Knight, Jennifer K, and William B Wood. “Teaching more by lecturing less.” Cell biology education vol. 4,4 (2005): 298-310. doi:10.1187/05-06-0082 

Pace University

- There is now a great deal of evidence that lecturing is a relatively ineffective pedagoglical tool for promoting conceptual understanding. Some of this evidence is general, showing that learners at all levels gain meaningful understanding of concepts primarily through active engagement with and application of new information, not by passive listening to verbal presentations (Nation Research Council, 1999).
- This study conducted on undergraduate biology students, proposes teaching for conceptual understanding and analytical skills, while encouraging activities over factual knowledge during lecturing. A moderate shift toward more interactive and cooperative learning in class has shown to result in significantly higher student learning gains than achieved using a standard lecture format. 

Teaching More by Lecturing Less

Teaching More by Lecturing Less Reference 

Developmental Biology is the last course for a biology major, so the population consisted of juniors or seniors who should have acquired a substantial amount of knowledge in different fields of biology. The experiment consisted of about 70 undergraduate students in Developmental Biology, including students with varying interests levels in the material. All students are accustomed to lecture based classes and being required to learn large amounts of factual information, memorizing, and working independently. Most students lacked conceptual understanding and this was evident during the Developmental Biology course, in which students were expected to apply what they have been taught in their previous courses about genetics, molecular biology and cell biology.

Teaching More by Lecturing Less: Experimental Design

- 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. 

Teaching More by Lecturing Less: Course Structure

- Both semesters received a multiple-choice pretest during the first week and then they were readministered the same test as embedded questions in the final exam, to provide a rough measure of student learning gains during the semester. The test was composed of 15 multiple-choice questions designed to test understanding of core concepts in development. When the interactive course was repeated in Spring 2005, only 12 of the pretest and posttest questions were the same as the previous semesters. To determine whether students were interpreting the pretest and posttest questions correctly,  student interviews were conducted  in spring 2005. Six students (including at least one who had achieved each of the grades “A”, “B”, and “C” in the course), were asked to think out loud as they worked through each of the questions, and to verbalize why they selected or eliminated certain answers. All six students interpreted all 12 questions correctly. The results indicate that at least for most students, the pretests and posttest provided a valid assessment of conceptual understanding for the concepts tested. 
- In both fall 2003 and spring 2004 semesters, students were asked several times during the semester to give feedback on how various aspects of the class were aiding their learning. For the Spring 2004 semester, formulation assessments were achieved during class periods using the clicker response to ICQs. Students received five points for answering questions correctly, but students were also given 2 ½ points for incorrect answers in order to encourage participation. 

Teaching More by Lecturing Less: Assessments

Traditionally, core courses are graded on a curve and the experiment continued this practice however, they realized that grading on a curve discourages many students from working collaboratively. More students in the interactive course achieved a grade “B” (51%) than traditional courses (37%). Because of the curve, there were actually fewer students who achieved an “A” in the interactive course, although the overall distribution of point totals was higher. The average performance on exams and problem sets differed only slightly between semesters. The exams in Spring 2004 were designed to test more conceptual and less factual knowledge than the Fall semester. Grades from the Fall 2003 semester improved by problem set performance and grades from the Spring 2004 semester improved by problem set performance and class participation.

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