Part IB Plant and Microbial Sciences

Submitted by katyjordan on 13 April 2008 - 4:53pm.

The course teaches an integrated view of Plant and Microbial Sciences, which incorporates molecular, cellular and ecological approaches to the subject. The lectures address current understanding of the relevant processes at the cellular and molecular levels, and explore their relevance to the major issues and ideas which arise from studying plants and microbes in the field. Teaching focuses on plants in their physical environment, on plants and their interactions with microbes, and on plant ecosystems in the Autumn, Spring and Summer Terms respectively. Key concepts are further explored through tutorials, laboratory work and a field course.

Course Information

Course Number/ID:

Second year undergraduate course

Course Length (number of weeks):

Course Delivery Mode:

In-Class

Average Number of Enrolled Students:

Between 30 and 60 students

Course Level:

College

Course Development & Delivery

Course Contributors:

Faculty members responsible for developing and updating online content for the course within Sakai (CamTools): Miss Katy Jordan, Dr. Fran Tracy.
Teaching co-ordinators for the course (senior staff members who co-ordinate all departmental teaching): Dr. Keith Johnstone, Prof. Howard Griffiths.
Faculty members who give lectures on the course (who were consulted about development of online resources for their part of the course): Dr. John Carr, Dr. David Coomes, Dr. Nik Cuniffe, Dr. Julia Davies, Dr. Beverley Glover, Prof. John Gray, Prof. Howard Griffiths, Dr. Julian Hibberd, Dr. Keith Johnstone, Prof. Alison Smith, Dr. Edmund Tanner.

Course Development:

The Department of Plant Sciences teaches undergraduates through lectures, practical classes and small group tutorials. As part of a teaching and learning research initiative called the Plant Sciences Pedagogy Project (see http://www.tfln.org), we sought to develop Sakai-based online resources (known at Cambridge as ‘Camtools’) to support the second year ‘Part IB Plant and Microbial Sciences’ (IB PMS) course.
The core content and goals of the course were already defined by the Department at the start of the project. The main mode of delivering course content is lectures. To support this, we developed a CamTools site to enhance student learning outside contact teaching hours and act synergistically with lectures and tutorials. An evidence-based approach was adopted to inform and direct development.
Initially, a literature review focused on recent projects in the UK Higher Education sector. This informed the creation of items in a dual-scale questionnaire, where each question was a ‘stimulus statement’ related to a particular type of teaching practice, and students rated each in terms of how frequently it occurred and how valuable they perceived it to be. Students were also invited to participate in focus groups. We interviewed faculty members who taught on the course both about their opinions and beliefs about teaching practices, and also about specific content of their course to identify the concepts students typically found difficult.
From this evidence base we built up a framework to develop the teaching and learning strategy for students on the course. The first four elements were concerned with teaching and learning practices:
• Making Learning Explicit: Sharing learning objectives and success criteria.
• Motivation, Engagement and Contingency: Teachers encouraging and engaging with student learning.
• Authentic Learning: Teaching with 'real-life' examples.
• Student Self-Regulation and Independence: Encouraging student responsibility for their own learning.
The final two elements were more concerned with department and institutional activities:
• Constructive Alignment, Synthesis and Throughlines: the alignment of learning activities, assessment processes and student priorities.
• Transparency and Accountability: Extension of the organisational level of the framework, e.g. the application of standards.

Course Delivery:

In the site, each lecture handout is located on a page in the wiki, with links to specific resources and files associated with the topic, including a handout pdf and lecture slides. Enlargeable high-resolution versions of handout pictures and definitions of specialist vocabulary are embedded in the wiki pages. Links are made between different lecture topics to make the course structure more explicit. Links to other websites and real world examples of Plant Sciences are integrated into the notes, and students can search their lecture notes as they would do the internet. Thus the wiki tool has proved invaluable for easy conversion of lecture notes from a collection of static pdf files to a dynamic network of information and learning resources.
Although the main Sakai tool used is the wiki (renamed to ‘Course resources’), we have also used a number of different Sakai tools. Sakai has proved to be extremely flexible, allowing the resources and information to be presented using a combination of tools in the same location. The ‘Syllabus’ tool is used for key information about the course content, structure and assessment, uniting sources from the Department and University. The ‘Schedule’ holds timetabling information for the entire course, including lectures, practical classes and seminars. We use ‘Announcements’ for messages from teaching staff for various reasons – e.g. about deadlines, new resources or unanticipated timetable changes. This was particularly useful in comparison to sending out an email because students could locate all past and present announcements within the site. The ‘Roster’ provides contact information for all members of the site – students, teaching staff and administrators – so when students needed to contact anyone for any reason, they were able to get in touch. We used the ‘Site stats’ tool (although it is only visible to faculty, not to students) to conduct further research throughout the academic year and inform further development of effective learning resources.
In addition to the Sakai tools, we have also found the CamTools environment amenable to including custom tools (as a ‘Web resource’ tool) which we have developed e.g. an online references library developed using the Exhibit tool from the SIMILE Toolkit (http://simile.mit.edu/) and a 3D molecular viewer based on Jmol (http://jmol.sourceforge.net/).

Course Self-Assessment

Communication & Collaboration Self-Assessment:

Effective

Communication & Collaboration Evidence:

Communication and collaboration associated with the CamTools site mainly occurred when considering improving pedagogy and e-learning within the Department. The project team collaborated with both faculty and students in determining the requirements for and creation of the site. This was supported by using a separate CamTools site for project development. Members of teaching staff also have their own CamTools site, to foster sharing of teaching practices and ideas.
Our research showed that students were already satisfied with the opportunities for collaboration and group work provided by the course. The Cambridge collegiate and tutorial system is already very supportive of face to face collaboration and close-knit work between students. Therefore, collaboration was not prioritised when we developed the CamTools site to support the course.
However, the site did facilitate student collaboration. For example, in a practical class, students researched, prepared and gave a presentation in groups. Part of the ‘Wiki’ was used to hold the background information on the topic, with links to related online journal articles. Students could access this material individually or in groups to assist their assignment.

Learning Material Self-Assessment:

Excellent

Learning Material Evidence:

The visual design of the IB PMS site provides a clear and logical representation of all the course learning material within a simple interface. Each type of learning resource is accessible from anywhere within the site via the left hand menu bar.
The core learning material – lecture handouts, lecture slides, and practical class information – is clearly presented in a highly enhanced format in the wiki tool, organised in a way which mirrors the structure and chronology of the course to allow easy navigation and implicit understanding of the course structure. It also makes explicit links between topics. Supporting learning materials are provided in a variety of formats for students to choose from – e.g. animations, videos, molecular visualization tools and multiple choice questions. For reference, an archive of the Plant Sciences first year lectures is included.
What is required of students to succeed on the course is addressed in the syllabus tool, and made explicit by providing ‘exemplar essays’ to students for each lecture block. Lecture notes are further supported by a customised tool providing a full online searchable reference library with links to all the journal papers cited throughout the course.

Learning Outcomes & Assessment Self-Assessment:

Excellent

Learning Outcomes & Assessment Evidence:

The course goals and outcomes are clearly described in the syllabus tool. The course outcomes include: to develop students’ knowledge of key concepts and current experimental approaches in plant and microbial sciences; to develop students' ability to provide reasoned arguments about current hypotheses in the field; to foster the ability to critically analyse the literature; and to teach students to be able to design, perform and interpret experiments to analyse fundamental aspects of plant sciences.
These outcomes are supported by key tools within the site: the wiki provides Plant Sciences concepts; a tool is dedicated to practical classes and experimental information; and a custom online references tool to facilitate student engagement with critical reviews and Plant Sciences literature.
The course is formally assessed by 3 examination papers at the end of the course. We have integrated examples of exam essays to show a range of different grades into the wiki. When evaluating the impact of the site, we discovered it is of major importance to students when revising for exams – this period saw the heaviest site usage, and in a co-interpretation focus group students often referred to its importance when revising (see attached document 3).

Course Look & Feel, Web Usability Self-Assessment:

Excellent

Course Look & Feel, Web Usability Evidence:

The IB PMS CamTools site has a clearly defined structure. Tools are clearly labelled and navigable from the left menu bar. Most of the course material is held in the wiki tool, which has a logical, hierarchical page structure, based on the different terms of the year and the chronological order of lectures. In focus groups, students reported that they found this structure very easy to use.
Throughout the site, a conscious effort has been made to keep the appearance of different pages and tools as clear, simple and consistent as possible, so as to emphasise and enhance, but not distract from the content to be communicated – see screenshots for examples.
The site uses various different types of media to convey different types of course content, such as video tutorials, narrated or interactive animations, 3D visualisation tools, and podcasts (see attached document 2).
Provision for accessibility issues is built into the site – e.g. students can enhance the appearance of text and backgrounds on the site by using the ‘PreferAble’ tool in their workspace on CamTools, and pictures and figures in the lecture notes wiki can be enlarged.

Learner Support Self-Assessment:

Excellent

Learner Support Evidence:

The IB PMS CamTools course site holds extensive information about both the online and university environment and requirements for this particular course, integrating information previously held in a number of different sites. The background information from the Department about the course structure and content is held in the syllabus, along with crucial information from the central University resources about examinations and assessment. Full timetabling for lectures, practical classes and departmental seminars is held in the schedule, for the whole academic year.
Contact information is clearly presented as appropriate in the site. Email support is provided through the site for both general CamTools usage questions (with the site administrator as a contact) and lecturers teaching each lecture block, whose contact information is integrated into their specific lecture wiki pages. There are also a variety of resources integrated into the site intended to help support students, such as video guides to using the site and specific learning tools, and a frequently asked questions page. These resources are further developed and added to as required in response to student issues.

Teaching Innovation

Teaching Innovation:

The use of Sakai for the IB PMS course represents innovation with regards to the instructional process on two levels: the CamTools site was designed in response to identified student needs, a process which engaged students as co-designers as well as co-interpreters in subsequent evaluation and refinement of the site; and learning can be approached via a variety of novel approaches and materials in the site.
The overarching innovation is the novel presentation of the complete course using various learning resources as a ‘network’ of information, facilitated by the flexibility of the wiki tool. Examples of individual innovations supported by this structure and their relationship to the conceptual framework include:
• Integration of course content: explicit interlinking of related content and the provision of a search tool.
• Making learning explicit: intuitive organization of course materials and provision of exemplar essays.
• Support for difficult concepts: a range of materials including video-explanations, flash animations and links to other web sites.
• Novel representations of learning material: use of concept maps and 3D molecular modeling to facilitate understanding.
• Enhancing learning: use of self tests develops student factual knowledge, freeing tutorial time for deep learning activities.
• An online journal reference library: a searchable reference library develops student exploration of and confidence in the literature.
Since the CamTools site was first introduced to students, we have assessed it via questionnaires, site usage analysis and student focus groups. This has shown that our ‘enhanced’ CamTools site has had a positive impact upon student engagement and learning. Usage data showed that students had engaged with the site and used its learning resources, particularly for exam preparation. This was supported by the questionnaire data; students found the site very useful, but the extent to which they used different types of resources varied, as students chose the resources to use to personalise their learning. We presented usage data to students in a focus group for co-interpretation. It was clear that students do not see the site as a substitute to teaching in lectures, but as an extremely valuable additional resource which aided their learning (see attachment 3).
In recognition of its evidence-based approach, the project won the 2007 BERA Sage award for putting research into practice.