1Cademy - Teaching More by Lecturing Less: Course Structure

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Teaching More by Lecturing Less: Course Structure

Developmental Biology course for the Fall 2003 semester "traditional lecture": 75-min lectures twice a week with homework problem assignments worth 20% of the grade, basing the remaining 80% on 3 midterm exams and a cumulative final exam. Lectures were held in a standard lecture hall with fixed seating, and were divided evenly between the two instructors (the authors).The lectures involved no interactive in-class work, although questions were asked occasionally.
Developmental Biology course for the Spring semester 2004 "interactive course": 75-min lectures twice a week in the lecture hall just like Fall semester students. Although there was still lecturing during class, instructors added multiple-choice, in-class questions designed to assess conceptual understanding of the lecture. Students answered these questions individually and anonymously using an audience response system (clickers) which then displayed a histogram of the answers to the class. If there was a significant disagreement among the answer, students were asked to discuss alternatives within their groups and revote. This semester also included 4 learning assistants (LA's) which were undergraduate students chosen among students who performed well in the fall-traditional course. LA's facilitated group work, both in class and in the lab where students worked on weekly homework assignments. They were encouraged to work together in their assigned groups for the first hour of lab class.

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Updated 2021-01-14

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