BIOLOGY DEPARTMENT HOSTS ASSESSMENT SPECIALIST by Kathy Winnett-Murray and Greg Murray Spring 2002

If you click on "Read Our Mission Statement" from the Biology Department's homepage (http://www.hope.edu/academic/biology/), you will learn that: "The Biology Department is devoted to an integrated approach to the life sciences. This integration finds expression in our department first and foremost by teaching through research. Our primary mission, therefore, is to conduct this kind of teaching by supporting faculty in the establishment of vigorous research programs and by providing courses and a curriculum that center on inquiry". To enhance our own continued development as inquiry-based teachers, and to gain some external insights about the effectiveness of our department's assessment plan, we recently hosted a visit by Dr. Diane Ebert-May (Dean of the Lyman Briggs School and Professor of Plant Biology, Michigan State University), who is well-known for her scientific research focusing on how college students learn science. The visit was co-sponsored by the Hope College Assessment Committee and by the Biology Department.

Dr. Diane Ebert-May is a plant scientist who began applying scientific methodology to the study of student learning in science several years ago. Since that time, she has gained recognition in the realm of science education through her publications, her numerous presentations at scientific meetings, her leadership role in professional societies, and as the recipient of several grants for the improvement of science education. Currently, Diane is co-PI of a nation-wide program funded by the National Science Foundation-FIRST II. FIRST II is a faculty development project designed to train faculty in the implementation of active, inquiry-based learning in undergraduate science courses.

Diane's visit to Hope began on the evening of January 10 with an informal Mexican dinner served in the botany lab. In response to an invitation distributed to the Natural Sciences Division and to the Education Department, sixteen people participated in the workshop that followed. During the workshop, entitled "Assessment in Teaching vs. Assessment in Research," Diane drew several analogies between the inquiry elements of teaching and research, all the while demonstrating techniques for actively engaging students in large (or small) lectures. A major emphasis was placed on the need to collect and evaluate data pertinent to the questions on student learning that are being asked, just as one would in scientific research, and she included several examples from her own work demonstrating methods to do so. One item that sparked a lot of interest was the development of computer-based scoring of concept maps, an assessment tool that has been widely used in the field of education and is becoming increasingly popular for assessing student learning in the sciences.

On January 11, Diane facilitated small-group discussions on topics the biologists had identified as being of particular interest in our on-going assessment efforts. These topics included "Getting the Biggest Bang for the Buck or Maintaining and/or Regaining a Research-oriented Program with the Best of What We've Created in the Curricular Reform" and "Biology 150: the First Biology Course". Diane also had meetings with Scott VanderStoep (Carl Frost Research Center), with the department's assessment coordinators (the Murrays) and with individual faculty and students. Diane's visit concluded with a joint Biology-Education Department seminar: "Assessment: Data Collection with a Purpose - Student Learning," which was attended by about 70 students and faculty.

Diane's visit was valuable to us at several levels. First, by having the opportunity to share our assessment plan with an outside expert we feel more confident that we know what we are doing. We've also been challenged to reflect more on the purposes behind the data we're collecting. While some of us had hoped for even more help with specific ideas on where to go in the future with our program-level assessment, Diane helped us face up to the fact that there is no single, simple, assessment solution for an entire program. Rather, her focus was on changes and improvements that can be made at the level of how individual faculty are teaching their courses. As such, the workshop was an excellent introduction to active teaching, in-class assessment tools, and interpretation of assessment feedback that was applicable to all disciplines, not just biology. With regard to our mission statement above, we think it is important to have continued opportunities to evaluate our own teaching styles, to address the elements of inquiry that they do or do not possess, and to learn more about how people measure the effectiveness of those different styles in terms of student learning.