Curriculum Alignment with Vision and Change Improves Student Scientific Literacy

CBE Life Sciences Education
Anna Jo Auerbach, Elisabeth E Schussler

Abstract

The Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education final report challenged institutions to reform their biology courses to focus on process skills and student active learning, among other recommendations. A large southeastern university implemented curricular changes to its majors' introductory biology sequence in alignment with these recommendations. Discussion sections focused on developing student process skills were added to both lectures and a lab, and one semester of lab was removed. This curriculum was implemented using active-learning techniques paired with student collaboration. This study determined whether these changes resulted in a higher gain of student scientific literacy by conducting pre/posttesting of scientific literacy for two cohorts: students experiencing the unreformed curriculum and students experiencing the reformed curriculum. Retention of student scientific literacy for each cohort was also assessed 4 months later. At the end of the academic year, scientific literacy gains were significantly higher for students in the reformed curriculum (p = 0.005), with those students having double the scientific literacy gains of the cohort in the unreformed curriculum. Retention of scientific literacy did no...Continue Reading

References

Dec 13, 2005·Cell Biology Education·Jennifer K Knight, William B Wood
Oct 3, 2006·CBE Life Sciences Education·Clarissa Dirks, Matthew Cunningham
Sep 6, 2007·CBE Life Sciences Education·Danton H O'Day
Dec 3, 2010·CBE Life Sciences Education·Terry L Derting, Diane Ebert-May
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May 23, 2014·British Journal of Psychology·Thomas J DunnVivienne Brunsden

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Citations

Nov 18, 2017·CBE Life Sciences Education·Anna Jo Auerbach, Elisabeth Schussler
Dec 13, 2018·Advances in Physiology Education·Katharine SemsarJennifer K Knight
Jun 16, 2018·Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education·Ines RauschenbachDiane Davis

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