Summary:

Over the last five years I have revised Biology 101 to include technology and assessment. The technology was implemented in support of my use of multiple learning strategies in Harrison/Hoffman Hall and CH53. The technology became the "platform" that connected all of the dimensions of the course; connecting the in-class and out-of-class activities through the use of a comprehensive website. The learning objectives for this course were categorized according to Bloom's taxonomy of cognitive domains.The process of student learning was assessed with Classroom Assessment Techniques. I restructured the course to be taught in 2 week modules, each module contains assessment and evaluation of student learning outcomes. Each module focuses on a set of topics. Students were presented with multiple options for learning the material on any topic. The challenge was to understand the value of different learning strategies and combinations of those learning strategies. The results from these two years of study indicate that some particular strategies can directly improve student learning but the real value is in addressing the different student student study styles.

Figure 1. Connecting the resources with technology.

Specific course and student learning objectives

I categorized all of the learning objectives in Biology 101 into the first four Bloom's categories; vocabulary was level 1 "knowledge", conceptual understanding was level 2 "Comprehension", and the use of these concepts to solve problems was level 3 "Application" and level 4 "Synthesis". My underlying learning framework for the course was that students need to learn the vocabulary inorder to be able to effectively understand the concepts and that they needed to be comfortable with the concepts before they could apply them to problems. In this view of the course, my role as the instructor was to help them move from lower cognitive to higher cognitive levels.

The specific learning objectives were detailed to the students in "study guides" that were posed for each unit. Each study guide included about 20 vocabulary words and 10 concept questions. The application and synthesis questions were discussed in class and used three approaches; first I modelled the application by providing examples, second I used CATs that focused on the students' ability to create their own application question from a selected list of concepts, and third they did an exercise in each unit in which they found an example of an application of the concepts in the press or on the Internet.

Figure 2. Working framework for cognitive levels in Bi101.

Learning strategies and technologies implemented

I used a wide range of teaching/learning strategies as discussed in Table 1. The range of strategies were chosen based on availability of technology in Hoffman Hall and the ability to re-use the same approach outside of class. Some technologies allowed me to easily re-use the media (such as animated gifs and web pages) but others (such as videos and discussions) were limited to in class use only.

Assessment process

The underlying framework for coures defined my assessment and evaluation strategy (Figure 3). The outcome measures were the scores on the quiz questions. The quiz questions included vocabulary, concepts and applications.

The assessments were used to understand the process of student learning and to provide rapid feedback to the students. During 1997 these assessments were all done in class, but in 1998 half of them were done on the web.

Immediately after each quiz the students were given a "reflective CAT" and asked to score how well they thought they did on a particular question and identify which of the teaching/learning strategies that were available to them during that unit helped them learn the material

Figure 3. Experimental design for studying student learning outcomes and processes in Biology 101.

Table 1. Teaching strategies, technology and targetted cognitive level used in Biology 101.

As part of the restructuring of the course to include technology and assessment, I formally organized the course into topical modules and embedded assessment and evaluation into each module. The purpose for this change was to provide continuous assessment throughout the term. A side benefit of this course design however is that sub-units of the course can be compared for their varying uses of mixes of teaching/learning strategies. The data for this are presented below. This course design model allows the instructor to focus on some strategies in only part of the course until they are tested and improved before applying them to the entire course.

Student learning outcomes

For each topic in the course, we analyzed the number of students who reported different study styles (see Table 2 to the right). These study styles are groupings of learning strategies. Some students used combinations that would be counted in several groups and thus the total percentage adds up to more than 100%. Only several times in this analysis was a particular study style related to a significant increase in learning outcomes for those students that used that style (Table 3). For most topics, however, one particular strategy (from Table 1) was related to better student learning outcomes for those students who used that strategy compared to the students who didn't use that particular strategy.

Table 3. Usage and effectiveness of different strategies, by topic in the course. *means that the particular learning style group resulted in significant increase in student learning outcomes for those who selected that strategy compared the rest of the class.

Table 2. Groupings of student study styles were determined by analysis of the "reflective" CATs.

Traditional

• verbal presentation by the instructor
• student's notes
• graphics used during lecture
• videos used during lecture
• textbook
• class discussions

Technology

• course web-site
• cd-rom

Out-of-Class Activities

• animations
• simulations
• web tutorials
• paper tutorials

Visual Mapping

• verbal presentations by instructor
• graphics used in class
• web tutorials
• web-site

Other

These data are complicated and rather difficult to understand, however we can derive three simple points to summarize the interpretation of the results:
-- some strategies help (simulations and web tutorials)
-- students choose to use multiple strategies
-- no study style (group of strategies) is significantly better than another

In terms of implementation:
-- doesn't mean that any student can do well using any strategy
-- if you took away a strategy, some students may do worse
-- using more strategies doesn't necessarily improve an individual student's performance

What have I learned about using technology in teaching and learning.

There are three reasons why someone might want to restructure their course to include multiple strategies.

First, you might have an aesthetic vision for your course that includes the use of graphics and multiple representations of the material.

Second, you might be looking for synergistic combinations of strategies that will improve student learning. For example, I am convinced that the simultaneous projection on hree screens of pertinent vocabulary words, a graphic and a video is preferable than running these same representations one after another.

Third, you might be trying to reach different learning styles. Because there is such a diversity in backgrounds and learning style preferences, using multiple strategies might help more students learn more easily.

Figure 4. a - no technology, b - technology added, c- technology and assessment.

Presentations

I have presented versions of this work with Nancy Perrin in several venues.
-- TLTR Summer Institute July 1997, Assessing the Blends of Teaching and Learning Strategies
-- AAHE National Meeting on Higher Education, March 1998, Assessing Blends of Teaching/Learning Strategies
-- TLTR Summer Institute July 1998, Assessing the Effectiveness of Multiple Strategies for Teaching and Learning.

This work has been a component of several other workshops and presentations, including:
-- Faculty Governence Association 1998
-- Faculty Roles and Rewards Jan 1998
-- Faculty Roles and Rewards Jan 1999

All of these presentations can be viewed at http://web.pdx.edu/~edtech/presentations