Using active learning methodologies in large-enrollment lecture classes to improve student performance: The experiment continues

Background/Question/Methods As student enrollment in many public universities continues to rise across the country, biology instructors are faced with increasing class sizes. In large classes (≥100 students) the ability to actively engage students becomes increasingly difficult, which can negatively impact student learning, skills development, and knowledge retention. These difficulties are greatest for first year college students and may impede future progress in upper-level biology courses. We have designed an introductory biology course that creates a dynamic and interactive setting for students to learn biology concepts in large lecture halls (570 students in our setting). We strive to incorporate concepts important in 21st century biology and use real world examples to engage students and build essential skill sets. Since implementation of this course in Fall 2006, we are now able to follow cohorts of students who have taken this course and monitor their performance in their next sequence of required undergraduate biology classes and laboratories. We are interested in whether participation in our course has impacted student performance in higher level biology courses; in particular, we are interested in (1) whether the hands-on group activities in our course has adequately prepared them for working in laboratories and (2) whether our goals of increasing critical thinking, writing and teamwork skills carry over into the next level of biology classes. We follow two cohorts of students who have taken our course to compare performance levels in their next sequence of undergraduate biology courses. We also compare these cohorts to the performance levels of students who did not take our course but follow the same sequence of undergraduate biology courses. Results/Conclusions Empirically, we have found incorporating both active learning techniques and innovative technologies into a large lecture hall setting increases student attendance and participation, thereby playing an important role in their engagement and performance in meeting course objectives. Early test outcomes show there are differences in performance level (i.e., exams, group work and individual work) between students who have taken our course versus those who have not. We are encouraged by preliminary results that participation in an active learning environment can increase the skill set needed for future courses that depend on group work, problem solving and communication (e.g., laboratories). Results of this study will help us to develop new ways to stimulate critical thinking about topics of vital importance to society.