The Teaching Pentagon: A quantitative, integrative approach to teaching ecology

Background/Question/Methods

In 2005 the Department of Biological Sciences at Florida International University inaugurated the QBIC (Quantifying Biology In the Classroom) program with a selected group of incoming freshmen. The program’s main objectives were, 1) to increase the quantitative aspects of the biology curricula and 2) to implement progressive pedagogical techniques, as suggested by the BIO 2010 report, to increase the competitiveness of our biology graduates for professional schools. To this end, we created an integrative teaching strategy called ‘The Teaching Pentagon’. The Teaching Pentagon is a five-class structure where the biology major’s main lecture class functions as the anchoring class whose curriculum serves as the guide that determines the material and activities taking place in four other complementary classes. The sequence of topics is agreed upon a priori by faculty members and teaching assistants, so that material proceeds in lockstep as the semester goes on. This approach eliminates the artificial barriers often placed between classes like the lecture and lab portions of a particular course, immediately contextualizes the material within a real-world context, and allows for an instant practical demonstration of important concepts.

Results/Conclusions

In this presentation I detail how the Teaching Pentagon is applied to teaching Ecology within the QBIC program at FIU. The five classes that comprise the pentagon at this level are Ecology lecture, Ecology Lab, Journal Club, Statistics II, and Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL). I will use the topic of ‘photosynthesis and respiration’ to demonstrate how this concept is explained in lecture, reinforced with peer-reviewed literature analysis, analyzed through peer discussion, put into practice through guided inquiry, and quantified through statistical analysis of collected data. Since the implementation of the Pentagon, we have seen an increase in reported as well as assessed understanding of the scientific method, better local test scores (compared to a control non-QBIC group), and greater overall engagement in each of the separate classes.