Academic Community Seminar

The authors of this paper aimed to evaluate the effect of cooperative learning in an industrial-sized classroom (>250 students). Based on previous studies, the authors of this paper hypothesized that cooperative learning affords students a comfortable setting to interact and learn with peers; this should help students solidify their understanding of concepts and increase individual participation by making industrial-sized classrooms more personal.

To elucidate the effect of cooperative learning in a large classroom, the study compared two separate introductory biology classes, of which only one would use cooperative learning (treatment group). In the treatment group, 50 groups of 6-8 students were generated randomly during the second week of classes. Students were asked to sit with their respective groups for the remainder of the semester. Over the duration of the course, students participated in cooperative learning by discussing answers to multiple choice questions posed by the instructor, interspersed with lecture material. A single group answer was submitted using clickers and the instructor would display a summary of the responses followed by clarification of any misconceptions. In both the control and treatment groups, students were evaluated on their answers to multiple-choice quizzes, however; only the treatment group retook the test after group discussion.

The treatment and control groups were deemed equivalent before the study using a survey; this considered demographic information, gender, GPA, and exposure to undergraduate science courses. Analysis of the study’s results led the authors to conclude that there was a differential impact between cooperative learning and traditional, lecture-style learning on st...

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...olution to this academic achievement disparity.

I would recommend this paper for future adoption in the BEL, as it is fairly current and has a high impact in the field of education in biology. Though it does not necessarily involve our specific class’ issues or demographic, it illustrates a valuable perspective on learning bias attributed to student background. Additionally, it further proves that active learning is beneficial to student academic achievement, which has already surfaced numerous times in the BEL.

Works Cited

Haak, D. C., Hillerislambers, J., Pitre, E., & Freeman, S. (2011). Increased Structure and Active Learning Reduce the Achievement Gap in Introductory Biology. Science, 332(6034), 1213-1216.

Armstrong, N., Chang, S., & Brickman, M. (2007). Cooperative Learning In Industrial-sized Biology Classes. Cell biology education, 6(2), 163-171.