Successfully Administering Active Learning Activities

By: Matt Palmtag

Presentation Outline• Who am I?

• Goal of presentation

• What are daily activities and why do I use them?

• How do I attract/command student interest and participation?

– Measures taken to ensure success of activities and avoid wasting valuable class time

• Present a short, medium, and long “daily activity” in the context of a lesson

• Do they help student learn?

• Who am I?– Matt Palmtag

• Faculty member of FGCU– Department of Biological

Sciences

• Ten years of teaching experience – Roger Williams University– Craven Community College– FGCU

• Disciplinary interests and scholarly activity

– Aquaculture– Fish biology– Larval fish and shrimp

nutrition– Teaching

Goal of Presentation

Present a novel framework and strategies to successfully employ active learning activities

• What are daily activities and why do I use them?

– 1 – 15 minute activities performed by small groups of students during class

– Employed to overcome the challenges of teaching students with short attention spans

– Stimulate interest and practice of core concepts

– Promote enhanced study skills

– Improve student comprehension and performance

• How do I attract/command student interest and participation?

– Measures taken to ensure success of activities and avoid wasting valuable class time

• Daily activities always appear in a signature font color

• When possible I tie the activity to my (or their) disciplinary interests

• Students work in small groups but record and submit an individual response

• I require a single group to orally share their response to the activity

•Student responses account for a small percentage of their total grade (1 – 3 %)

– Grading scale

•Free response component of exams are composed of a subsample of the daily activities

•Use judiciously, one per thirty minutes of instruction

Chapter 1

Themes in the study of life

• What is science and biology?

• Inductive reasoning

• Deductive Reasoning, Hypothesis Based Science

• Life?

• Evolution, what is it?

• Evolution, the evidence

• Organizing life

What is science?

What is biology?

What does biology have to do with science?

• Science

– Inquiry, search for… ?

• Observation

– Data, recorded observations

» Quantitative data

» Qualitative data

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjwhCnDk5Ew

Determine some examples of qualitative and quantitative

data you could gather through your observation of

these fish.

• Scientific conclusions can be determined through inductive reasoning

– Generalizations through thorough observation

• Science can be explained through hypothesis based science

– Observations can lead to questions

– Hypothesis based science employs the scientific method to provide explanations to our questions

• Scientific method

1. Observe the situation 2. Ask a question 3. Turn that question into a testable hypothesis and

predict the outcome of your experiment 4. Test the hypothesis, design and perform your

experiment 5. Analyze the results 6. Evaluate your hypothesis

• Lets take a look at how the scientific method is employed in hypothesis based science

– Observation: Your fish spawned regularly throughout 2013, In 2014 the pair has yet to spawn

– Question:

– Hypothesis

• A tentative answer to a well framed question

– Hypothesis:

• Test your hypothesis

– Design and perform an experiment

• Independent variable

– Changing factor of experiment

• Dependant variable

– Factors influenced in the experiment

• Controlled variables

– Factors that influence the dependent variable if they are not controlled

• Control group / Treatment group

• Replication

26⁰

28⁰

30⁰

• Analyze the results

26⁰

28⁰

30⁰

• Evaluate hypothesis

– Falsifiable? (Evil spirits)

– Did the results of the experiment falsify or support our hypothesis?

– Is the experiment repeatable?

• Deductive reasoning

– If … then …

26⁰

28⁰

30⁰

• Observe the situation • Ask a question • Turn that question into a

testable hypothesis and predict the outcome of your experiment

• Design and perform your experiment

• Analyze the results • Evaluate your hypothesis

• Design and perform an experiment

• Independent variable• Dependant variable• Controlled variables• Control group / Treatment group• Replication

*I provide a framework for complex activities*

*I emphasize that practicing these activities outside of class will improve exam scores*

OK, this looks like fun but does it work?

Student assessmentPre/Post/Exam

A fish farmer has been farming tilapia (a species of fish) for many years. The farmer has been using the same type of fish food for many years and she has been satisfied with the fishes’ survival and growth rates over the years. The farmer was low on food and ordered more, when she received the order she notice that instead of receiving tilapia feed she received salmon feed. The salmon feed is identical to the tilapia feed except that it has a higher ratio of protein to carbohydrate. She went ahead and tried the salmon feed with the tilapia. After a season of feeding the salmon feed she noticed that this year’s tilapia crop had the best survival, growth rate, and final size that she had ever observed. In order to scientifically determine whether the high protein content of the feed was responsible for the result, she decided to set up and perform a scientific experiment. In her experiment she set up ten tanks, each tank was divided in half and each divided side included ten fish. In the experiment the fish on one side of each tank were fed a high protein feed and the fish on the other side were fed the standard tilapia feed, this was done in each of the ten tanks. After a year of raising the tilapia she processed and analyzed the experimental data and found that the fish fed the high protein diet had significantly greater survival, growth, and final size compared to those fed the tilapia feed.

Assessment/Exam Questions1. What was the first thing that the fish farmer did in order to apply the scientific

method?a. She hypothesized that a diet fed to Tilapia that contained a higher percentage

of protein would result in increased growth and survival.b. She observed that Tilapia fed Salmon diet seemed to grow at an increased rate

compared to Tilapia grown on standard Tilapia diet.c. She posed the question: Will Tilapia fed a diet with increased protein content

show improved growth and survival compared to Tilapia fed a diet with less protein?

d. She applied inductive reasoning. 2. Which of the following hypotheses is most likely not falsifiable?a. Tilapia injected with growth hormone would show improved growth and survival

compared to Tilapia that were not injected with growth hormone.b. A diet fed to Tilapia containing a higher percentage of protein would result in

increased growth and survival.c. Aggressive evil spirited Tilapia show improved growth compared to Tilapia that

are not affected by evil spirits.d. Tilapia raised in warm water showed improved growth compared to Tilapia

raised in cool water. 3. In the experiment described above, what component served as the

independent variable in the experiment?a. The amount of protein in the dietb. The temperature of the water that the fish were raised inc. The pH of the water that the fish were raised ind. The growth of the fishe. none of the available answer choices 4. In the experiment described above, what component served as the dependent

variable?a. The amount of protein in the dietb. The temperature of the water that the fish were raised inc. The pH of the water that the fish were raised ind. The growth and survival of the fishe. none of the available answer choices

5. In the fish farmers experiment some fish were fed high protein salmon diet while others were fed tilapia diet which contained less protein. In the experiment which of the following additional parameters could have also varied between the two groups of fish and still produced data that could support the farmers hypothesis?

a. water temperature b. pH of the water c. amount of food fed to each fish d. water qualitye. no other parameters could vary  6. In the experiment which group of fish served as the control group?a. fish fed high protein salmon feedb. fish exposed to higher temperaturesc. fish fed tilapia diet with a low protein contentd. none of the available answer choices 7. In the experiment which group of fish served as the treatment group?a. fish fed high protein salmon feedb. fish exposed to higher temperaturesc. fish fed tilapia diet with a low protein contentd. none of the available answer choices 8. Did the fish farmer incorporate replication into the experiment?a. yesb. no 9. What type of data did the fish farmer collect for her experiment?a. quantitativeb. qualitative

• The mean score of the class for the pre test was 6.2 and the mean score for the post test was 6.8. A paired t-test was performed on the data which indicated that students performed significantly better (P < 0.001, n = 68) on the quiz after they completed the “Daily Activity”.

Questions?