Angela Montel, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Biology
(419) 358-3387
Learning Circle Proposal for the 2001-2002 School Year
Brief Proposal Description and Goals:
During the second semester of the Learning Circle project, the students and I would use the skills gained during the first semester to design multimedia resources for the NSC112 Integrated Lab Science II: Chemistry/Biology/Life course. We would construct an interactive student website, design online student activities, create self-check quizzes, and perhaps begin to convert my existing lectures into a multimedia form using such tools as PowerPoint. My primary impetus for proposing such a project is my desire to inspire more active learning by my NSC112 students. I find that too often the students come to lecture, passively take notes, and cram the day before the test. If we could somehow utilize multimedia tools to engage the students and to force them to review the material soon after or even before it is presented in lecture, I believe that the students would benefit greatly from increased retention and understanding of the material, as well as from increased awareness of how the material relates to their lives. I need to accomplish this goal without a massive increase in the number of hours spent grading, since the students already submit weekly lab reports, which I spend many hours grading. My hope is that we can incorporate into the self-check quizzes and online exercises automatic feedback to the instructor so that s/he will be able to easily assess a student’s progress. Also, I would like to require some limited in-class student presentations or projects that require the students to utilize the material available on the website.
The NSC112 website would contain links to appropriate Internet sites that enhance and expand the material presented in the course textbook. Because the current biology textbook used in this course is packaged with a student CD-ROM and interfaces with a website designed by the publisher, it will be important to incorporate these resources into the course website we design. One reason I believe that our designing a website would be a useful endeavor despite the presence of an existing website designed by the textbook publisher is that the information presented on the existing website may be overwhelming to the general education student, especially since we have insufficient time to cover every part of every chapter in the textbook. Our custom-designed website could direct students to resources that correlate with the material from the chapters that I have chosen to highlight. The textbook currently used for the chemistry portion of this course is not packaged with a CD-ROM and does not have a website, and therefore finding resources for this portion of the course might require more extensive searching.
Online student activities that we would develop may involve the students performing activities at existing interactive websites, such as “The Virtual Fly Lab” website (a site that allows students to study the principles of Mendelian genetics by designing and carrying out virtual fruit fly crosses). Alternatively, we might create our own activities by sending students to various websites to learn about a specific topic. For example, we often present a unit to the students on alternative energy sources as part of the NSC112 course. Since this unit is not covered by either of the textbooks currently used for the course, we could design a series of web links and lecture materials to enhance our exploration of this ever-changing topic. These would explore such areas as photovoltaic cells, the solar “Power Towers” project in the Mojave Desert, fuel cell-powered vehicles, wind turbines, and nuclear waste storage issues such as the controversial use of Yucca Mountain in Nevada as a long-term storage facility.
I can envision us also designing self-check quizzes, either ones that tested the students’ comprehension of material presented in the above-mentioned online activities and/or ones that tested the students’ comprehension of lecture material. Self-check quizzes are also available on the student CD-ROM that accompanies the current NSC112 biology textbook and at the end of each of the chapters in the current chemistry text. Our self-check quizzes could test information covered in lectures that is not emphasized in the textbook. Also, since we do not have sufficient time to cover all of the material from each chapter in these books, we could develop web pages which communicated to the students which questions from these resources are ones they should be able to answer. (I do some of this already through verbal communication, but having this available online would ensure that it was done for every chapter we cover and that students would not have to rely on my remembering to mention the quizzes in our busy lecture schedule.)
Converting existing lectures into a multimedia format would be a fourth goal for this project. However, this goal will probably have to be a long-term one, with only the initial stages being accomplished as part of the Learning Circle project. Perhaps some of my accessory lecture materials could be incorporated into the student website that we develop. Thus, students could review lecture figures, photographs, or video clips through the course website. We would, however, have to make sure that we made the materials available to the students in such a way that they were not tempted to skip lectures and simply peruse the lecture materials online.
The skills acquired by the students working on this project would be useful to them regardless of their discipline. Science majors would have an opportunity to learn multimedia skills, as well as review their knowledge of science topics such as cell structure, mitosis, and oxidation/reduction reactions. Because the NSC112 course delves into contemporary environmental issues (such as acid rain, global warming, and alternative energy sources), which are not necessarily covered in the science courses offered to science majors, the science students working on this project would also undoubtedly acquire new knowledge concerning such topics. Students participating in this project who are non-science majors would extend and reinforce the science knowledge that they gained from taking the NSC112 course. Also, they would acquire general multimedia skills that are applicable to any discipline in which they happen to be involved.
Impact on Existing Courses:
This project is directly designed to support the NSC112 course. Because all non-science majors at B.C. are required to take NSC112 (unless they have transfer credits or opt to take a substitute science majors’ course), the majority of the students at B.C. will be impacted by the course enhancements designed during this Learning Circle project. Specifically, with current enrollment and retention numbers, 150-175 students/year would be impacted.
Required Resources:
Most of the resources required for this project will not involve added expense. For example, the following resources are either provided to me as an instructor using the course textbook or are provided as an integral part of the Learning Circle project:
-student CD-ROM that accompanies Biology: A Guide to the Natural World by David Krogh (Prentice Hall)
-Instructor’s Resource CD 2.0 that accompanies the above named textbook and already contains links to many relevant websites
-the textbook’s website (
-laptop computers with Internet access
-access to scanners, video cameras, CD burners, VCRs, etc.,
-miscellaneous lecture resources that I have gathered through the years
The only resources I can foresee that would require additional expense might be CDs upon which to burn our projects, blank videotapes, or access to web activities that charge a fee.
Prospective Student Participants: / Major / Year / Phone Number / Level of InterestJerome Gabriel / Biology / Soph / 3748 / Maybe – Can he fit it in his schedule?
Joanna Studer / English Education / Soph / 3839 / Maybe – Can she fit it in her schedule?
Anita Larrow / Biology & Chemistry / Soph / 3846 / Maybe – Semester at Sea may interfere?
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