Samiksha Raut and Sara Adkins-Jablonsky presented at JMBE Live, and I watched the recording tonight. The title of the session is “Impacts of a COVID-19 E-Service-Learning Module in a Non-Major Biology Course.” Raut is an Associate Professor at The University of Alabama at Birmingham and Adkins-Jablonsky is now a student is osteopathic medicine. Raut acknowledged her research team which includes a high school intern who is a co-author! Non-majors’ biology students and curriculum varies across institutions, Raut explained. They often need to complete 1-2 science courses. Thus, Raut emphasized, it is important to help train and inform all citizens. Raut asked: how do we make biology exciting for non-majors? Non-majors biology at UAB is called Contemporary Topics in Biology. Raut redesigned the course and used a theme-based modular approach. They start with a module on information literacy and claims. They use active-learning and support learners with peer leaders. Raut defined service-learning as a type of experiential education through cycles of action and reflection. Raut reviewed the benefits of service-learning including higher learning gains (Little 2012), student engagement (Simonet 2008; Celin et al. 2011), increased awareness of social issues (Adkins-Jablonsky et al. 20220), and enhanced retention rates in biology and other disciplines (Nigro & Fansworth, 2009). Raut published a study in the SENCER journal in 2020 about service learning. The COVID-19 Service-Learning Module included four virtual guest lectures from experts. Teams of students then are challenged to create and teach an infographic. Finally, students write a post-reflection essay. Among the guest speakers, they included someone who recovered from COVID. The peer-leaders helped student presenters. The post reflection was an open-ended prompt. Adkins-Jablonsky explained that their research question was: which parts of our module did students (n=87) reflect on during their COVID-19 E-Service-Learning post reflections? The class had 112 students, 87 consented, and 8 participated in interviews. The research team (two undergraduates and Adkins-Jablonsky and Raut), predetermined categories: service-learning infographic, service-learning lectures, COVID-19 information, COVID-19 other. Students largely reflected on learning about COVID-19 information. The group presented a circular bar graph that looked awesome. Students in their post-reflections expressed gratitude and positive feedback. Students reflected on the guest lectures too. The next category with lots of responses was COVID-19 information. Interestingly, no misconceptions were identified. The last category was COVID-19 other information. The team concluded that “our main findings were that students referenced virtual expert-led guest lectures more often than they referenced the E-Service Learning assignment, but overall reported learning correct information and practices about COVID-19.” Raut spoke about attending SABER and reading Vision & Change and realizing how difficult it is to come up with research questions, yet having results to share! Adkins-Jablonsky spoke about reading Scientific Teaching and being inspired. Raut explained that she had read and continued reading and talking to experts. Raut shared that the logistics of setting up service learning in a 100+ student course is challenging yet manageable. During the questions and discussion session, Raut clarified that the infographics were done in groups and peer-leaders supported them. They use CATME for group assignments and share a DEI statement with all students. In a non-majors course, students come from numerous programs. Adkins-Jablonsky spoke about starting with course objectives and aligning with service learning opportunities. Raut spoke about a paper on podcasting that I saw recently in CourseSource. They thought service-learning opportunities are available both for in-person and online activities and courses.
