Assessment of Student Learning and Mentored Teaching Project
As part of the CCTP, I developed a Mentored Teaching Project (MTP). I worked with Dr. Barman and her Neurobiology of Disease course. I had assisted with this class the previous spring semester (2012), and during that time I identified several problems. For my MTP, I worked with Dr. Barman again to use what I had been learning in the CCTP to correct these problems.
Main Question: What do students learn about communicating science when I assign non-traditional science writing tasks?
PROBLEMS
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SUMMARY OF PROBLEMS HYPOTHESIS |
PROCEDURE
All students signed an informed consent form which I, as the investigator, have kept on file.
(1) I will take one lecture session to describe good scientific writing skills, to clarify what constitutes plagiarism and how to synthesize information. In this session, I also discuss WHY scientists need to be good communicators, and we will come up with examples of things scientists need to write. For example, the obvious reasons- grants and publications, but also less obvious things like keeping a science blog to recruit top-students, or press releases to the public. (a) I think this will be effective because the students will need to think about why writing skills are important, because there is the misconception that scientists do not need to write well (we aren’t English majors!) and that sounding technical and ‘sciency’ is better than speaking plainly. (b) Directly addressing scientific writing in class will also ensure that everyone is on the same page, because students have different backgrounds and may not have properly learned what constitutes plagiarism, or how to properly synthesize ideas into their own words. (2) In previous semesters, all their writing assignments were the same. Students were assigned a number of papers for which they wrote X number of pages about Y neurobiological disease. Instead, I propose to assign different kinds of assignments that will require different skills. (a) I think this will be effective because students will need to use different skills between the different assignments, and so each assignment will help improve their communication skills in different ways. (b) The varied assignments will keep students engaged, and different students will enjoy different assignments. (3) A rubric should be provided for all assignments in order to have the expectations of the student and the instructor directly line up. |
EXAMPLES |
PROJECT DATA
(1) Students filled out surveys with questions asking them where difficulties were in each assignment, and if they needed to take different approaches for each assignment. This helped me gauge whether students are getting what I want them to get out of each assignment type (right, Student Surveys).
(2) Dr. Barman answered survey questions to determine how this semester differed from previous semesters and her thoughts about the changes and their effectiveness (right, Mentor Evaluation, My Evaluation). (3) Dr. Barman and I will evaluate whether or not the non-traditional assignments helped improve communication skills by comparing the last assignment (after the non-traditional assignments) to the first assignment (assigned before the non-traditional assignments). Both assignments use the same rubric (below, figures and description). |
Figure 1 shows the average scores on assignments 1 and 4 for the four students that semester. Between assignment 1 and assignent 4, students were assigned non-traditional writing assignments. Though the difference was not significant, the scores improved between assignment 1 and 4.
If you look at the scores for the 4 students individually, as in Figure 2, it is clear to see that all but 1 student had improved scored between the first and last assignment. For this student (number 3), their two scores were close to one another. The students with the lowest scores in the first assignment improved greatly on their fourth assignment.
Figure 3 shows the averaged scores of the two students that scored under 70% on the first assignment. These students' assignment 4 grades were greatly improved compared to the first assignment scores.
Because grading rubrics were not used in the previous semester, it is not possible to make a direct comparison between a semester with 4 traditional assignments and a semester with two traditional assignments interjected with two non-traditional assignments.
If you look at the scores for the 4 students individually, as in Figure 2, it is clear to see that all but 1 student had improved scored between the first and last assignment. For this student (number 3), their two scores were close to one another. The students with the lowest scores in the first assignment improved greatly on their fourth assignment.
Figure 3 shows the averaged scores of the two students that scored under 70% on the first assignment. These students' assignment 4 grades were greatly improved compared to the first assignment scores.
Because grading rubrics were not used in the previous semester, it is not possible to make a direct comparison between a semester with 4 traditional assignments and a semester with two traditional assignments interjected with two non-traditional assignments.
Rather than share samples of student work, I have examples of comments I made on students' papers, in order to demonstrate the types of problems I was seeing in their writing. One problem was a lack of thesis statements. In examples A and B, the students did not set up their readers' expectations about what was going to be found in the paragraph or even the entire paper. Clear thesis statements would have also helped with the focus of their papers. Generally, the early writing assignments lacked clear flow of ideas, as seen in comments C, D, and E. In each of these papers, the student brought up a topic that either didn't fit in with the rest of the paragraph, or lead the reader to believe that they would be learning more about something that the student then did not get in to. Sometimes simple re-ordering of sentences or paragraphs would fix the problem. Other times the information was out of place, and had they written clearer thesis statements, I suspect their papers would have been more focused. Examples F and G are examples of problems with citations. Misunderstanding what needs to be cited and how to correctly cite others' work has been a pervasive problem in this class.
By the end of the semester, organization improved, especially with the use of subheadings, but thesis statements were still thin. This will be an area I will focus on in future classes. Problems with incorrect citation methods typically did not occur after the first paper. Use of the TurnItIn program this semester helped students identify when they wrote something too similarily to the original source, and thus this was not an issue by the time the paper was turned in for grading. In the last writing assignments, thesis statements were still not explicitly stated. Thus, this is an area I would focus on in future classes.
By the end of the semester, organization improved, especially with the use of subheadings, but thesis statements were still thin. This will be an area I will focus on in future classes. Problems with incorrect citation methods typically did not occur after the first paper. Use of the TurnItIn program this semester helped students identify when they wrote something too similarily to the original source, and thus this was not an issue by the time the paper was turned in for grading. In the last writing assignments, thesis statements were still not explicitly stated. Thus, this is an area I would focus on in future classes.
CONCLUSION
Dr. Barman and I were both very happy with the outcome at the end of the semester. For my mentored teaching project, it is hard to do any robust data-analysis because the class was so small; this semester we had only 4 students. However, the data suggests that the non-traditional assignments improved the writing in the final traditional assignment, especially in the students who performed poorly in the first traditional assignment.
Anecdotally, I feel the changes in writing assignments were helpful in a few ways. I think it opened the students’ eyes to the different types of science writing out there and I think the assignments made them think more about their wording and organization. In other words, I like to think that the non-traditional assignments lead them to think about their style or writing and clarity when writing more traditional assignment, and I hope it carries over to assignments they need to write for other classes. Additionally, we found the students to be very engaged in discussions this semester.
I still have work to do in terms of teaching students critical thinking through writing assignments. I learned that students are not used to supporting or making their own arguments in papers, and most have not progressed past merely rewording what they read in primary literature (think, science book reports). These things were surprising to me, and I am still struggling with how to best make students understand that their papers should be their own ideas, using scientific literature as support, and not just rehashing everything they read on a particular subject. I think a lot of this will be alleviated with a lesson on thesis statements. This will help students determine whether they are writing an analytical, expository, or argumentative style paper, and hopefully help them understand the purpose of their paper. The Purdue Online Writing Lab has a lesson on writing thesis statements that I would like to incorporate into my writing lessons.
Additionally, I learned that the students were not reading science news available to them in mass media. My hope is, after the news article assignment, the students will look for these articles on their own, and this will expand both their understanding of science, and their appreciation for communicating science.
Below you will find a letter from Dr. Barman about my role in the classroom and my Mentored Teaching Project:
Anecdotally, I feel the changes in writing assignments were helpful in a few ways. I think it opened the students’ eyes to the different types of science writing out there and I think the assignments made them think more about their wording and organization. In other words, I like to think that the non-traditional assignments lead them to think about their style or writing and clarity when writing more traditional assignment, and I hope it carries over to assignments they need to write for other classes. Additionally, we found the students to be very engaged in discussions this semester.
I still have work to do in terms of teaching students critical thinking through writing assignments. I learned that students are not used to supporting or making their own arguments in papers, and most have not progressed past merely rewording what they read in primary literature (think, science book reports). These things were surprising to me, and I am still struggling with how to best make students understand that their papers should be their own ideas, using scientific literature as support, and not just rehashing everything they read on a particular subject. I think a lot of this will be alleviated with a lesson on thesis statements. This will help students determine whether they are writing an analytical, expository, or argumentative style paper, and hopefully help them understand the purpose of their paper. The Purdue Online Writing Lab has a lesson on writing thesis statements that I would like to incorporate into my writing lessons.
Additionally, I learned that the students were not reading science news available to them in mass media. My hope is, after the news article assignment, the students will look for these articles on their own, and this will expand both their understanding of science, and their appreciation for communicating science.
Below you will find a letter from Dr. Barman about my role in the classroom and my Mentored Teaching Project: