Biology Laboratory Course Research Articles

Assessing Student Success in a Project-Based Learning Biology Course at a Community College

Project-based learning (PBL) and traditional teaching methods represent two opposing pedagogical philosophies. A PBL Biology lab course was designed and taught concurrently with its traditional counterpart to compare student success. The PBL course investigated the effects of simulated acid rain on the rate of adaptation in two species that differ in complexity and rate of reproduction, Caenorhabditis elegans and Paramecium caudatum. The species with the highest number of survivors at the end of six week's exposure to acid rain was deemed to have adapted best. In two out of three semesters students concluded that P. caudatum responded to acid rain with the greatest rate of adaptation. Student success was compared between both types of courses using four methods of assessment: student academic performance, retention rate, transfer rate to four-year institutions, and participation points. The results of two methods of assessment out of four were statistically significantly higher in the PBL courses. Considering that the other two methods of assessment did not favor traditional pedagogy, but produced comparable student success in the traditional and PBL courses, it can be concluded that PBL pedagogy is a highly desirable alternative to traditional teaching methods in biology courses at the community college level.

Implementing Inquiry Gradually with Preservice Science Teachers as Students

This study is done to have preservice science teachers chance to implement inquiry before expecting them to implement inquiry in their classrooms and to develop the preservice science teachers' inquiry skills and self-efficacy of science. The study group is composed of preservice science teachers who chose the 2nd grade Biology Laboratory course at Firat University Faculty of Education. The study group consists of 11 male and 55 female male, total 66 preservice science teachers. In the study, partially mixed concurrent equal status design is used. Qualitative data were obtained from preservice teachers' evaluation reports and quantitative data were obtained from science self-efficacy scale. The study was carried out during the fall and spring semesters for a total of eight months. Preservice teachers participated in structured, guided and open inquiry applications respectively. The preservice teachers prepared the results of their studies and shared them with their peers in the other groups. Preservice teachers have written three evaluation reports throughout the process. The application of inquiry applications respectively and the fact that the preservice teachers take part in the process like a student in these applications contributed to the science self-efficacy of the preservice teachers.

Testing the effectiveness of two natural selection simulations in the context of a large-enrollment undergraduate laboratory class

BackgroundSimulations can be an active and engaging way for students to learn about natural selection, and many have been developed, including both physical and virtual simulations. In this study we assessed the student experience of, and learning from, two natural selection simulations, one physical and one virtual, in a large enrollment introductory biology lab course. We assigned students to treatments (the physical or virtual simulation activity) by section and assessed their understanding of natural selection using a multiple-choice pre-/post-test and short-answer responses on a post-lab assignment. We assessed student experience of the activities through structured observations and an affective survey.ResultsStudents in both treatments showed increased understanding of natural selection after completing the simulation activity, but there were no differences between treatments in learning gains on the pre-/post-test, or in the prevalence of concepts and misconceptions in written answers. On a survey of self-reported enjoyment they rated the physical activity significantly higher than the virtual activity. In classroom observations of student behavior, we found significant differences in the distribution of behaviors between treatments, including a higher frequency of off-task behavior during the physical activity.ConclusionsOur results suggest that both simulations are valuable active learning tools to aid students’ understanding of natural selection, so decisions about which simulation to use in a given class, and how to best implement it, can be motivated by contextual factors.

Method to Increase Undergraduate Laboratory Student Confidence in Performing Independent Research.

The goal of an undergraduate laboratory course should be not only to introduce the students to biology methodologies and techniques, but also to teach them independent analytical thinking skills and proper experiment design. This is especially true for advanced biology laboratory courses that undergraduate students typically take as a junior or senior in college. Many courses achieve the goal of teaching techniques, but fail to approach the larger goal of teaching critical thinking, experimental design, and student independence. Here we describe a study examining the application of the scaffolding instructional philosophy in which students are taught molecular techniques with decreasing guidance to force the development of analytical thinking skills and prepare undergraduate students for independent laboratory research. This method was applied to our advanced molecular biology laboratory class and resulted in an increase of confidence among the undergraduate students in their abilities to perform independent research.

Participation in a Year-Long CURE Embedded into Major Core Genetics and Cellular and Molecular Biology Laboratory Courses Results in Gains in Foundational Biological Concepts and Experimental Design Skills by Novice Undergraduate Researchers.

This two-year study describes the assessment of student learning gains arising from participation in a year-long curriculum consisting of a classroom undergraduate research experience (CURE) embedded into second-year, major core Genetics and Cellular and Molecular Biology (CMB) laboratory courses. For the first course in our CURE, students used micro-array or RNAseq analyses to identify genes important for environmental stress responses by Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The students were tasked with creating overexpressing mutants of their genes and designing their own original experiments to investigate the functions of those genes using the overexpression and null mutants in the second CURE course. In order to evaluate student learning gains, we employed three validated concept inventories in a pretest/posttest format and compared gains on the posttest versus the pretest with student laboratory final grades. Our results demonstrated that there was a significant correlation between students earning lower grades in the Genetics laboratory for both years of this study and gains on the Genetics Concept Assessment (GCA). We also demonstrated a correlation between students earning lower grades in the Genetics laboratory and gains on the Introductory Molecular and Cell Biology Assessment (IMCA) for year 1 of the study. Students furthermore demonstrated significant gains in identifying the variable properties of experimental subjects when assessed using the Rubric for Experimental (RED) design tool. Results from the administration of the CURE survey support these findings. Our results suggest that a year-long CURE enables lower performing students to experience greater gains in their foundational skills for success in the STEM disciplines.

Student Performance along Axes of Scenario Novelty and Complexity in Introductory Biology: Lessons from a Unique Factorial Approach to Assessment.

In an undergraduate introductory biology laboratory course, we used a summative assessment to directly test the learning objective that students will be able to apply course material to increasingly novel and complex situations. Using a factorial framework, we developed multiple true-false questions to fall along axes of novelty and complexity, which resulted in four categories of questions: familiar content and low complexity (category A); novel content and low complexity (category B); familiar content and high complexity (category C); and novel content and high complexity (category D). On average, students scored more than 70% on all questions, indicating that the course largely met this learning objective. However, students scored highest on questions in category A, likely because they were most similar to course content, and lowest on questions in categories C and D. While we anticipated students would score equally on questions for which either novelty or complexity was altered (but not both), we observed that student scores in category C were lower than in category B. Furthermore, students performed equally poorly on all questions for which complexity was higher (categories C and D), even those containing familiar content, suggesting that application of course material to increasingly complex situations is particularly challenging to students.

Issues with Tissues: A Tale of Gameful Learning in an Introductory Undergraduate Biology Laboratory Course

Issues with Tissues: A Tale of Gameful Learning in an Introductory Undergraduate Biology Laboratory Course

Investigating the Role of an Inquiry-Based Biology Lab Course on Student Attitudes and Views toward Science.

Students' academic experiences can influence their conceptualization of science. In contrast experts hold particular beliefs, perceptions, opinions, and attitudes about science that are often absent in first-year undergraduate students. Shifts toward more expert-like attitudes and views have been linked to improved student engagement, critical-thinking ability, conceptual understanding, and academic performance. In this study, we investigate shifts in attitudes and views toward science by students in four biology classes with differences in student enrollment, academic support, and instruction. We observe significant, positive effects of enrollment in a guided-inquiry lab course and academic performance on the percentage of expert-like student attitudes and views at the end of term. We also identify variation in two aspects of student attitudes and views: 1) confidence and interest and 2) understanding and acceptance. In particular, enrollment in the lab course boosts student confidence and interest in scientific inquiry in the short term, even for students with low academic performance or little English-language experience. Our results suggest that low-performing students in particular may require additional opportunities for experiential learning or greater academic support to develop expert-like perceptions of biology as a science.

Enhancing Scientific Literacy in the Undergraduate Cell Biology Laboratory Classroom.

This paper describes the implementation of the Scientific Literacy in Cell Biology (SLCB) curriculum in an undergraduate biology laboratory course. The SLCB curriculum incorporated the reading and discussion of primary literature into hands-on and collaborative practical experiences. It was implemented in five stages over an 11-week period, during which students were also introduced to the theory and practice of common cell biology techniques. We report on the effectiveness of the course, as measured by pre- and post-course survey data probing students’ content knowledge and their level of familiarity, confidence, and experience with different skills pertaining to analyzing (reading, interpreting, and discussing) primary literature. In the spring 2015 semester, 287 (72%) of the 396 students who were enrolled in the laboratory completed both the pre- and post-course survey. The average score on the content questions of the post-course survey was significantly higher (p < 0.0001) than the average score on the pre-course survey. Students reported that they gained greater familiarity, experience, and confidence in the skills that were measured. Our findings may aid in reforming higher-education science laboratory courses to better promote writing, reading, data processing, and presentation skills. Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education

Increasing Authenticity &amp; Inquiry in the Cell &amp; Molecular Biology Laboratory

This article features a four-step pedagogical framework that can be used to transform the undergraduate biology laboratory into an authentic research experience. The framework utilizes a four-step scaffolding structure that not only guides students through the process of science and helps them gain mastery of relevant scientific practices, but also simplifies and streamlines the instructor's process of designing and implementing an authentic research experience in a biology lab course. We used this pedagogical framework to design an authentic research experience in which students investigated various factors affecting the growth and viability of a mammalian cell line, Vero cells isolated from kidney epithelial cells extracted from an African green monkey. Although this particular lab was designed for a cell and molecular biology course for university sophomores, the flexibility built into the pedagogical framework allows it to be used to design research experiences that can be implemented within a wide variety of lab courses at varying levels, effectively increasing the amount of authentic research experiences in biology lab courses nationwide.

Student Scientists: Transforming the Undergraduate Biology Lab into a Research Experience

This article features an authentic research-lab experience developed for use in a freshman-level general biology course for nonmajors at a two-year college. Students work in groups to select and investigate factors affecting microalgal cell growth and relate their findings to a real-life application of social significance. This lab experience was designed using a four-step pedagogical framework originally developed at a four-year university in a sophomore-level molecular and cell biology course. The creators of the pedagogical framework at the four-year university mentored the instructor at the two-year college through the process of using the pedagogical framework to design and implement the authentic research lab experience described in this article. This example shows that adaptation of successful pedagogical models, particularly within mentoring partnerships, can greatly increase the implementation of authentic research experiences in biology lab courses at varying levels of study.

Using Zebrafish to Implement a Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience to Study Teratogenesis in Two Biology Laboratory Courses.

A course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) spanning three semesters was introduced into freshman and sophomore biology classes, with the hypothesis that participation in a CURE affects skills in research, communication, and collaboration, which may help students persist in science. Student research projects were centered on the hypothesis that nicotine and caffeine exposure during early development affects gastrulation and heart development in zebrafish. First, freshmen generated original data showing distinct effects of embryonic nicotine and caffeine exposure on zebrafish heart development and function. Next, Cell Biology laboratory students continued the CURE studies and identified novel teratogenic effects of nicotine and caffeine during gastrulation. Finally, new freshmen continued the CURE research, examining additional toxicant effects on development. Students designed new protocols, made measurements, presented results, and generated high-quality preliminary data that were studied in successive semesters. By implementing this project, the CURE extended faculty research and provided a scalable model to address national goals to involve more undergraduates in authentic scientific research. In addition, student survey results support the hypothesis that CUREs provide significant gains in student ability to (1) design experiments, (2) analyze data, and (3) make scientific presentations, translating into high student satisfaction and enhanced learning.

Connecting biology and organic chemistry introductory laboratory courses through a collaborative research project.

Modern research often requires collaboration of experts in fields, such as math, chemistry, biology, physics, and computer science to develop unique solutions to common problems. Traditional introductory undergraduate laboratory curricula in the sciences often do not emphasize connections possible between the various disciplines. We designed an interdisciplinary, medically relevant, project intended to help students see connections between chemistry and biology. Second term organic chemistry laboratory students designed and synthesized potential polymer inhibitors or inducers of polyglutamine protein aggregation. The use of novel target compounds added the uncertainty of scientific research to the project. Biology laboratory students then tested the novel potential pharmaceuticals in Huntington's disease model assays, using in vitro polyglutamine peptide aggregation and in vivo lethality studies in Drosophila. Students read articles from the primary literature describing the system from both chemical and biological perspectives. Assessment revealed that students emerged from both courses with a deeper understanding of the interdisciplinary nature of biology and chemistry and a heightened interest in basic research. The design of this collaborative project for introductory biology and organic chemistry labs demonstrated how the local interests and expertise at a university can be drawn from to create an effective way to integrate these introductory courses. Rather than simply presenting a series of experiments to be replicated, we hope that our efforts will inspire other scientists to think about how some aspect of authentic work can be brought into their own courses, and we also welcome additional collaborations to extend the scope of the scientific exploration.

Examining microbial biodiversity in soil: A research‐based introductory biology laboratory course

We report a novel introductory biology laboratory course designed as an independent, on‐going research program, with students as the primary researchers. This course aims to develop an understanding for biology through inquiry‐based laboratory experiments, and specific learning objectives are listed in Table 1. Students work in teams to collect, analyze, and present original data while learning core concepts and laboratory methods. Specifically, we examine if and how soil microbiomes are different for native vs. invasive plant species in the Southern California diversity hotspot. Students analyze soil properties such as moisture and pH and correlate them to functional and genetic biodiversity of microbiomes, assessed by carbon source utilization and 16S rDNA sequencing. Together, these elements span macroscopic to molecular scales, providing opportunities to connect student learning across biology disciplines.This presentation will focus on the design, implementation, and evaluation of the course. Laboratory experiments are designed to be completed by introductory students within a 3‐hour laboratory and 1.5‐hour lecture per week while allowing for the reliable collection of research data. We found that student‐generated data are consistent across groups: soil genomic DNA preparations and PCR clean‐up reactions have standard deviations &lt;10% of average DNA concentrations, and &gt;95% of PCRs result in products at appropriate sizes. Student outcomes are evaluated by pre‐ and post‐surveys and ‐tests to track changes affective domain (Science Motivation Questionnaire II), self‐efficacy in research skills (Classroom Undergraduate Research Experience survey), and ability to draw conclusions based on data (open‐ended questions that test scientific argumentation). Learning objectives Activities Student assessments Understand functional and genetic biodiversity Discuss material in laboratory and lectures Quizzes in lectures, laboratory reports Develop testable hypotheses and design controlled experiments Carry out scientific processes in the context of the course Data collection by students, laboratory reports Draw conclusions based on data and evidence Analyze and discuss laboratory data using statistics Figures and results in laboratory reports Communicite scientific results in a publication‐style laboratory report Write, review, and revise laboratory reports Laboratory reports, peer review of laboratory reports

The Drosophila Ovary as a Laboratory Model for Introducing the Genetic and Cellular Basis of Cell Migration.

Drosophila has been widely used in many teaching laboratories to introduce students to the practical uses of a model organism in scientific research, in particular to present and observe the outcomes of simple Mendelian inheritance. Here we present the details of a laboratory module that uses Drosophila to demonstrate the importance of gene expression in the process of cell migration. Cell migration in the Drosophila ovary is critically important for the proper morphological development of the egg chamber during oogenesis, a process that interestingly shares many of the signaling components required for cell migration observed throughout normal animal development and during tumor invasion in human cancers. This laboratory provides an opportunity to discuss the genetic and cellular basis of cell migration and to demonstrate techniques used in a modern Drosophila research laboratory including the basics of sorting males from females and identification of cuticle markers , but also the development and use of enhancer traps, balancer chromosomes, microdissection, histochemistry and microscopic analysis. Components of this laboratory module have been found to be appropriate for presentation and completion by students ranging from advanced high school laboratories through graduate level cell and developmental biology laboratory courses.

Digital sleep logs reveal potential impacts of modern temporal structure on class performance in different chronotypes.

Stability of sleep and circadian rhythms are important for healthy learning and memory. While experimental manipulations of lifestyle and learning outcomes present major obstacles, the ongoing increase in data sources allows retrospective data mining of people's sleep timing variation. Here I use digital sleep-log data generated by 1109 students in a biology lab course at the University of Washington to test the hypothesis that higher variance in time asleep and later sleep-onset times negatively correlate with class performance, used here as a real-world proxy for learning and memory. I find that sleep duration variance and mean sleep-onset times both significantly correlate with class performance. These correlations are powerful on weeknights but undetectable on Friday and Saturday nights ("free nights"). Finally, although these data come with no demographic information beyond sex, the constructed demographic groups of "larks" and "owls" within the sexes reveal a significant decrease in performance of owls relative to larks in male students, whereas the correlation of performance with sleep-onset time for all male students was only a near-significant trend. This provides a proof of concept that deeper demographic mining of digital logs in the future may identify subgroups for which certain sleep phenotypes have greater predictive value for performance outcomes. The data analyzed are consistent with known patterns, including sleep-timing delays from weeknights to free nights and sleep-timing delays in men relative to women. These findings support the hypothesis that modern schedule impositions on sleep and circadian timing have consequences for real-world learning and memory. This study also highlights the low-cost, large-scale benefits of personal, daily, digital records as an augmentation of sleep and circadian studies.

A Model Inquiry-Based Genetics Experiment for Introductory Biology Students

It has been noted that undergraduate project-based laboratories lead to increased interest in scientific research and student understanding of biological concepts. We created a novel, inquiry-based, multiweek genetics research project studying Ptpmeg, for the Introductory Biology Laboratory course at Brandeis University. Ptpmeg is a protein involved in axon formation in Drosophila melanogaster. In order to better understand Ptpmeg’s functionality, students sought to find Ptpmeg’s enhancers and suppressors by engaging in either a 4- or a 7-week modular research project. By the end of the semester, students were able to learn various laboratory techniques and acquire a deeper understanding of Drosophila genetics in both versions of the course.

Practice makes pretty good: assessment of primary literature reading abilities across multiple large-enrollment biology laboratory courses.

Primary literature is essential for scientific communication and is commonly utilized in undergraduate biology education. Despite this, there is often little time spent training our students how to critically analyze a paper. To address this, we introduced a primary literature module in multiple upper-division laboratory courses. In this module, instructors conduct classroom discussions that dissect a paper as researchers do. While previous work has identified classroom interventions that improve primary literature comprehension within a single course, our goal was to determine whether including a scientific paper module in our classes could produce long-term benefits. On the basis of performance in an assessment exam, we found that our module resulted in longitudinal gains, including increased comprehension and critical-thinking abilities in subsequent lab courses. These learning gains were specific to courses utilizing our module, as no longitudinal gains were seen in students who had taken other upper-division labs that lacked extensive primary literature discussion. In addition, we assessed whether performance on our assessment correlated with a variety of factors, including grade point average, course performance, research background, and self-reported confidence in understanding of the article. Furthermore, all of the study conclusions are independent of biology disciplines, as we observe similar trends within each course.

Helping Graduate Teaching Assistants in Biology Use Student Evaluations as Professional Development

Graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) are often used as instructors in undergraduate introductory science courses, particularly in laboratory and discussion sections associated with large lectures. These GTAs are often novice teachers with little opportunity to develop their teaching skills through formal professional development. Focused self-reflection about end-of-semester teaching evaluations may be an important informal supplement to teacher training. To inform this practice, we explored the instructional behaviors that undergraduates perceived as most important for GTAs’ teaching effectiveness in laboratory courses. In spring semester 2012, 1159 undergraduates in freshman-level biology lab courses rated their GTAs on 21 instructional behaviors, the GTAs’ teaching effectiveness, the amount the student learned, and their expected grade in the laboratory. Using linear mixed models, we found that instructional behaviors related to the categories of teaching techniques and interpersonal rapport best predicted student ratings of GTAs’ teaching effectiveness. GTAs or other novice teachers can use this information to identify specific areas for instructional improvement when considering student feedback about their teaching.

Analysing Vee Diagram Reflections to Explore Pre-service Science Teachers’ Understanding the Nature of Science in Biology

Vee diagrams have been a metacognitive tool to help in learning the nature and structure of knowledge by reflecting on the scientific process and making knowledge much more explicit to learners during the practical work. This study aimed to assess pre-service science teachers‟ understanding some aspects of NOS by analyzing their reflections on the Vee diagrams constructed during the general biology laboratory course. In this single case study, elementary pre-service science teachers who cited mainly “the cell theory” in their Vee diagrams while building around the cell concepts were asked to participate in focus group reflective interviews. These interviews compared the patterns of the nature of scientific knowledge to the ways their constructed the cell related concepts. The content analysis of transcripts revealed that pre-service teachers gained a superficial understanding of history of scientific ideas in the development of the cell biology, not a deeper epistemological understanding in conceptualizing a contemporary understanding of the aspects of NOS. The emergent categories of naive understandings and misconceptions held by the participants were demonstrated and discussed in the light of NOS related literature.