)

BI 102: Math (frequency and probability), Geoscience (fossil record), Chemistry (DNA), History (paradigms shifting), Communications (Debate)

BI 103: Math (statistics), Geoscience (soils), Chemistry (agricultural products), History (technology advances), Communications (Powerpoint presentations)

Pervasive Themes (All Terms):

Homeostasis, Structure Relates to Function, Science Knowledge Changes, Temporal and Spatial Variation, Energy Flows, Nutrients Cycle, Populations Change, Current Science News

Highlights

Recent Curricular Innovation

These changes occurred during the 2000-2001 school year.
Library Research Projects

Addition of three library research projects to BI 10X (one each term), enable students to develop skills and conceptual understandings related to accessing, critiquing, and presenting information. These projects all begin with students working independently to access and summarize information (three to four weeks), and culminate with a collaborative group effort to refine and present findings to other classmates. Each term a different set of skills is emphasized, with BI 101 students researching environmental issues and participating in a poster session, BI 102 students researching genetic technology issues and engaging in a class debate, and BI 103 students researching human diseases and teaching classmates about the disease through Powerpoint presentations.

Experiential Learning

Paper/pencil activities have been supplemented or replaced with hands-on activities enabling students to experience biology through investigation. This echoes a growing body of science education research supporting the effectiveness of experience as a way of learning science that complements lectures and readings. New activities include:

BI 101: Bird Field Observations, Pacific Northwest Diversity, Computer Human Population Simulation, Land Use Analysis.

BI 102: Genetic Technologies Demonstration, Evidence for Evolution Activity, Book Club, Predator-Prey Board Game.

BI 103: Energy and Agriculture Data Analysis, Plant Functions Field Trip, Geography and Global Disease, CDC Hot Spots

Learning Skills Development

In recent years, the BI 10X teaching team has noted increasing student difficulty with basic learning skills, such as reading and summarizing main points of text, locating journal information, and time management. Although these skills are often assumed to be in place at the university level, and seminars/workshops are offered by the campus to supplement basic skills, many students need immediate and additional assistance in order to successfully complete the BI 10X courses. This has led to incorporation of basic learning skills related to note-taking, studying, and test-taking into the curriculum. The teaching team provides approximately 30 office hours a week to assist students, and a majority of that time is spent augmenting basic learning skills.

Graduate Teaching Assistant Professional Development

For many of the GTAs assigned to teach in BI 10X, this is the first and last teaching experience prior to employment as an educator. As a result, the course is also a significant educational experience for GTAs. Two steps were taken to address BI 10X’s role in GTA professional development. First, data was collected regarding TA learning of biological content and teaching skills due to participation as a GTA. Next, a three-tiered professional development scheme was implemented. The first component is an orientation seminar prior to each term that covers a variety of teaching issues discussed at length without the time pressures of standard preparatory sessions. Next, weekly preparatory sessions have been altered to a “demonstration format” with the laboratory coordinator acting as GTA, and the GTAs and curriculum coordinator working together as student groups to complete the activity. This enables GTAs to see how each activity can be run, and the possible problems students will face. Finally, the course coordinator and laboratory coordinator have increased time spent in the TAs classrooms, providing supervisory information and general support.

Current Curricular Implementation

This includes changes being implemented during the 2001-2002 school year.

Student Teaching Experiences

In a 2000 survey, over 20 percent of students enrolled in BI 10X stated that they were interested in teaching in some capacity during their careers. An effort was undertaken to evaluate the BI 10X role in preparing future teachers. This resulted in design of course opportunities for students to try out roles as teachers of life science content, an often daunting task for non-biology majors. The new teaching activities in the 2001-2002 school year include: “group leader” weeks in which a different student in each group is responsible for organizing and reporting on his/her student group’s learning (periodically, all BI 10X courses), poster session quizzes in which students write and administer quiz questions to classmates and are evaluated on their assessment techniques (BI 101), debate speaking in which students in an audience provide feedback on individual student’s presentations based on a series of criteria for learning (BI 102), and mini-lectures in which students teach classmates about particular diseases and are evaluated as to their effectiveness by those classmates (BI 103). Additionally, course faculty have increased explicit communication of the rationale behind basic course structure to both students and GTAs.

Authentic Science Research Experiences

Increasingly high school students are engaging in authentic, scientifically-relevant, research experiences. This reflects a growing body of science education research indicating that these experiences effectively enhance basic understandings of scientific inquiry, a major goal of the BI 10X courses. In order to implement research experiences in the time (ten weeks) allotted, with several hundred students, and without an increase in expenditures, local research opportunities were sought and are being incorporated into the curriculum. Building on the strong Extension Services available at OSU, students are engaging in term-long projects. In BI 101, students research water quality changes along a campus stream, contributing data to a long-term data set. In BI 102, students monitor populations of earthworms on campus. These populations have been in decline (on campus and within the county), and students collect data on environmental factors that may be contributing to that decline. In BI 103, students grow seedlings in soils collected from different areas in the county, relating topsoil content to plant composition, agricultural practice, and land value.

Balanced Lecture/Textbook/Activity Emphasis

In order to further tighten the coordination between lectures, activities, and assigned readings, all three BI 10X courses underwent an extensive curricular revision in the summer of 2001. An attempt was made to balance teaching and assessment emphasis between all parts of the course, with no single component (traditionally lecture) dominating the course. These changes were accompanied by new lectures, re-design of most of the activities, and removal of standard textbooks in favor of “trade” books.

Communication Skills Development

Following implementation of redesigned activities to address learning skills, effort has begun to address the next tier of student difficulty: communication. With fewer university courses requiring term papers, debates, media presentations, and long-term student group collaboration, many students have demonstrated difficulty in completing BI 10X course projects due to limited communication skills. Although writing services and some language services are available through the university, students require immediate and additional assistance to successfully complete the BI 10X course requirements. The curriculum incorporates a variety of communication formats to further build these essential skills.

Support for Students with Special Needs

An increasing concern within recent years has been assisting students with special needs (learning disabilities, physical disabilities, underrepresented, and over committed). Course faculty have developed an infrastructure within the BI 10X courses that assists all students in developing learning skills that will help in mastery of the BI 10X, and other, courses. Additionally, in the 2001-2002 school year, further alteration of the curriculum to assist students has occurred, including: group work (role-establishing and role-practicing exercises in initial laboratories, opportunities for discourse and improvisation in lecture, availability of meeting space for student groups), note-taking (note-taking checks in lecture, students sharing notes in recitation, practice “open-note” assessment), study skills (time-management activities in recitation, study questions in student activity manual, instructor office hours targeting study questions), and test-taking (clear and specific course objectives, discussion of taking exams in recitation, available practice exams, analysis of midterm #1 results following exam, extended office hours following exams).

Research Related to BI 10X Outcomes

As a continued effort to improve the BI 10X courses, both the curriculum coordinator and laboratory coordinator actively engage in collecting qualitative and quantitative data related to teaching strategies and student outcomes. This research includes participation in grant-sponsored science education research projects and dissemination of research results in publications and at national conferences. Presentations and publications, including the curriculum coordinator’s doctoral dissertation on student, GTA, and faculty learning in the BI 10X courses, are available on request.

Components

Schedule

Lectures: 9:00 – 9:50 a.m. (repeated 10:00 – 10:50 a.m.) Tuesday and Thursday in the Milam Auditorium

Laboratories: One hour and fifty minutes in length, running Tuesday through Friday, beginning even hours in 112 and 129 Weniger Hall.

Recitations: Fifty minutes in length, running Tuesday through Friday, even and odd hours in 127 Weniger.

BiologyLearningCenter (TA office hours and student study): 8:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m., Monday through Friday.

Instructional Strategies:

The BI 10X courses utilize a combination of instructional strategies to maximize content coverage and opportunities for learning.

Laboratory and Recitation Activities: In order to accommodate student schedules and maximize activity efficiency, the standard three-hour laboratory has been broken into two shorter activities: a fifty-minute recitation and a one hour and fifty minute laboratory that meet Tuesday/Thursday or Wednesday/Friday. Students are engaged in biology throughout most of the school week. The primary roles of the laboratory and recitation activities include giving students the opportunity to: (1) work with manipulatives, specimens, and organisms to develop understandings of biological processes, (2) interact in collaborative groups to explore topics and solve problems, (3) locate and critique biological information and use that information to generate decisions regarding biological issues. GTAs (one GTA in each 40 student class) give brief introductions to the activities, and assist student groups in their investigations.

Activity Manual: The course coordinator and laboratory coordinator produce an activity manual each term that includes the course syllabus, study skills readings, weekly objectives, weekly activities, and illustrations for labeling. Additional writings and illustrations are being prepared to incorporate more conceptual information into these campus-printed manuals.

Textbooks: The primary roles of the assigned textbook readings include providing students the opportunity to (1) read detailed description of single topics, and (2) integrate illustration and narrative to achieve a greater depth of conceptual understanding. As books can provide a depth of coverage into a single topic not commonly possible in lecture or activities, and an opportunity for students to study particular images and data, “trade books” emphasizing development of scientific knowledge and with high levels of illustration are utilized. This generally results in adoption of two textbooks each term: a book that goes into depth about a particular subject (Weiner’s Beak of the Finch – BI 102) and a book that is highly illustrated (Hoagland and Dodson’s, The Way Life Works – BI 102). The relatively low cost of trade books makes these adoptions economically feasible.

Lectures: The primary roles of lecture include giving students the opportunity to: (1) organize basic concepts related to the topics being studied within historical, global, and current contexts, (2) experience visual and auditory representations of concepts, and (3) receive updates on course information. Lectures incorporate multimedia, storytelling, student activities, and plays/demonstrations to take advantage of the unusual dynamics associated with a gathering of several hundred students.

Assessment:

Assessment of student outcomes incorporates a variety of sources of information.

Exams: (historically primary source of assessment, currently shifting from multiple choice exams to increase emphasis on other forms of assessment).

Activity Scores (completed activities, pre-activity questions, lab quizzes)

Project Scores (papers and presentations)

Lecture puzzles: (currently extra credit)

Portfolios (new implementation 2001-2002): (consist of lecture notes, readings, margin notes, completed activities, quizzes, and field notes)