Large-enrollment Courses Research Articles

Expressions of Trust: How University STEM Teachers Describe the Role of Trust in their Teaching

Positive teacher-student and student-student relationships are among the most significant factors contributing to learning, motivation, wellbeing, and graduation rates in higher education. Trust is commonly understood as a key element for the development and sustenance of positive educational relationships, yet relatively little empirical research investigates trust in higher education classrooms. In this study, we explore how science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) teachers (n=29) from universities in four countries (Canada, New Zealand, Sweden, and USA) describe their intentions and actions related to trust in one of the large enrollment courses they teach. We consider the ways that teachers understand and value trust in their teaching, and what this might suggest about how they approach trust-building with and among their students. We report on four broad approaches to trust expressed by teachers in this study, framed as teacher statements to students: “trust me,” “trust yourself,” “trust each other,” and “I trust you.” This research has implications for teachers, SoTL scholars, and academic developers in higher education.

Exploring generative AI assisted feedback writing for students’ written responses to a physics conceptual question with prompt engineering and few-shot learning

Instructor’s feedback plays a critical role in students’ development of conceptual understanding and reasoning skills. However, grading student written responses and providing personalized feedback can take a substantial amount of time, especially in large enrollment courses. In this study, we explore using GPT-3.5 to write feedback on students’ written responses to conceptual questions with prompt engineering and few-shot learning techniques. In stage I, we used a small portion (n=20) of the student responses on one conceptual question to iteratively train GPT to generate feedback. Four of the responses paired with human-written feedback were included in the prompt as examples for GPT. We tasked GPT to generate feedback for another 16 responses and refined the prompt through several iterations. In stage II, we gave four student researchers (one graduate and three undergraduate researchers) the 16 responses as well as two versions of feedback, one written by the authors and the other by GPT. Students were asked to rate the correctness and usefulness of each feedback and to indicate which one was generated by GPT. The results showed that students tended to rate the feedback by human and GPT equally on correctness, but they all rated the feedback by GPT as more useful. Additionally, the success rates of identifying GPT’s feedback were low, ranging from 0.1 to 0.6. In stage III, we tasked GPT to generate feedback for the rest of the students’ responses (n=65). The feedback messages were rated by four instructors based on the extent of modification needed if they were to give the feedback to students. All four instructors rated approximately 70% (ranging from 68% to 78%) of the feedback statements needing only minor or no modification. This study demonstrated the feasibility of using generative artificial intelligence (AI) as an assistant to generate feedback for student written responses with only a relatively small number of examples in the prompt. An AI assistant can be one of the solutions to substantially reduce time spent on grading student written responses. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Distributed Active Learning (DAL): An Approach to Reduce Class Size in Large Enrollment Courses

Distributed Active Learning (DAL): An Approach to Reduce Class Size in Large Enrollment Courses

What's in a word? Student beliefs and understanding about green chemistry

For the past decade, the College of Chemistry at UC Berkeley has iteratively redesigned general chemistry laboratory courses to introduce students to green chemistry concepts, while simultaneously using green chemistry as a relevant context to learn chemistry. To investigate the effectiveness of this curriculum we developed approaches to investigate student understanding of green chemistry. We adapted a constructivist educational framework to iteratively design fixed and free response items appropriate for large enrollment courses that probe student knowledge of green chemistry concepts and practices. Two free response items were designed to probe students’ ability to define green chemistry and make green chemistry decisions in the context of a case study. A set of fixed response items were designed to probe particular aspects of green chemistry knowledge that were included in the course. Together, we used these items to characterize (1) changes in student understanding of green chemistry and (2) how prior “green” knowledge impacts student learning of new green chemistry principles in the general chemistry laboratory course. Analysis of student responses indicated that, on average, students demonstrated increased green chemistry understanding after completing this green chemistry aligned laboratory course. Students were able to integrate more normative green chemistry principles in their answers and began to indicate awareness of complex interconnected systems. Because the items focused on assessing student knowledge of green chemistry, rather than their self-assessment of knowledge, they provided valuable insight regarding students’ prior green chemistry knowledge that will be used to develop future versions of the curriculum.

Let Students Work: Analysis of the Role of Differing Facilitation on Student Engagement in a Large Stadium-Style Lecture Hall.

The classroom environment is shaped by factors such as facilitation style, curricular design, and classroom layout. These factors are all inputs into student framing of the classroom environment and affect a student's comfort interacting within it. Promoting student discourse in active learning environments provides students the opportunity to explain their thinking and develop their understanding of natural phenomena. However, successfully implementing these practices in large lecture environments is often difficult. Undergraduate introductory chemistry lectures were investigated to identify the effects that instructional practices had on student engagement. Instructor facilitation, question level, and student interactions were analyzed and compared to provide insights into what instructional practices may promote or hinder student engagement in a large enrollment course. Overall instructors were positioning themselves as an authority on knowledge in the classroom by leading questions authoritatively like instructor-focused didactic lecturing that led to a decrease in student engagement. These results highlight the complexity of the classroom ecosystem related to student interactions and the role that facilitation plays in social and cognitive engagement.

A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT IN LARGE-ENROLLMENT INTRODUCTORY STATISTICS

Implementing formative assessment in large-enrollment statistics courses is recommended by mathematics and statistics education communities. Yet research maintains that large-enrollment courses employ few, if any, formative assessments, exacerbating negative attitudes toward statistics and low student achievement. This conceptual essay applies an andragogical approach to the theories of self-efficacy, self-regulation, and formative assessment. A literature review explicates the associations between formative assessment with feedback and reassessment with student attitudes and achievement. Resulting from the review, a conceptual framework is proposed that illustrates the relations between the elements of formative assessment cycles and student attitudes and achievement. The implications of this conceptual framework suggest a comprehensive transformation of assessment practices to provide pathways for student success in statistics courses.

189 Network Analysis of Survey Results from a Large Enrollment Course: Investigating Dynamics Among Background, Career Aspirations and Decision-Making of Students Related to Anima Science

Abstract The objective of this study was to investigate how a diverse student cohort was influenced by a general introductory Animal Science course offered to non-majors. To achieve this goal, an online survey was offered to students upon course completion and received 270 responses, from a total of 634 enrolled students. Reponses were coded using deductive coding according to pre-established research interests. A total of 81 different subcodes, grouped into 17 parenting codes were defined to characterize the following overarching themes: 1) Academic and agricultural background; 2) Career aspirations; 3) Course experience; 4) Course influence on future career; and 5) Course influence on consumer decision making. Correlation between codes was evaluated using Pearson Correlation Coefficient and only statistically significant (P ≤ 0.05) correlations were included in the matrices for network analysis. Network analysis maps were generated from the matrices at 3 levels of significance (P ≤ 0.001; P ≤ 0.01 and P ≤ 0.05). Interpretation of generated network analysis map (7 clusters; P ≤ 0.01; Q = 0.713) regarding student academic and agricultural background and career aspirations revealed close relationships between major, background and career aspirations. Similarly, a stronger agricultural background was correlated to majors in agricultural fields. Other interesting findings include the relationship of students classified as Freshmen and agricultural majors, indicating that students in agricultural majors may show an interest in Animal Science earlier in their academic career compared with those in other majors. The interpretation of generated network analysis map (3 clusters; P ≤ 0.05; Q = 0.413) reveals Structure and design and Informative as important positive comments connecting two large clusters relating to overall course experience. These two specific clusters differ mainly by the class of student represented and how they are influenced by the course, with Seniors showing decreased interest in Animal Science, while Freshmen and Sophomores declaring greater interest in the subject after the course. Analysis of course influences on future career and on decision making as consumers of animal products (3 clusters; P ≤ 0.05; Q =0.465) shows a clear separation delineated by the student perception of the course relevance. Each of the three clusters contains either Relevant directly, Relevant indirectly or Irrelevant, categories referring to perception of the students of the course related to their career. Greater behavioral changes toward a more conscious consumption of animal products were observed in the Relevant directly cluster. This cluster also contained careers in the agricultural sector and as a veterinarian, in comparison with the Irrelevant cluster, which contained corporate careers. In conclusion, these data present information regarding student perception of animal science as classified by their major. This may provide a foundational framework for studying how individuals from different backgrounds interact with animal agriculture.

Advancing the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Large Enrolment Courses: Lessons Learned from an Online Community of Practice

In these conference proceedings, we describe how the COVID-19 pandemic presented the higher education community with an opportunity to explore and expand best practices in blended and online teaching through a Large Enrolment Community of Practice. We expand on Wenger-Traynor and Wenger-Traynor's (2015) description of a community of practice (CoP) as a “living curriculum” (p.4) to include an online perspective based on Hoadley (2012) and Xue and colleagues’ (2021) considerations of content, process, and context. The benefits of the online CoP to faculty development and the scholarship of teaching and learning, specifically through collaboration, interdisciplinarity, innovation, and validation are then explained. The conclusion contains a current birds’ eye view of the OCoP and summary of learning from the first year of implementation.

EVALUATING THE IMPACT OF WORKED EXAMPLE VIDEOS FOR BLENDED LEARNING IN A LARGE-ENROLMENT BUSINESS STATISTICS COURSE

Statistics courses are frequently perceived by tertiary students as extremely difficult and anxiety-inducing, negatively impacting student outcomes and experiences. To address this, the present study considered worked example videos (where an instructor demonstrates the solution to a problem while narrating the process) as a blended learning approach for enhancing an introductory business statistics course taken by 2265 students over three semesters. Impact was evaluated with video usage, academic performance, and student survey data. Students heavily utilised worked example videos before assessment deadlines, frequently employing active learning strategies during their engagements. Improvements in academic performance and course satisfaction were observed compared to previous cohorts. This demonstrates worked example videos are well-suited to large-enrolment courses due to their highly scalable capacity to deliver timely support for learning, which individuals can tailor to their diverse needs.

Assessing Quality of a Business and Information Technology Alignment Large Enrollment Course

Assessing Quality of a Business and Information Technology Alignment Large Enrollment Course

Enhancing online protocols through design-based research to improve cognitive presence in a large enrolment course

Instructors face challenges in facilitating higher levels of shared cognition in large enrolment classes. One strategy to foster shared cognition is the use of asynchronous discussions; however, these can be difficult to support with large numbers of students. Online protocols have been found to help students take more ownership of the discussion, reducing the workload of instructors and thus may be helpful in this context. The purpose of this study was to determine the most effective design of online protocols in large enrolment classes. The study used a design-based research methodology to iteratively design, assess and refine the online protocols and the design principles of its underlying protocol pedagogy. Participants for this study were 1,286 students enrolled in a blended undergraduate class in business that used online protocols for discussions over three semesters. The paper describes how iterative changes in the design of protocol-based discussions influenced students' cognitive presence. Students’ perceptions of cognitive presence were significantly higher in the second and third iterations, and the concepts shared by group members were significantly more integrated by the third iteration. Findings suggest that with careful design, these enhanced protocols are a potentially useful strategy to facilitate asynchronous online discussions in large classes.
 Implications for practice or policy:
 
 Students need additional incentives to actively participate in large enrolment courses.
 Instructors can use peer questioning to increase shared cognition in large enrolment courses.
 Instructors should create concise directions with modelling of exemplary posts to help reduce confusion.
 Students in large enrolment courses benefit from additional scaffolding of norms to foster a sense of trust.
 Design-based research provides an effective methodology to examine both theoretical and practical implications of online protocols on cognitive presence.

Activating Large Lecture Financial Learning: Collaboration and Clickers During Covid-19

Abstract This paper examines our approach to teaching a large-lecture personal finance course promoting students’ financial literacy. We identify the context of this course, including the rationale for large-enrolment courses and issues with the format in general, describing how using clickers and active learning strategies results in increased engagement, attendance, and critical thinking. Learning outcomes designed to support student formation of both internal and external views of finance are holistic and expansive, broader than measures of wealth accumulation alone. Moreover, a strategic initiative focused on career readiness aligns specific competencies with course content focused on developing transferrable skills through practical, real-world examples designed to engage problem-solving and critical thinking. This pragmatic and practical focus linked these transferable skills to a framework of learning grounded in the twin concepts of financial capability and competency. Additionally, we address how Covid-19 disrupted these courses, detailing adjustments necessitated by the new reality of social distancing while adjusting our approach to student participation as we met simultaneously in face-to-face and synchronous Zoom sessions. We concluded that additional considerations must include equitable access to resources based on our pandemic experience. Future research should examine these adjustments in light of developing culturally responsive methods to promote equitable learning.

General Chemistry education in a pandemic

With the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and the decision to close post-secondary schools to in-person teaching, an opportunity was presented to examine the challenges, benefits, and ability to pivot to an online teaching environment. Given the tight deadline to present Chemistry 121 (General Chemistry and Laboratory I) for the first time as an online course, during the Summer 2020 semester at Simon Fraser University, a team-based approach to develop and run the course was used. The approaches adopted and new course components utilized are analyzed from the students’ perspective to gauge their efficiency. The insight gained from converting this large enrollment course will be offered.

Implementing An Active Learning, Large‐Enrollment Online Physiology Course During The COVID‐19 Pandemic

The Department of Neurobiology & Behavior at Stony Brook University offers a large‐enrollment gateway undergraduate physiology course, BIO 203 ‐ Fundamentals of Biology: Cellular and Organ Physiology. BIO 203 is a required course in the biology and biochemistry majors and in the pre‐health curriculum, and undergraduates typically register for BIO 203 in their sophomore year. Since Fall 2015, BIO 203 has been offered in two formats, traditional PowerPoint‐based lectures presented twice per week (80 min / session) in a 570‐seat auditorium with individual fixed seats and a flipped, active‐learning format delivered once per week (113 min / session) in a 250‐seat auditorium with shared desks and rotating chairs. Students in both sections had equal access to prerecorded lectures and online activities (content quizzes, journal activities and thought questions). The focus of the lecture section was content delivery while the flipped section emphasized active group learning facilitated by instructors and experienced undergraduate teaching assistants. Student learning was evaluated by performance on common high‐stakes multiple choice exams. On average, students in the flipped section exhibited better performance on the common exams than students in the lecture section (Fall 2019 exam total, p < 0.05 in two sample t test and Wilcoxon rank sum test). As a result of the COVID‐19 pandemic, Stony Brook University required large‐enrollment courses to switch to online instruction starting in March 2020 and continuing through the Fall 2020 semester. The BIO 203 instructors implemented a synchronous online version of BIO 203 based on the active‐learning curriculum developed for the flipped section. In Fall 2020, this synchronous online version of BIO 203 was offered simultaneously to two sections. Students in both sections had access to the same online resources (recorded lectures, content quizzes and activities) and were evaluated using low‐stakes quizzes (administered during scheduled class time) and a common cumulative final exam (administered during a common final exam period). The primary difference between the two sections was the frequency and duration of the synchronous online meetings with instructors and teaching assistants. Section 01 (595 students) met twice a week for 80 min per session, whereas section 02 (257 students) met once a week for 130 min. A preliminary analysis of the scores on the common final exam indicates that students in section 01 (two meetings per week) performed better than students in section 02 (1 meeting per week) (p < 0.05 in two sample t test and Wilcoxon rank sum test). These preliminary findings are consistent with the hypothesis that student learning is enhanced by frequent engagement in active learning.

Open Inquiry versus Broadly Relevant Short-Term Research Experiences for Non-Biology Majors.

Undergraduate student participation in course-based research experiences results in many positive outcomes, but there is a lack of evidence demonstrating which elements of a research experience are necessary, especially for non-biology majors. Broad relevance is one element that can be logistically challenging to incorporate into research experiences in large-enrollment courses. We investigated the impacts of broad relevance in a short-term research experience in an introductory biology course for non-majors. Students either participated in an open-inquiry research experience (OI-RE), where they developed their own research question, or a broadly relevant research experience (BR-RE), where they investigated a question assigned to them that was relevant to an ongoing research project. We found a significant association between the type of research project experienced and students’ preference for an experience, with half of the students in the OI-RE group and nearly all students in the BR-RE group preferring a broadly relevant research experience. However, since science confidence increased over the course for both groups, these findings indicate that while students who participated in a BR-RE valued it, broadly relevant research experiences may not be necessary for positive outcomes for non-majors.

Teaching Creative and Practical Data Science at Scale

–Nolan and Temple Lang’s Computing in the Statistics Curricula (2010) advocated for a shift in statistical education to broadly include computing. In the time since, individuals with training in both computing and statistics have become increasingly employable in the burgeoning data science field. In response, universities have developed new courses and programs to meet the growing demand for data science education. To address this demand, we created Data Science in Practice, a large-enrollment undergraduate course. Here, we present our goals for teaching this course, including: (1) conceptualizing data science as creative problem solving, with a focus on project-based learning, (2) prioritizing practical application, teaching and using standardized tools and best practices, and (3) scaling education through coursework that enables hands-on and classroom learning in a large-enrollment course. Throughout this course we also emphasize social context and data ethics to best prepare students for the interdisciplinary and impactful nature of their work. We highlight creative problem solving and strategies for teaching automation-resilient skills, while providing students the opportunity to create a unique data science project that demonstrates their technical and creative capacities.

Higher-Order Assessment in Gross Anatomy: A Comparison of Performance on Higher- Versus Lower-Order Anatomy Questions between Undergraduate and First-Year Medical Students.

Gross anatomy is considered by many the backbone of medical education. While learning anatomy has a reputation of requiring mainly rote memorization, modern day anatomy education often involves instruction and assessment at cognitive levels that foster higher-order thinking. In many instances, these higher-order anatomical concepts are taught to graduate students in healthcare-related fields, such as medicine. At this level, students are expected to apply and analyze anatomical information since that is what will ultimately be expected of them as professionals. In contrast, undergraduate anatomy education is typically more introductory in nature and often takes place in the setting of a large-enrollment course that serves as a prerequisite for many health sciences degree programs. In this study, variables related to the assessment of higher-order concepts in clinical anatomy were compared between first-year medical students and undergraduate students enrolled in an upper-level human gross anatomy course. Results demonstrate that undergraduate students perform lower than medical students overall, but the degree of difference in how they perform on higher- versus lower-order questions is comparable. The most notable exception is on practical examinations, where undergraduate students tend to struggle more with applying and analyzing information. Exploration of additional variables provides insight into how the cognitive level being assessed affects the time it takes to answer a question and how different practical examination question types and formats influence student performance. Findings presented in this study have implications for designing anatomy courses and underscore the importance of blueprinting assessments.

Comparing Learning Outcomes and Satisfaction of an Online Algebra-Based Physics Course with a Face-to-Face Course

This study aimed to compare the online and face-to-face teaching of a required algebra-based physics course for non-physics majors in large-enrollment course sections. The study design is quasi-experimental; the students self-selected to enroll in either the fully online and asynchronous course or the face-to-face course. In this study, we look at pre- and post-surveys, test grades, and course grades. A total of 116 students from both the face-to-face version (n = 76) and the online version (n = 40) of the course participated in this study. Both courses were taught by the same instructor and covered the same topics using identical homework, quizzes, and tests to ensure comparison fidelity. Findings show that general physics students do equally well in both face-to-face and online versions of the course. However, online students show a higher rate of satisfaction of the course.

Training Undergraduate Teaching Assistants to Facilitate and Assess Process Skills in Large Enrollment Courses

Active learning environments are ideal settings to help students develop process skills such as teamwork, critical thinking, and problem solving. However, implementing active learning pedagogies where students have the opportunity to develop these skills can be challenging in large enrollment courses. With the assistance of undergraduate teaching assistants (TAs), instructors can provide an active learning experience to a large team of students during a typical “lecture” period. Most undergraduate TAs have little to no experience with facilitating active learning environments, and even less with identifying and assessing process skills. Therefore, it is important to provide training for TAs to be effective facilitators in the active learning classroom and to help students develop their process skills. Using an iterative design process, several successful strategies have been developed to help prepare undergraduate TAs to identify, assess, and provide feedback on the development of process skills in active learning classrooms. TAs report that this training was instrumental in improving their communication skills and recognizing process skills.

Fine grained analysis of students’ online discussion posts

Collaborative discussions should engage all students, not just a few who dominate (“leaders”) while others participate as “followers” (Zhu, 2006). Cunningham (1991) noted that collaborating learners bring, discuss and debate multiple perspectives to develop their own position while acknowledging others' views. Higher levels of knowledge construction emerged when posts stimulated frequent reply by multiple participants (Aviv, Erlich, Ravid, & Geva, 2003) and were strongly content- and task-oriented (Rovai, 2007). So, to help students more actively and productively engage in knowledge-constructing discussions, an instructor needs to detect students' posts that do not stimulate replies, identify content those posts introduce, and guide students to revise posts to encourage peers' responses. However, such monitoring would be very time- and energy-consuming, especially in large-enrolment courses (Hura, 2010). To set a stage for developing a classifier to automate these tasks, we proposed 10 rhetorical moves characteristic of the interactive mode of Chi and Wylie's ICAP framework (2014) and categorized fine-grained content in discussion posts using these moves. We then identified attributes of posts that triggered a greater number of responses. Rhetorical moves of “asking questions,” “requesting justification,” “building-on,” “giving a reason” and “making a claim” triggered more peer responses. Posts with moves of “disagreeing,” “comparing” and “making claims” predicted students' achievement on a test and an argumentative writing task. We propose analytics for learners and instructors about forming and revising posts to promote constructive discussions and subsequent achievements.