A Problem-Sorting Task Detects Changes in Undergraduate Biological Expertise over a Single Semester.

Calls for undergraduate biology reform share similar goals: to produce people who can organize, use, connect, and communicate about biological knowledge. Achieving these goals requires students to gain disciplinary expertise. Experts organize, access, and apply disciplinary knowledge differently than novices, and expertise is measurable.

Textbook Increases Learning: Assessment Triangulation Using Concept Inventory, Card Sorting, and MCAT Instruments, Followed by Longitudinal Tracking.

The purpose of this study was to examine the educational impact of an intervention, the inquiry-focused textbook (), when used in a yearlong introductory biology course sequence. Student learning was evaluated using three published instruments: 1) The Biology Concept Inventory probed depth of student mastery of fundamental concepts in organismal and cellular topics when confronting misconceptions as distractors. students had higher gains in all six topic categories (+43% vs.

How to build a course in mathematical-biological modeling: content and processes for knowledge and skill.

Biological problems in the twenty-first century are complex and require mathematical insight, often resulting in mathematical models of biological systems. Building mathematical-biological models requires cooperation among biologists and mathematicians, and mastery of building models. A new course in mathematical modeling presented the opportunity to build both content and process learning of mathematical models, the modeling process, and the cooperative process.