Kathy Garvin-Doxas

Understanding Randomness and its Impact on Student Learning: Lessons Learned from Building the Biology Concept Inventory (BCI)

While researching student assumptions for the development of the Biology Concept Inventory (BCI; http://bioliteracy.net), we found that a wide class of student difficulties in molecular and evolutionary biology appears to be based on deep-seated, and often unaddressed, misconceptions about random processes. Data were based on more than 500 open-ended (primarily) college student responses, submitted online and analyzed through our Eds Tools system, together with 28 thematic and think-aloud interviews with students, and the responses of students in introductory and advanced courses to questions on the BCI. Students believe that random processes are inefficient, whereas biological systems are very efficient. They are therefore quick to propose their own rational explanations for various processes, from diffusion to evolution. These rational explanations almost always make recourse to a driver, e.g., natural selection in evolution or concentration gradients in molecular biology, with the process taking place only when the driver is present, and ceasing when the driver is absent. For example, most students believe that diffusion only takes place when there is a concentration gradient, and that the mutational processes that change organisms occur only in response to natural selection pressures. An understanding that random processes take place all the time and can give rise to complex and often counterintuitive behaviors is almost totally absent. Even students who have had advanced or college physics, and can discuss diffusion correctly in that context, cannot make the transfer to biological processes, and passing through multiple conventional biology courses appears to have little effect on their underlying beliefs.

Recognizing Student Misconceptions through Ed's Tools and the Biology Concept Inventory

Recognizing student misconceptions is critical for effective teaching. Tools that reveal student thinking indicate that misunderstanding randomness interferes with learning of molecular dynamics and evolutionary processes.

Making Visible the Behaviors that Influence Learning Environment: A Qualitative Exploration of Computer Science Classrooms

The authors conducted ethnographic research to provide deep understanding of the learning environment of a selection of computer science classrooms at a large, research university in the United States. Categories emerging from data analysis included (1) impersonal environment and guarded behavior; and (2) the creation and maintenance of informal hierarchy resulting in competitive behaviors. Both of these categories describe patterns of recurring communication taking place in the classroom learning environments. We identify particular and recognizable types of discourse, which, when prevalent in a classroom, can preclude the development of a collaborative and/or supportive learning environment. Alternative communication choices, both explicit and implicit, can lead to a more balanced and supportive climate for learning. An example of a successful effort to alter traditional patterns of interaction, without compromising the quality of learning, in a higher education astrophysics class is presented.

Defensive climate in the computer science classroom

As part of an NSF-funded IT Workforce grant, the authors conducted ethnographic research to provide deep understanding of the learning environment of computer science classrooms. Categories emerging from data analysis included 1) impersonal environment and guarded behavior; and 2) the creation and maintenance of informal hierarchy resulting in competitive behaviors. These communication patterns lead to a defensive climate, characterized by competitiveness rather cooperation, judgments about others, superiority, and neutrality rather than empathy. The authors identify particular and recognizable types of discourse, which, when prevalent in a classroom, can preclude the development of a collaborative and supportive learning environment.

Communication in computer science classrooms: understanding defensive climates as a means of creating supportive behaviors

All learning environments are characterized by numerous communication and interaction practices, which lend themselves to an overall characterization of the climate as defensive or supportive. A case study of public communication and interaction in a large, research-intensive universitys first year computer science courses illustrates a learning environment primarily characterized by elements and behaviors associated with a defensive communication climate. Descriptions of classroom interactions and behaviors illustrate what a defensive communication climate “looks like” in terms of behavior, based on extensive observational research. Interview data demonstrates that defensive communication practices can lead to attrition among women in the major and illustrates ways in which the communication climate that characterizes the major is experienced and interpreted by women in the courses. This data also links defensive communication behaviors with lower confidence among women toward their major --- results consistent with previous studies of the causes of attrition among women in other Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines. Classroom experiences and behaviors that reflect a more supportive communication climate will be discussed within the context of practices and interactions that professors can engage in to ensure that their courses lean toward a supportive rather than a defensive environment as a way of making computer science learning environments more inclusive.

What can computer science learn from a fine arts approach to teaching

Two pedagogical techniques of IT programs are compared, a traditionally taught computer science (CS) major and an IT certificate program using a fine arts approach to pedagogy. The latter graduates a higher percentage of women than of males. Although the two programs are quite different in the nature of the material and what students are expected to learn, CS instructors can borrow from the certificate program in ways that could increase attraction to and retention of women in CS, especially by allowing students to hear each other articulate what they are learning; mentioning practical applications of theoretical principles; and requiring that students display their knowledge and solutions to their peers.

Democracy, Participation, and Communication at Work: A Multidisciplinary Review

This review essay examines a broad multidisciplinary literature on democracy and work, highlighting issues of theory and practice of special interest to communication scholars. The essay treats relevant and selective research from the following fields (in addition to communication studies): the sociology of organizations, political science and public administration, comparative and labor economics, management and organizational behavior, cultural anthropology and organizations, industrial and organizational psychology, labor and industrial relations, and feminist studies of organizations. The following communication-related themes are used to organize the essay and to derive conclusions from the relevant literatures: (a) the boundary-spanning potential of organizational democracy, (b) multiple rationalities and motivations in employee participation programs, (c) the microprocess features of workplace democratization, (d) the structural aspects of participation and democracy at work, (e) the issue of “voic...

Avoiding Reflex Responses: Strategies for Revealing Students’ Conceptual Understanding in Biology

There is widespread concern about the level of scientific literacy in the U. S. An important, although often overlooked, point, is that student learning is generally only a good as the assessments used to measure it. Unfortunately, most assessments measure recall and recognition rather than conceptual understanding, and as a result over‐estimate levels of scientific literacy. We have encountered this fact during the construction of the Biology Concept Inventory (BCI). Using the concept of diffusion, which is taught in a wide range of introductory biology, chemistry, and physics courses, as an exemplar, we describe lessons learned and strategies we use to create questions that better probe student understanding.

Creating learning environments that support interaction

In previous work [1], we characterized the communication climate in the traditional CS program as a defensive communication climate [2]. As a practical extension of this work, in this brief presentation we will present a few practical techniques for creating the sort of classroom environment that encourages students to participate and also supports group learning.

Why project courses sometimes widen the experience gap among students

Choices by students and faculty about their roles in group learning activities can result in students not learning new skills/knowledge. Faculty must be cautious about how students are grouped and should educate students about group roles to avoid problems.