Tina Ballard (Elgin Community College), Sabah Sattar (Western University of Health Sciences, medical student), Heather Bergan-Roller, and Jaime Sabel presented at JMBE Live about “Actions and Resources of Introductory Biology Students.” They shared resources for students to prepare for class. They spoke about the need to prepare for class: Ballard emphasized that studying for exams and preparing for class have different goals. Ballard mentioned that research shows that assigning textbook readings is often ineffective. Textbooks are expensive too! Instructors may assign out of class reading guides, reading quizzes, multimedia resources to supplement, and Ballard shared that this can be effective. The team designed a study to provide choice of options such as textbook and videos and another group was assigned specific text passages. The group coded entries through Thematic Content Analysis and used linear models for quantitative analyses. Their first question was: did the treatment affect if students prepared for class? Interestingly, the groups were similar. Their next research question was: did the treatment affect how students prepared for class? They did find differences with reading reported most frequently for both study groups.Reading and taking notes were the most common actions. Students typically used one treatment per entry, explained Sabel. Videos on Khan Academy and YouTube were also frequently used. Students reported preparing for about 63% of classes. Their summary, Bergman-Roller was:
- Students prepared for most classes with 1 resource and 1-2 actions.
- Instructors should invest in helping students prepare for class: making expectations explicit, providing resources, an consiering student preferances.
The presenters shared their experiences getting started with this project. They all have different backgrounds and journeys they shared.
