SUBJECT: Cooperative Education in Biology
DATE: 2/96


I manage the undergraduate labs at Florida International University. I am
planning to completely go to cooperative learning in our labs beginning
Fall. Im going to test it out this Summer. My consern (one of many) is
that this will encompus so many labs (about 30), many TAs (about 15), and
around 1000 students.

How many of you have incorporated CL in your labs? What kind of
information and support did (do) you have? Do you have any advise for the
trasition. How do TAs react, and students, the faculty? What were the
advantages and disadvantages? Most importantly, did you see increased
learning and retention ( and how did you evaluate?)?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thomas Pitzer Office: OE 296 Phone: (305) 348-1224
Instructor/Coordinator Undergraduate teaching Fax: (305) 348-1986
Internet: pitzert@servms.fiu.edu
Florida International University Dept. Biological Science--OE 246
University Park Miami, FL 33199
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Thomas: Concerning cooperative learning. Might I suggest you contact
Press Martin or Wayne Magee at Drexel University. They have been operating
a cooperative learning program encompassing the first two years of college
biology in a program known as EBE. They have three years success with it and
they have about 120 + students entering into it each year. Although smaller
than you envision for your situation, they do have a lot of experience. I
might also add that they have incorporated computers extensively into the
process. I was quite impressed when I visited..

Blystone in Texas

**********************
ROBERT V. BLYSTONE PHONE:(210)736-7243
DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY FAX:(210)736-7229
Trinity University E-Mail:RBlyston@Trinity.edu
715 Stadium Drive
San Antonio, TX, 78212


I was just thinking about this. There is more to teaching
cooperatively and investigatively than following a lab manual. The
interest and enthusiasm of the instructor, whether or not the instructor
truly understands the underlying philosophy of the teaching method, and the
instructor's willingness to change to the new methodology all affect the
outcome. I am looking for some very practical information from people who
have experience. (Mechanics and logistics again.) I'd like to know what
skills do you find in successful instructors? Communication? Basic
knowledge? Flexibility?.. How do you select TA's or train TA's to be
effective facilitators? Can these skills be learned? What traits or
techniques make student directed learning succeed? What traits and
techniques make if fail? Thanks in advance. --cmw

From: cwaggon@bgnet.bgsu.edu (Waggoner, Charlene)


Hi biolabbers,

I've been doing a lot of thinking about CL in the classroom and
have been involved in training TA's AND faculty in this area for quite some
time. I've been using interactive, experiential and cooperative learning
methods for as long as I've been teaching - it really works for me and the
students. Different people have different views on what CL means. The
initial reaction TA's and faculty have is that it takes "too much time" to
do interactive methods in class because they have set lectures and labs and
it is 'easier' to do those than start new methods. I find that the amount
of revision is often not as bad as people think and that once it is working
the lectures and labs are so dynamic that they feed on themselves.
I train 20 grad students per quarter to carry out interactive labs
(interactive for me doesn't necessarily use computers - in fact I don't
have computers in the labs (see later). Charlene uses the correct word
"facilitator". The TA's are in the labs to facilitate the learning
experience, not answer questions directly. At the beginning it is difficult
for the grad students to do this because they were taught in the old
'lecture' style and don't know any other method. However, they find it
stimulating to see a normally quiet lab go through the transition from
quiet lab with bored faces to a noisy discussion and sharing of discovery
experience for the students. I run 58 labs a week.
I have classes of 230 students and have a very interactive
approach. This can be as easy as posing a question, giving them 3 minutes
to discuss it with their peers and then asking them to give answers which
are then written up on the overhead for everyone to share - takes 10 min
and will stay in their minds for a much longer time than 10 min of lecture
on the same subject. The students always come up with the same things that
I would have covered in a straight lecture but they do the thinking. The
evaluations I get from my students always mention the interaction and they
love it. I have difficulty comparing grades within my classes because I
teach them all in this way but with standardized exams my classes usually
come out with a higher average than those taught in the old paradigm.
Importantly for me the students also come out with a better understanding
and appreciation for biology and its relation to them and their environment
(my goals for the intro course). I always tell them they "live"
biology!!!!!
Another example: to ask them to discuss and write down ten reasons
why plants are important (this was at the end of the plant section of the
course). They came up with the major points that they had discussed in
class and lab plus some others, showing that they had really started
thinking about things themselves. The best was my overhearing a
conversation in the cafeteria that evening about a topic we had been
talking about in class - and they were adding the ideas to their notes!!!
I ask my students to do two addition things for credit, write a
paper (2 pages) and do three computer question banks. They again really
like this because I ask them to choose a paper topic on something covered
in class (has to be approved) and they come up usually with something
associated with their families (sickle cell, cancer, etc) and learn more
about that topic. The computer assignment is using a program of questions
associated with a particular topic. Again the evaluations are great and
they like the practice before the tests.
I have many more examples but don't want to bore anyone. I am
extremely interested in this subject (as you may guess) and would welcome
comments and thoughts on this subject.
I'll shut up now!!!!!????!!!!

=======================
Alison Morrison
Dept. of Biology
Georgia Southern University
Statesboro GA 30460

Hi, labbers:
Alison wrote:

> I have many more examples but don't want to bore anyone. I am
>extremely interested in this subject (as you may guess) and would welcome
>comments and thoughts on this subject.

No, no! I'm not bored! Please, I'd love to hear about more different kinds
of exercises. This semester, I'm filling in for the "regular" intro-majors
course, and would love to expose the TA's (I have 4) to some alternatives to
giving straight lab-lectures. We're using the Perry and Morton lab manual,
so I'd especially appreciate suggestions about how to incorporate CL and
other student-directed activities into what I think of as "standard" lab
exercises (no offense intended there!).

I've already suggested that the TA's assign post-lab questions to different
tables part-way through the lab period, then having those students discuss
the answers at the end of lab. Some of the TA's, I'm fairly confident, will
start taking the students outside to collect specimens (thanks, Janice!)
once we hit the "diversity" section of lab. The more ideas, though, the
better. One of my goals for the semester is to give the TA's at least a
little bit of experience with alternative teaching strategies.

Thanks!
Kerry Kilburn
ODU Biological Sciences


biolabbers-

A group of instructors in science courses meet once a week to review
science ed. research at my school. We have read some things on cooperative
learning that I would like to pass on:

"Changing College Classrooms," Diane Halpern and assoc.,
Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1994.
This book has a chapter on Cooperative Learning in the Classroom
that offers a definition, examples, and problems that an instructor might
face implementing cooperative learning.

"Collaborative Learning: Underlying Process and Effective
Techniques," number 59, Fall 1994 in the series "New Directions for
Teaching and Learning" by Jossey-Bass Publishers.
There are varying definitions of cooperative and collaborative
learning, but thinking about one will help define the other. Background and
research information, application, assessment, and case study chapters,
including one by Craig Nelson, a biology instructor on "Critical Thinking
and Collaborative Learning."


Order info for Jossey-Bass:
Jossey-Bass Publishers
350 Sansome St
San Francisco, CA 94104-1342

Many recent education research and assessment handbooks talk about
cooperative/collaborative activities and how to assess them. A good book of
examples is another by Jossey-Bass:
"Classroom Assessment Techniques," Thomas Angelo and K. Patricia
Cross. 1993

Hope these help.

Stacey

******************************************************************
@ Stacey Kiser
@ Research Assistant
@ Workshop Biology
@ Department of Biology
@ 1210 University of Oregon
@ Eugene, OR 97403-1210
@ phone (503) 346-5092
@ fax (503) 346-6056


This is a belated response to a request for information concerning
cooperative learning in biology laboratories. My disseration (defended,
but still in final revision) was on laboratory performance assessments.
I was looking at test anticipation (how students respond to being
administered performance assessments over an extended period of time). In
preparation for performance assessments, laboratory exercises were
organized so that students worked in groups of four. At the beginning of
the laboratory period, each group was given a set of materials and asked
to "Ask a good question and determine a method to answer it." The intent
was not to give students an open-ended laboratory activity, but rather to
have them think about what they were doing and what they wanted to find.
The procedure works remarkably well. Groups come to some conclusion,
share it with the rest of the class, discuss problems, and finally decide
what they are going to do and look for. The process takes time, but
because the students are more focused and have an end in mind, they have
fewer problems with the procedures and drawing conclusions from their
data. What's more, because they figure out the procedure I don't have to
include a "cookbook" procedure in their laboratory notebook! They do get
directions on things such as the use of the spectrophotometer, but those
are in an appendix (which they don't know to look at until I tell them
to). We actually figure out how to use the specs first just by looking
at the parts.

By the way, in the first exercise we define the properties of a "good"
question.

The week after the students perform a laboratory activity, they take an
individual performance assessment. This is similar to but not the same
as their laboratory activity. (Yes, I used controls,triangulated, etc., but
that gets really complicated so I won't bore you). The bottom line:
repeatedly administering performance assessments seemded to encourage
students to pay more attention to what they were doing during the
laboratory activity, and encouraged them to better learn procedural
knowledge (yes, that's knowledge, not skills...also too long of a story
for here). Anywho, they didn't seem to do any better than control groups
on higher level thinking questions, but they knew how to perform the
experiemnts! Just seems to back up some of the early work on the benefits
of laboratory work. And, sure enough, you give students performance
assessments, they start studying for performance assessment (duh!).

The second bottom line: I really like having students work in groups to
develop laboratory activity questions, even if you have a question in
mind for them. I know somebody out there is going to ask what to do with
students who go off on a tangent. Well, after two pilots and a final
test (more than 500 students all together) it never happened. They were
too constrained by the materials and too naive about the concepts to go
very far. And, yes, the laboratory activites did all support what was
being discussed in lecture, so they had some prior knowledge.

Yes, I know this is not true cooperative learning because I don't have
them work on social skills or analyze group interactions, or assign jobs
or any of that. But it seems to work for me.

From: baxterl@CWU.EDU