Final year undergraduate teaching in the sciences: ways to increase student engagement with

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• Final year undergraduate teaching in the
  sciences ways to increase student engagement
  with
• lecture content and the primary literature.
• Dr. Katherine West
• Division of Cancer Sciences and Molecular
  Pathology
• University of Glasgow

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Guest Lectures Pros and Cons

• Many courses for final year bioscience students
  are comprised of lectures given by a succession
  of different academics. The topics are usually
  closely related to the lecturers research
  interests.

• Advantages
• Students hear about the latest science from
  someone who is a current practitioner
• Lecturer only has to teach one or two sessions on
  his/her pet topic

• Disadvantages
• May be a lack of continuity between sessions
• No opportunity to revisit material
• Difficult to generate discussion as lack of
  rapport between students and lecturer
• Individual lecturers constrained by the format

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Challenges for guest lecturers

• Stimulate the students to recall previous
  learning and share it with each other and the
  lecturer
• Ensure the students have understood the lecture
  content first time round
• Help the students engage productively with the
  topic to stimulate interest and promote learning

These can all be achieved using active learning
techniques that encourage the students to
interact with each other and the lecturer, and
helps them to engage with the material.
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Two case studies

• A lectures and paper discussion session within an
  IBLS 4th year honours option course
• Two lectures/small group sessions for medical
  students taking an intercalated B.Sc. degree

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Final year Bioscience studentscourse structure

• Four 5 week options, each consisting of 10
  sessions of 3 hrs.
• Each option is assessed by one written exam
• Dissertation
• Laboratory project
• Assessed by written report, oral presentation,
  and/or viva

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Control of Transcription optionSession format

• 1.5 hr lecture
• 15 minute break
• Paper discussion session
• Six of the lectures were chalk and talk by the
  course organiser
• Three were powerpoint lectures by guest
  lecturers, following a fairly traditional format.
• (GL1 me, GL2 and GL3)

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Student feedback year 1

• Q Which lectures did you like least? Why?
• Guest lectures, powerpoint is not a good
  teaching tool!
• GL1 and GL2powerpoint is the devils work
• GL1 and GL2 - too fast and did not make notes
  available of all the detail on powerpoint slides
• GL1, too much info, too fast powerpoint
• GL3, too fast-paced. Hard to understand
• GL3, too simple
• GL3
• GL3. The lecture was given too quickly
• GL3, found it difficult to follow
• Out of 12 responses in total

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Increasing student engagement

• Changes I made to the lecture the second time
  around
• Question and answer opportunities
• In class worksheet
• Multiple choice questions

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Question and answer opportunities

• - Questions on previous knowledge
• Worked ok but most students not very keen to
  contribute
• - Discussion questions discuss with neighbours
  then report back
• Not very productive as students not very keen to
  discuss with their neighbours. Maybe because they
  were unfamiliar with this type of open ended
  question and with the buzz group format

• Similar observations made by my colleagues and
  I in other classes
• Depends on the students feeling comfortable
  enough to contribute
• i.e. familiar with the format, with each
  other, and with the lecturer.
• Not such a good technique for one-off lectures
  

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In class worksheet
A
B
phosphate acetyl methyl
ubiquitin ADPribose
C
serine threonine lysine
arginine
D
H A V I L M F Y Q K
D S R E N W C G P T
E
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In class worksheet

• Students had 5 minutes to complete the worksheet,
  and could discuss it with their neighbours.
• Then we discussed the answers together using an
  OHP

• Worked well to break up the 1.5 hr session
• Got the students thinking about the
  fundamental chemistry involved.
• Helped them realise that there were gaps in
  their knowledge

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Multiple choice questions

• Students were given coloured sheets for A, B, C
  and D and were asked to hold up the sheet
  corresponding to their answer.

• Near the start of the lecture I asked some simple
  questions which they all knew the answer to from
  previous courses. This was intended to remind
  them about their previous learning so they could
  put the new material in context.
• 1) The basic building block of chromatin is
  called a
• A centrosome
• B centromere
• C nucleoblast
• D nucleosome  

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MCQ - continued

• At two points during the lecture I asked 2 or 3
  questions about the material I had just told
  them. This was intended to clarify possible areas
  of misunderstanding and reinforce key points (I
  asked them not to look at the handouts).
• 4) Histone methylation
• A on H3 lysine 4 is usually associated with
  inactive genes
• B on H3 lysine 9 is usually associated with
  inactive genes
• C on H3 lysine 4 is found alongside
  methylation of H3 lysine 9
• D only occurs on one residue per histone
  molecule
• Nearly all the students had the correct answers,
  but I went through why the others were incorrect
  in case they werent sure about it.

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MCQ - conclusions

• It made the students think about the material we
  had just covered
• Using the coloured cards is a fairly discrete way
  for each student to indicate his/her answer
• It broke up the lecture and the students seemed
  to enjoy the diversion
• My colleagues and I have used this technique in
  other lectures since then, and it is always well
  received and seems to work well.

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Specific feedback for my lecture yr 2

• Q1. I found the session rather basic and slow,
  and got a bit bored
• Median answer 1 (strongly disagree)

• Q2. I found the session too fast and complex, and
  was overwhelmed with too much information
• Median answer 2 (disagree)

• Q3. I found the session very interesting, and
  would like to go and read more about chromatin
• Median answer 4 (agree)
• Multiple choice was useful
• Questions were a good idea to emphasis the main
  points
• 13 responses, scores out of 1-5

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Student feedback year 2

• Q Which lectures did you like least? Why?
• GL3
• I liked all the lectures
• Havent really disliked any of the lectures
• No particularly bad lectures
• Out of 10 responses in total

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Did student learning improve?
While students may have better recall of the
major points of the lecture because of the
activities, and thus feel more confident about
the topic, this does not necessarily translate
into deeper learning of the material!
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Paper discussion sessions

• After each lecture, students split up into groups
  of 4-6 to discuss three papers from the previous
  lecture.
• Each student is expected to bring a copy of the
  papers and to have read them all. They have had 3
  or 4 days since the previous lecture in which to
  read the papers
• Original format each paper is explained by one
  student to the rest of the group.
• The lecturer moves between the groups, answering
  questions as they arise.
• Each student should have to present a paper once
  a week.

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Reflections on original session format

• Students who present a paper have had to read and
  understand it thoroughly in order to explain it
  to the others.
• However, students who are not presenting tend to
  sit passively and listen. They need not have read
  the paper in advance, and there is no requirement
  for them to engage with the paper during the
  session.

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Session format 2

• Each group of students presents a paper to the
  whole class.
• The lecturer provides powerpoint slides of each
  figure, and the students take it in turns to
  present a figure to the class.

• Reflection
• Every student has to present a figure, and so
  they have all read and tried to understand one
  paper for each session.
• Explaining something to someone else is often the
  best way to learn it.
• The students enjoyed a change in activity, and
  developed their oral presentation skills

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Session format 3

• Students work in groups to answer a series of
  questions about the paper.

• Reflection
• Can lead students through a very in-depth
  analysis of the paper
• Gives them time to think about and discuss harder
  questions or broader implications
• Requires more preparation by the lecturer

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Example of questions about a paper

• Figure 1
• 2.   Is the interaction of AR with LSD1 dependent
  on hormone?
• No
• Figure 3a
• 4.   Is the interaction of LSD1 with the gene
  dependent on AR?
• No
• 5.   Is the interaction of LSD1 with the gene
  dependent on hormone?
• No
• 6.  Does this provide evidence that LSD1 and AR
  form a hormone-dependent complex on chromatin?
• No

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A variety of approaches to studying papers....

• Allows students to develop different skills such
  as analysis, interpretation, summarising,
  presentation, discussion, model building,
  hypothesis generation.
• Stimulates students interest by providing a
  change of activity
• Benefits students with different learning styles

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Case study 2

• Two lectures/small group sessions for a group of
  10 medical students taking an intercalated B.Sc.
  degree

• These provide an introduction to the year long
  course, and aim to summarise and reinforce the
  students previous knowledge on the subject.

• Each session lasts 3 hours, consisting of two
  lectures with a 25 minute break in the middle
• In addition to the lectures I used three
  activities to stimulate student engagement
• Brainstorming
• In class worksheets
• Homework assignment

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Brainstorming

• Began the first session with a brainstorming
  activity to help the students recall previous
  knowledge.
• Students were in groups of 3-4. One person from
  each group reported back to the class.

• The medical students are familiar with the
  technique of brainstorming, as they use it in
  their problem-based learning scenarios in years 1
  and 2.
• Seemed to work well in that all the students
  contributed and between them they worked out the
  core information
• Showed me where the gaps in their knowledge were
• Much more effective than traditional QA

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In class worksheets

• In the second half of each session I gave the
  students a worksheet with questions about
  experimental examples

• This made the students apply their knowledge from
  the lecture to concrete examples
• Much more effective than the lecture alone in
  promoting understanding

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Homework assignment

• Within the lecture I gave example of different
  methods in which proteins can control gene
  expression
• I wanted the students to gain an appreciation of
  the multitude of ways these methods are combined
  and applied to regulate each of the thousands of
  genes inside our cells.
• I asked each student to go away and find out
  about the regulation of a gene of their choice.
• Each student reported back to the class at the
  start of the next session

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Results of the homework assignment

• All the students had chosen a different gene,
  mostly ones that I was not familiar with. In
  other words, they had all been motivated enough
  to use different sources other than standard text
  books.
• I think their natural curiosity was stimulated by
  having a completely free rein.
• The wide range of genes chosen meant that
  students did appreciate the variety of modes of
  regulation used in the cell.
• Next time I will ask the students to present
  their findings a little more formally using the
  OHP rather than just telling the class what they
  found.

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Summary

• The use of interactive techniques can help
  overcome some of the challenges faced by
  lecturers, and by guest lecturers in particular.
• Stimulate the students to recall previous
  learning and share it with each other and the
  lecturer
• MCQs, brainstorming, worksheets
• Ensure the students have understood the lecture
  content first time round
• Worksheets, MCQs
• Help the students engage productively with the
  topic to stimulate interest and promote learning
• Worksheets, MCQs, homework assignments

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Acknowledgements

• Dr. Adam West
• Professor Bob White
• Dr. Chris McInerny