Peer Sharing Facilitates the Effectof Inquiry-based Projects onScience Learning

-• H U I - M I N C H U N G ,K R I S T I N A JACKSON B E H A N

ABSTRACT

Auibetilk assessment exercises are similar fo rcai-world tasks that would be expected by

a professional. An autherxtic assessment in combination with an inquiry-based kamin^

activity enhanifs sLudenls' learning and rehfarses Ihem ¡or their Juane roles, whcihei

ui Sfit-níisís or ¡is informed cilizens. Over a period of 2 years, we expcrimcnifd ivifh

two inquiiy-based projects; one had traditional scientific inquiry characterisiica, and the

other used popular culture ¡is [iie mejium ojinquiry. We found that (Jtiiviiifs ífiül imor-

poratcd group ¡earning maíivtilftí students and sharpened their ubilitics to apply and

communicate their hnowledff^ of science. We also discovered that Incorporating popular

culture provided "Millennial" students with a rcfrtihing view of science learning and

increased their appetites to explore and elaborate on science.

Key Words: Inquiry-based learning; pee

üiithcníiL usscssmcní; project management.

Science education plays an essential role indeveloping the skills thai every student needs toflourish in a 21st-eenlury work force (BSCS 2008).Whether sludenis become scientists, physicians,or business people, their skills in problem solving,data analysis, critical thinking, organization, andcommunication have a direct impact on their suc-cess. We have experienced challenges in designingcourse activities that vv-ill help college siudenisdevelop skills in these domains, Nicclette andMerriman (2007) analyzed learning preferencesamong ihe "Millennials" {students bom between " "1982 and 2003) and found that ihey prefer a

collaborative, fun, yet structured learning environment and like to usetechnology as a tool to accomplish a learning task. Millennial studentstend 10 be less patient and have shorter attention spans. As a result, these

Activities that

incorporated group

¡earning motivated

students and. sharpened

their abihties to apply

and conimunicate their

knowledge of science.

students often encounter extra challenges in the conventional collegescience classroom. Our fear is ihat ihey may lose interest in learningscience.

The National Science Education Statidards for K-12 (NationalResearch Council, 1996) stress inquiry-based science education and theroles of assessment in science reform. Authentic assessment exercises aresimilar to real-world tasks that would be expected by a professional. Anauthentic assessment rehearses students for their future roles, whether asscientists or informed citizens. Ideally students will become self-directedlearners, capable of reflection and self-criiique and able to give constructivecriticism to others. This requires faculty to behave as coaches, to provide

framework for learning, feedback, and opportu-nity for revision. Students should be involved inimproving the assessment, and their input can becollected by survey (Seymour et al., 2009).

Inquiry-based learning is effective in shapingstudents' abilities to think critically and apply theirknowledge. The approach is based on "5 Es":engagement, exploration, explanation, elaboration,and evaluation (Bybee. 2006), Two elements that wechose to reform in our course were (1) an authenticassessment in science using an inquiry-basedlearning activity and (2) peer sharing of work. Peersharing and peer review develop active communica-tion and management skills and increase feedback.

Over a period of 2 years, we experimentedwith two inquiry-based projects, one featuring

traditional scientific inquiry and the other using popular culture as themedium of inquiry. We executed these two projects in three formats(paper writing, poster presentation, and oral presentation) that were

Table 1. Project descriptions and scope of peer sharing.

Format

Individual written report

Group poster

Grouperai presentation

Project Type

Scientific proposal

Scientific proposal

Science in pop culture

Type ofPerformance

Written report

Poster exhibition

Oral presentation

Individualor GroupPerformance

individual

Group

Group

Scope of PeerAppreciation

2 students

Entire ciass

Entire class

StudentsParticipatein Grading

No

Yes

Yes

The American Biology Teacher, Vol. 72, No. I, pages 2t-29. ISSN 0002-7685, electronic ISSN 1938-4211. ©2010 by National Associalion of Biology Teachers. All righls reserved.Request permission to photocopy or reproduce article content at the University of California Press's Rights and Permissions Web site at luww.ucpressjournals.com/reprintinfo.asp.DOI; 10.1525/abt,2010,72,l,7

THE AMERICAN BIOtOGY TEACHER VOtUME 72, NO, 1, JANUARY 2010

combined with various degrees of peer sharing. A summary of the proj*ects is given in Table i. We included these projects in the Genetics courseat the University of West Florida, a core course for Biology majors. Eachformal has its benefits and drawbacks. We found that acti\'ities thai incor-porated group learning motivated students and sharpened their abilitieslo apply and communicate their knowledge of science. We also discov-ered that incorporating popular culture pm\'ided Millennial students witha refreshing view of science learning and increased their appetites forexploring and elaborating on science. We concluded that use of authenticassessments with peer sharing and inquiry-based small-group activitiesimproved college students' science learning.

O Project Descriptions & ReflectionsProject 1: The Traditional Approachhi our hrst project (spnng 200ö LO spring 2007), we asked the students todevelop a scientific proposal based on a human genetic disease, either inves-tigating an unknown aspect of the disease or promoting public awarenessof the disease and its related treatment Proposab were written indi\'iduallyas papers or in groups as poster displays; both are authentic assessments,given that they are frequently used in forma! scientific presentation.

In the first round, in spring 2006, the student output was a sci-entific paper. The writing went through several steps of improvement.

Figure 1 . Rubrics for (a) written assignment with peer review,(b) poster production, and (c) oral presentation.(ii) Ruhrk Tnr tvriiitn proposal, scored by instructor and peer revicvvrrs: Each orthe tiilbnin^ I'li'itienls should be (¡ivcn a score Troin (I t« 3 (0 = the i^temcni v«a$ notaddressed. I = Ihe isüuc was addressed in a superficial way: there are signitieantprohltmis wilh liarily. accuracy, or completeness. 2 = the issue was addressed, butMimi' elements are untleur or inadequatety addressed. 3 = Ihe author has completelyund tliiirou^hlir addressed the issue.)

Score (0-3) Eletnent

Infonnation about ihc riisc:i>¡cLogic & organisai ion oliln; inirmluciionComplelenessÄ breadth of ihc literature reviewedClear slattmtnl iif ihe research involved in theproposed aetiviiyMelhod or the proposed activityPredicted resultsDiscussionQualitv of writing: Is the paper understandable?Quality of writing: Are there lots of typos &ff,Tammai mistakes?ReferencesOverall impression of the paperOthers

C ommcnts forImprovement

(h) Rubric for poster presentation

Criteria

Is the backgt^und information sufficient & logically displayed? (0-20points)Are the ptifpose & method of the proposed activity clearly stated? (0-20points)Is the predicted result carefully discussed? (0-15 points)Is the project inlerestinf; & sipnificant.' ((I- 1 s points)1 - l l i c i > o > . i i - r i l i s p l . H M ^ i i i i l l v i - l t \ u 1^: ' . • \ ] V L ' S « I V O ' ' I U - If^ p o i n t s )

K i l k i r i U i i i n L U i o i i L O I l i j i l t l i ' A : ^ ' a s v \ o i . > l l o \ v ' ' | ( l 1 > f i i u i i t s )

{ i>L : i l i H i i i l i s

Points

(c) Rubric for orsl presentation of the group project

CriteriaPiK's the presentation give a goiul analysis of the scientific accuracy &completeness ofthc film? (0 25 points)l)oL-s the presentation yive a good analysis of the scopeVdepth of theSL'ifjitirn: t op i c in the Him. ' |(l -II p o i n t s )

Do (lif prt•SL• ltt• g¡ c :i uuoil discussion of the originality of the film?(O-1^ | in i i i ls)

U ilif |irvM'iiuiinni ivoll •.•iiiMued? (t)-l5 points)Is thi; preseniätLon dutie in a good manner? (O-IO points)Does the Rfoup answer questiotis well? fO-15 points)Total

Points

Every student submitted a first draft, which was commented on by theinstructor and anonymously revievi'ed by two fellow students using acommon rubric (see Figure lA). The rubric provided the framework ofthe instructors expectations for success. The students were expected lorevise their drafts to accommodate suggestions before submitting theirfinal drafts. Only the final draft was graded. The peer review processgave each student the opportunity to improve his or her writing andto assess the quality of the work of two other students. Relleciion andcomparison of an individual's own work with that of other students isexpected to improve the individual's output.

In the following two semesters (fall 2006 and spring 2007), the stu-dents worked in small groups to create the proposal but presented it on apublicly displayed poster. The students chose their own group members,and each group consisted of two to four students. In addition to devel-oping a proposal, the group had lo develop an aestheiically pleasing andcontent-rich poster to display their work. The scope of the peer sharingincreased to include the entire class, as students participated as presenters,audience, and jurors at the poster exhibition. Figure 2 shows two studentsdiscussing a poster from that session. Infonnation about many geneticdisorders were shared during those sessions, including breast cancer,Tay Sachs Disease, alcoholism, color blindness, and Crl du Chai, amongothers. Each poster discussed background information about the disease,including symptoms, genetic inheritance, and testing for the disorder.The proposed activity and its significance were awarded more points ihanthe background information (Figure 1 Bl. Examples of proposed activitiesinclude raising public awareness of the disease and of how prenatal testingcan improve the quality of life of the fetus in certain conditions.

Before the poster session, each group submitted an outline to theinstructor and was given guidance for improvemeni. During the posterexhibuion, all students evaluaiiid all pasters, except their own, usmg therubric (.see Figure IB) provided by the instructor. The instructor andguest faculty evaluated all posters using the same rubric. The studentsvoted for their favorite poster, and the faculty voted for the poster thatwas the most scientifically intriguing. Because of time constraints, twoposter sessions were required for all the projects to be viewed. Manystudents commented that the second group had a built-in advantage andthat some of the groups made last-minute improvements to their proj-ects. While this seemed unfair lo the students, to the instructors it wasevidence of peer-driven improvement.

Rubrics were made available at the introduction of the project. Stu-dents and instructors used the same rubric during the process of draftingand revising the proposal or presentation. For the poster and the oralpresentation, all students scored all projects except their own.

Figure 2. Poster presentation. One of the authors of the posterexplains the content and significance to a peer reviewer.

ÑG ®THE AMERICAN BIOLOGY TEACHER PEER SHARING

Table 2. Student assessment of learning gains: percentage of students who responded with "helped" or"helped a great deal" to the leading phrase of "How much did this project help your learning?"

Qualifiers

Your ability to envision a project from start to finish

Communicating your ideas to members of your group

Your ability to work effectively with others

Your organizational skills (setting deadlines, foliowing through)

Your ability to critically review someone else's work

Poster Projectn=:28

79%

82%

79%

82%

89%

Film Projectn = 21

67%

86%

81%

81%

76%

Sharing, Communication, & Setf-SatisfactionSLudcins who pan ici pale LI in ihe wriuen projeul, ihe smaller peer review,and the first round of the poster sessions seemed to appreciate the pro-cess (informal discussion), bul we did not formally assess the ways inwhich students benefited from this process (communication, organiza-liona! skills, critical thinking, or project management). We addressedthis deficiency by asking students in subsequent semesters lo completea survey on learning gains in the domains of communication, organiza-lional skills, critical thinking, and project management. The results ofihai assessment are shown in Table 2. The students reported thai partici-pation in the poster project improved their abilities to envision a projectfrom siart to finish (79%), to work within a group (79%), to organizethemselves (82%), and to critically review a peer's work (89%). The stu-dents were immersed in group dynamics and were faced with issues suchas learning to coordinate with each other's talents and shortcomings,communicating even in disagreement and organizing ihe lime and effortthat are needed lo complete a project. Their enjoyment of being able toaccomplish the project and communicate with their peers about sciencewas so evident during the poster exhibition that the instructor and guestfaculty could sense it. Overall, this group experience transformed thestudents' learning auitude and encouraged the instructor lo continueusing ihe "peer sharing" strategy to design future course assignments.

Project 2: The Pop ApproachScience-fiction movies often reflect how the public perceives science.As scientists, we know that they can be grossly inaccurate. We thoughtan assignment that required analyzing scientific components in science-fiction mo\ies would be attractive lo students and constitute a meansior them to apply their scientific knowledge and critical-thinking abili-ties. Our second inquiry-based project was a group project in whichtwo to four students analyzed a sci-fi movie based on genetics or geneticengineering and made an oral preseniation ihal critiqued its accuracyBefore the presentation dates, the students submitted outlines of theirMS PowerPoint® presentations and were given opportunities to do apractice presentation with the instructor. All students evaluated all pre-sentations, except their own, using a common rubric (see Figure lC)provided by the instructor. As before, the rubric was meant to both guidedevelopment of the project and evaluate its success. The instructor andguest faculty also assessed all presentations using the same rubric. Alter-natively, students could use their imagination and knowledge to create ashort film centered on a pariicular aspect of genetics research. In the fall2007 semester, we had 11 presentations: 10 film critiques and 1 sludent-made animation video. Nine of the 10 critiques looked at the sciencein movies such asjuiassic Park. Gattaca. and The Island: the other cri-tique discussed ihe documentary film journey of Man. The student-madeanimation video. The Honor from Bdow. was laier posted io YouTube(Germnerd83etal.,2007).

Most of the students found this "science in pop" project espe-cially appealing. They pulled together multimedia presentations that

challenged the instructor to keep up. Most of the groups showed videoclips of the movies, especially of scenes that had subtle or not-so-subtleerrors. Several students said in their presentations that they had founda new outlet for using their knowledge (not just studying for an exam).Students who did this pop-Ilavored science project reponed that theylearned a great deal from their peers. They enjoyed having brainstormmoments with peers, they appreciated each group member's talent, andthey learned to coordinate v ith each other's working style. In their ownassessment of learning gains from the film project, the students reportedimprovement in project management, communication, organizadonalskills, and critical peer review (Table 2).

The students were polled on their preferences among ihe types olauthentic assessment: written paper, poster presenLition, film critique, andgroup or individual project. Almost all favored having a group praject inthe course assignments, and 76% favored the "science in pop" type of grouppmjeci over the project on making scientific proposals (see Figure 3A).

Weighing Group Projects in Course PerformanceWe were curious whether students prelcrred group pro|ects lo theconventional assessments of their learning in a content-based course.The Genetics course is a 3000-level course that traditionally uses threeexams and four or five quizzes to assess students' course performance.Figure 3B shows that the majority of students in spring 2007 ratedwrilten exams and poster design as very good to excellent means ofassessing their learnmg - and that research papers did not get a sim-ilar rating. These opinions were echoed by students in fall 2007 whodid the "science in pop" group project. This group was polled on thevalue of differem methods for assessing performance. All the studentspreferred inclusion of a group project in the overall assessmenl of thecourse, and 90% oí' them preferred to have exams and quizzes as well(see Figure 3C). This result suggests that while students valued havingtheir performance assessed by diverse means, ihal did not diminishtheir preference lor exams as a form of assessment.

In the fall 2006 and spring 2007 semesters, ihe group projects weregraded using boih student and instructor scores. Our rationale for peerinvolvement was to sharpen critical-thinking skills and allow students torate themselves against their peers in self-reflection. Our main concernabout having students evaluate their fellow classmates" performance wasthat the students might be unfair or apply lower standards than instruc-tors. The survey done in the spring 2007 semester indicated that stu-dents too were concerned about having peers as evaluators (see Figure3B); 33% of them fell that a peer critique was frequently a poor or unfairevaluator, 33% felt that it was a good evaluaior, and only 18% feli thatit was excellent. With respect to instructor critique, only 11% of stu-dents felt thai il was frequently a poor or unfair evaluator, 47% felt thaiit was good, and 37% fell that it was frequently an excellent meihod toevaluate learning. This perception of peer review as deficient is similarto the finding of Cho et al. U006). Like those researchers, we found thatin spite of negative student perceptions about the validity of peer review,the peer reviewers" evaluaiions actually agreed well with those of the

THE AMERICAN BIOLOGY TEACHER VOLUME 72, NO. 1. JANUARY 20t0

Figure 3. Student preferences, (a) Proportion of students showing preference for methodof assessment. These are responses to the question "If you favor a group project to evaluateyour performance, which project do you prefer?" (fail 2007, n = 21). (b) Student responsesto the statement "Rate each of the methods of evaluation with respect to its ability to assessyour learning" (spring 2007, n = 28). Bars represent total number of students, (c) Studentresponses to the statement "Evaluate the benefit of a group project as an assessment in thisclass. Is it worthwhile to use a group project to evaluate your performance, and should it beused alone or as an adjunct to exams and quizzes?" (fall 2007, n = 21).

\^y10

5 -

Wrrttenexam

Researchpaper

Posterdesign

Peercritiqueusing arubric

Instructorcritiqueusing ambric

• Written report

• Poster exhibition

a Oral critique of pop culture

n Oral presentation

NA or no responsePoor or unfair

a Good

D Very good to excellent

•Q

No, just exams andquizzesNo, replace withindividual term paper

Use project only with noexams

a

•

Yes, with exams andquizzesYes. with exams & noquizzes

85%

inslruciors. Some studcnls gave insighlful comments in grading theirfellow students' work. The instructors did not observe grade inflation inthe peer re\'iews.

O Using the Assessment to ImproveOur TeachingIn this study, we strove to determine an assessmeni ihat would motivateand improve students' learning of science. Our findings are based on twoinquiry-hiised projecis, one following a conventional scientific inquirytrack and ihc other using pop culture as a pUtfomi. Below are reilectionsof what we learned from this study.

Group learning: An Effective Learning Vehicle forHard & Soft SkillsMurnane and Levy (1996) described the skills that make studentscompetitive, include the hard skills (e.g., the skills of comprehension

and problem solving) and the softskills (e.g., the skills of interactingwiih and persuading others). Aninquiry-based group project seemsto be an especially good tool forbuilding these basic skills. We foundthat group projecis stimulated andincreased opportunities for commu-nication atnong peers. Both studentsand instructors reported that stu-dents' critical-ihinking and commu-nication skills improved. The surveyresults (.Table 2) and informal discus-sion revealed that students felt that -in addition to applying their scientificknowledge - they had improved theirskills for working and communicatingwith people oí different backgroundsto complete group projects. Thus, thestrategy of using a group assignmentin combination with the public pre-sentation format can be a useful toolin course design.

Baby-Stepping the Scope ofthe Project: Less Is MoreThe skills of posing and answering arelevant question based on logical rea-soning and specific methodology areessential for developing a scientificproposal. In the earlier projecis, wefound that students often gave inad-equate consideration lo the logisticsol their scientific hypotheses and tothe details of implementing the pro-posed activities. In addition, a signifi-cant number of projects were related10 public awareness and education,while fewer than 20% were focusedon developing empirical inquiries onunknown aspects of the diseases. Thesefindings suggest that ihe projects weretoo broad in scope, given the students'skill levels and the time constraintsof the semester. Furthermore, sincethe project counted for only 12% of astudent's final grade, there was insuffi-

cient incentive to invest in a thorough proposal. Therefore, we revisedour approach and designed the "science in pop" project, limiting ourfocus to improving students' skills in data analysis (in our study, thedata were the content of their chosen films), critical thinking, andcommunication.

Although the students who worked on the smaller projects of filmcritique did not thoroughly master critical-thinking skills (as evidencedby their presentations), they nevertheless seemed better able to applytheir knowledge with specifics in assessing the accuracy of the sciencedepicted in ihe films. This suggests that working on small projects thattarget training of particular sets of skills one at a time may be a betterstrategy than assigning a large-scale project. In other words, to be effec-tive, an instructor would be better off identif)ang only one or two par-ticular training skills as the goal of the assessment when designing aninquiry-based group project. This finding is similar to that of Wilke andStraits (2005). who also determined a benefit of focusing on a smallnumber of science process skills at a time.

THE AMERICAN BIOLOGY TEACHER PEER SHARING

Building Ties with Students'Learning Preferences:Teaching the MillennialsWe observed thai students welcomed our unconventional approachof using pop culture as a podium for exercising their crilical-thinkingskills. We think that this approach is particularly useful for leachingtoday's college students, many of whom are pan of the Millennialgeneration. As noted above, the Millennials are loosely defined as thegeneration of students who were born roughly between 1982 and2003 CHowe & Strauss, 2000V They are sometimes called the "netgeneration" because they grew up using computer technology and arevery comfortable with it. Characteristics of this cohort of students arethat they are team oriented, confident, structured, and technologicallysavvy; u-ork well together in groups; and like a customized, flexible,fun class (Howe & Strauss, 2000; Nicollete &r Merriman, 2007), Thatanalysis seems consistent with what we found in our study Our surveysshowed that the students overwhelmingly preferred to have a groupassignment that utilized technology, like doing a PowerPoint® presen-tation, which suggests a correlation between the project preferenceand the Millennial students' learning styles. In our fall 2007 Geneticsclass, 83% of the students were Millennials, with an average age of 24and a median age of 22. When we surveyed the class regarding theirproject preference, we found that 95% favored a group project, 81%favored an oral presentation format, and 76% preferred the project oncritiquing pop culture (see Figure 3A).

Although the concept of ihe traditional student who enters collegedirectly after high school does not accurately represent all of our stu-dents, we think that addressing the learning preferences of the Millennialstudents is extremely beneficial; the approach of using pop culture inour project is just one example. Notably, The Chronide of Higher Edu-cation recently reponed that more faculty are using the Internet as alearning platform to accommodate the contemporary' college student'spreferences. YouTube has gained popularity with faculty and studentsas a medium for designing and recording teaching material, and someprofessors also encourage activities such as blogging or writing a wikipage (Young, 2008).

The Instructor's Role in Monitoring Projects:As FacilitatorA major advantage of hax'ing students work together in a group-inquiry-based project is that it helps students learn from themselves and fromeach other. In other words, it helps them develop into self-learners. Theinstructor's role here is to facilitate students as they develop their exper-tise in critical thinking, and not to over-instruct. The instructor providesguideUnes and technical specifications for framing and presenting thework, tn practice, this role means spelling oui expectations of success inrubrics and giving timely feedback as projects progress. In addition, theinstructor should have a well-thought-out plan, whether for poster exhi-bition or oral presentations, to facilitate an efficient process. This planshould attend to details such as estimating how many poster boards andeasels are needed, how to arrange the audio and video equipment, andhow much time to allot to set-up and delivery of the projects. Sugges-tions for which sciencc-fiftion films to use, wbat to critique, and whattechniques to use are helpful. Although we would like for alî studentsto accomplish their projects successfully, one should expect to see het-erogeneity in students' performance as a whole when they present tbeirproject outcomes. Not every student will master critical thinking andcommunication within this short period, and we can all learn by makingmistakes. Recxamining guidelines and revising the grading rubrics peri-odically is helpful to ensure higher degrees of student success. It wouldbe ver>' beneficial, in addition to student surveys and informal discus-sions, to dedicate one class period after the project evaluation to openlydiscuss the students" project performance and what they should do toimprove their work.

Standards for Education & AssessmentThe projects that we have described are consistent with the emphasisthat the National Science Education Standards place on encouragingstudents to become self-learners. Teaching Standard A is to "Selectscience content and adapt and design curricula to meet the interests,knowledge, understanding, abilities, and experiences of students." Inour study, students selected a topic or film of their own interest andworked within a group to develop the project. Teaching Standard Epromotes allowing students to "have a significant voice in decisionsabout the content and context of their work." Not only did the stu-dents in our study select their own topics; their assessment of learninggains and preferences held significant weight in reWsing and retainingthe project as a component in the course. The use of authentic assess-ments, described in Assessment Standard C, was addressed in a tradi-tional manner with the written and poster presentation of a scientificproposal format. The pop-culture format engaged the students inapplying critical-thinking skills to look for inconsistencies not onlyin their own and their peers' work, but also in the media. This skillwill remain with them whether they stay in science or not. The use ofa variety of inquiry-based projects allowed us to evaluate these assess-ments to improve our own teaching as well. The Standards state thatthe outcome of a successful assessment is when students use scientificinquiry, explain the content orally or in writing, and use a teacher'sstandards to critique their own and other students' work. This projectused a dynamic approach, with planning, coordination, instructor pre-view and input, and public display of the product with peer review toaccomplish that outcome.

Implementation & Dissemination: Tips forYour CourseScience education reform is a national and multi-tiered process, andK-12 schools and universities are partners in improvement. Reform atboth levels of instruction can be initiated less expensively by changingthe teaching and assessments in existing courses than by offering new-courses that require new infrastructure. The types of group projects inour study could be easily modified and implemented in other sciencecourses without making too much change in the existing curriculum.A few key issues of planning and adopting such projects should beconsidered:

• Keep tbe project small, allowing students to develop a few criticalskills at a time.

• Make connections to media that are familiar to students, like sci-ence-fiction films, TV dramas such as CSl and X-Fifes, or newsstories.

• Plan ahead according to the resources and budget in the depart-ment, and consider the time that the Instructor can allocate tomonitor the project.

• Provide detailed guidelines to students at the beginning of thesemester, and provide rubrics that define the expectations forsuccess.

• Keep a fair balance between the time and effort needed for stu-dents to accomplish the project and tbat needed for other classassignments.

" Use discussion and surveys to assess and improve the effectivenessof tbe project.

• Collaborate with other faculty members to help brainstorm andallocate work loads for monitoring the projects and designing andanalyzing the survey data.

In summary, small inquiry-based group projects appear to be goodfacilitators of students" science learning. Group projects provide an

THE AMERICAN BIOLOGY TEACHER VOLUME 72, NO. 1, JANUARY 2010

adjunct to conveniional written tests for evaluating students' courseperformance. They can provide authentic assessment, so that studentsadvance their understanding of science by tying it to real-world experi-ences. Peer sharing within and outside the group improves the process.The tools thai are introduced and reinforced go beyond scientific content•md will be part of their skill sei in their future professional lives.

O AcknowledgmentsWe thank the students ofthe Genetics class in the semesters of spring 2006,fall 2006, spring 2007, and fall 2007 for their panicipation. We are gratefulto Drs, Pamela Tanner, Claudia Stanny, Eman El-Sheikh, and Maria Darcyfor their comments. This work was made possible by a Quality Enhance-ment Project award through the University of West Florida (UWF) in 2005and was approved by the Institutional Rmew Board at UWE

ReferencesB5CS, (2008). 5den//sis in Science Education. Colorado Springs, CO; 8SCS.

Available online at http://www.se ience.educat i on,ni h,gov/sise.

Bybee, R.W, (2ÛÛ6). Enhancing science teaching and student learning: a BSCS per-spective. In Research Conference 2006 (p. 12-20). Colorado Springs, CO: BSCS.

Cho, K., Schunn, CD. & Wilson, R.W. (2006). Validity and reliability of scaffoldedpeer assessment of writing from instructor and sludent perspectives,of Educalional Psychology. 98,891-901.

Germnerd83 et al. (2007). The Horror from Below. Available online athttp;//www,youtube.com/watch?v=-pGt30lhHSY,

Howe, N. & Strauss, W. (2000). Millennials Risins: The Next Great Generation. NY:

Vintage.

Murnane, UJ, & levy, F, (1996). Teacbinj the Weui fiasic Skills: Principies for

EducatinS Children to Thrive in a C/ianging Economy. NY: Free Press.

National Research Council. (1996). National Science Education Standards.

Washington. DC: National Academy Press.

Nicoletle, A. & Merriman, W. (2007). Teaching Millennial Generation Students,

Momentum. 38 [2). 28-31.

Seymour, E., Wiese, D„ Hunter, A.-B. & Dafñnrud, S. (2009).Classroom AssessmentTechniques Student Assessment of Learning Gains, Available online at

http://www.flaguide.org/cat/salg/salgl.php.

Wilke, R.R. & Straits, W.J. (2005). Practical advice for teaching inquiry-cased

science process skills in the biological sciences. American Biolo¡y Teacher,67, SSt-SHO.

Young, JR. (2008). Why professors ought to teach blogging and podcasting.Chronicle of Higher Education. April 11. Available online at http://chronicle.com/weekly/v5H/i31/31a02202,titm,

HUI-MIN-CHUNG is Associate Professor of Biology at the University of West Florida,11000 University Parkway, Pensacola FL 32514; e-mail: hchung@uwf.edu. KRtSTINAJACKSON BEHAN is Associate Professorof Biology and Director of Clinical Labora-tory Sciences Program at the University of West Florida, 11000 tJniversity Parkway,Pensacola FL 32514; e-mail: kbehan@uwf.edu.

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