Pedagogical Innovations Journal Club was created to help busy instructors from across disciplines keep up with some of the latest innovations, ideas, and research published in pedagogical journals. Each month’s discussion focuses on a recently-published, teaching- or learning-related article. The open forum provides opportunities for participants to discuss the practical implications of the research findings with other. Each session begins with a brief synopsis of that month’s featured reading. You do not have to read the article to benefit from participation.
Join the Google Group to receive updates, articles, and meeting reminders.
Upcoming Events
The Fall 2024 Pedagogical Innovations Journal Club will highlight research on a variety of timely topics: the benefits of group work for student performance, how students cope with anxiety from active learning, and the effectiveness of metacognitive exam preparation strategies for underprepared students. Journal Club sessions will focus on the research findings themselves, as well as on how these findings could be applied to your teaching. In the discussion, you will have the opportunity to benefit from the insight and experiences of your peers.
Register for each session you wish to attend through Training Hub where you will also find a link to the article.
Note: You do not have to read the articles to benefit from attending the Journal Club.
- Friday, September 20, 1 - 2pm - Group work enhances student performance in biology: A meta-analysis
Driessen, Emily P., et al. 2024. “Group work enhances student performance in biology: A meta-analysis.” BioScience 0, 1–11.
We conducted a meta-analysis to test the impacts of one active learning teaching strategy, group work, on student performance by calculating estimates across 91 studies from 53 articles. Our overall estimate indicates that the implementation of group work in biology classrooms increased student performance by 1.00 standard deviation, which we contextualized as a change greater than one letter grade. Moderator analyses revealed that this increase in performance held across all group sizes, class sizes, biology and life science majors and nonmajors, and whether the groups were assigned by the instructor.
- Tuesday, October 15, 10 - 11am - How do undergraduates cope with anxiety resulting from active learning practices in introductory biology?
Brigati, J. R., England, B. J., & Schussler, E. E. (2020). How do undergraduates cope with anxiety resulting from active learning practices in introductory biology?. PloS one, 15(8), e0236558.
Active learning pedagogical techniques are known to be effective in improving student learning outcomes, but many students experience anxiety when these approaches are used in the classroom. The authors of this article describe a study of the coping mechanisms used by undergraduates in response to this anxiety. Some of these mechanisms are more constructive than others, yielding a clear pedagogical message for instructors.
- Wednesday, November 20, 12pm - 1pm - Metacognitive Exam Preparation Assignments in an Introductory Biology Course Improve Exam Scores for Lower ACT Students Compared with Assignments that Focus on Terms
- Angell, Diane K., Sharon Lane-Getaz, Taylor Okonek, and Stephanie Smith. 2024. “Metacognitive Exam Preparation Assignments in an Introductory Biology Course Improve Exam Scores for Lower ACT Students…” CBE—Life Sciences Education 23 (1).
- Preparing for exams in introductory biology classrooms is a complex metacognitive task. Focusing on lower achieving students (those with entering ACT scores below the median at our institution), we compared the effect of two different assignments distributed ahead of exams by dividing classes in half to receive either terms to define or open-ended metacognitive questions. Completing metacognitive assignments resulted in moderately higher exam scores for students on the second and third exams. Metacognitive assignments also improved accuracy (difference between predicted and actual exam scores) for the second and third exam in lower ACT students, but that improvement was driven largely by higher exam scores in the metacognitive group.
Post-session resources
Presentation components of the sessions will be recorded; recording will be paused for conversation. Recording, slides and resources will be sent to all registrants within two business days following the session.
Accessibility & Accommodation Requests
We strive to host inclusive, accessible events that enable all individuals to engage fully. For inquiries about accessibility or if you’d like to request an accommodation, please email cei@umn.edu at least one week prior to the event (requests for live captioning should be made two weeks prior). We will do our best to accommodate any access requests received after that time.