Mentor: Joyce Fernandes, Ph.D.

Having taken the 200-level course, Introduction to Cell Biology, three students worked with the instructor the following semester to assist with review sessions. The undergraduate associates (UAs) met once a week with the instructor to review weekly instruction and plan the scope of weekly review sessions. The UAs were involved in a study to document the learning of basic concepts in gene expression, and completed a human subjects training for this purpose. In-class worksheets with prompts provided by the instructor were analyzed for students undestanding of the meaning of gene expression. Three sets of workseets deployed in succession over a 3 week period were analyzed. Understanding of the material was scored on a 3 point scale. 1=Low [needs a lot of work]; 2= has basic understanding; 3= Gets it. For the meaning of gene expression, the average score was 1.82 (SEM =0.26) on the first attempt. On the third attempt, the average score was 2.43 (SEM=0.65), indicating a trend toward improvement in understanding. Two tailed T-test assuming equal variance between the two attempts was 0.07, indicating that there is not a significant difference, and that more data points may be necessary. Sample size was 11-15. In a survey, students were asked to identify what they could do better during in-class instruction. 50% indicated that they needed to pay more attention, be engaged and ask questions. The rest identified taking good notes (32%) and preparing themselves ahead of time so that they could take better notes.

Explore the Project