Rachel Pigg: Using InTeGrate Materials in Survey of Life at Presbyterian College

About this Course

A general education course, mostly freshman students.

students

3 50-min lectures + 1 3-hr lab per wk

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A Success Story in Building Student Engagement

My non-majors biology students enjoyed the new content provided by three InTeGrate modules: (1) Interactions between Water, Earth's Surface, and Human Activity, (2) Climate of Change, and (3) A Growing Concern. Elements and exercises from all three were interleaved into existing course content, which greatly enhanced student engagement in lecture and lab.

I strongly recommend using the InTeGrate resources in your classroom. Although originally conceived for geology courses, their content is easily incorporated into biology courses that emphasize ecosystem ecology and resource management.

My Experience Teaching with InTeGrateMaterials

To utilize InTeGrate content in my courses, I could not implement a single module in its entirety. Instead, I gleaned various homework and classroom exercises from 3 different modules and incorporated all into existing units of my course.

Relationship of InTeGrate Materials to my Course

My course is 1 semester (13 weeks). Content from Interactions between Water, Earth's Surface, and Human Activity was incorporated into an existing unit called "Energy Flows, Nutrients Cycle." In this unit, the roles of water and human activity in 3 nutrient cycles (phosphorus, nitrogen, and carbon) are discussed. Content from Climate of Change was incorporated into a unit called "Dimensions of Biodiversity." In this unit, forces causing speciation and extinction across scales (including climate change) are explored. Finally, content from A Growing Concern was used to enhance a unit called "The Food Crisis," in which plants, ecosystem services, and agricultural practices are reviewed and discussed.

A Unit-by-Unit Breakdown of How I Taught this Module

Interactions between Water, Earth's Surface, and Human Activity:
Components of this module were used to create prelab homework (=formative assessment) and a laboratory activity (=summative assessment: report).
1) Prelab homework consisted of edited versions of (a) the Preparatory Activity and (b) Part 1 of the Student Worksheet from Unit 2. Work on this assignment was submitted to me on the Friday before our Monday lab. I then began lab by returning graded prelab (=formative assessment). Student discussed their feedback with their group before they began the day's lab activity.
2) The laboratory activity included edited versions of Parts 2 and 3 of the Student Worksheet from Unit 2. The major edit to the content/instructions: Students could choose whether to investigate the effect(s) of slope, soil type, or vegetation on erosion rate, stream depth/width, etc. By the end of lab, they submitted a short report of their investigation (=summative assessment).

Climate of Change:
Components of this module were used to make lecture homework assignments and lecture activities (=formative assessments).
1) Unit 1 reading was assigned as homework. In the following class, students discussed the content of the reading in groups. By the end of lecture, student groups submitted answers to the following: list factors that affect climate locally/globally. Graded student work was returned the following class period (=formative assessment).
2) Textbook reading assignments and an in-class lecture preceded Unit 5: Case Study 5.1 (Climate's Tangled Web). Although we attempted to complete this in one 50-minute class period, it took two periods for students to complete the game. At the end of the second class period, I collected the Case Study Assignment worksheet (=formative assessment). In the future, I plan to: (a) transform this activity into a laboratory activity, (b) assign the rules as prelab reading, (c) assign roles to students myself at the beginning of lab, and (d) give each student access to only his/her role's actions/responses, rather than the entire Climate Response Guide. The table was difficult for most students to understand.
3) Summative assessment for this unit = multiple choice exam questions.

A Growing Concern:
Components of this module were used to generate prelab reading and homework assignment (=formative assessment) and a laboratory activity (=summative assessment: questionairre).
1) The prelab homework included edited versions of (a) Unit 2 prework questions, (b) Unit 2 preactivity and post activity readings, (c) Unit 5 prework questions, and (d) Unit 5 prework readings. Unit 2 and Unit 5 questions were collected and graded (= formative assessment). Feedback was provided to students before they began their lab activity. Students discussed their feedback as a group before beginning the lab activity.
2) The lab activity consisted of three parts: (a) an edited version of Unit 2, How Full is Full?, (b) an edited version of Unit 3, and (c) an exercise involving tests of nutrient content and pH for different soil types (not an InTeGrate exercise). In place of a report, students submitted answers to a questionnaire at the end of lab (=summative assessment). The questionnaire consisted of questions from (a) and (b), as well as questions I generate for (c).

Assessments

See my unit-by-unit breakdown for this information and my suggestions for improvements in future implementations.

Outcomes

As this course is for non-majors, scientific literacy is the primary goal. Class averages on both formative and summative assessments demonstrated proficiency. Summative assessment averages were higher than formative assessment averages, suggesting learning gains.

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