Cues Matter: Learning Assistants Influence Introductory Biology Student Interactions during Clicker-Question Discussions

Abstract

Recordings of introductory biology student discussions of clicker questions demonstrate that students use reasoning and questioning in their discussions and that their use of these discussion characteristics is heavily influenced by the cues they hear from learning assistants during discussions.

Group Random Call Can Positively Affect Student In-Class Clicker Discussions

“…, 2013, 2015). These similarities suggest that the experimental approach and the coding schemes developed can reliably capture student interactions during clicker discussions in biology courses.…”

“…Even if students have reasoned through different ideas and have a better understanding of the concepts they discussed, they may still fail to vote for the correct answer, as has been shown in previous studies (Knight et al. , 2013, 2015). If credit for clicker-question responses depends on correctness, this higher level of accountability might affect clicker performance overall, although not necessarily differently in the two conditions of random and volunteer calling.…”

“…These questions were rated on the Bloom’s taxonomy scale (Anderson and Krathwohl, 2001; Crowe et al. , 2008) by two experts not associated with the study (see also Knight et al. , 2015).…”

“…They are significantly more likely to engage in productive discussions (such as using reasoning to explain their answers and questioning one another) when cued to use this approach (Knight et al. , 2013, 2015). Thus, ample evidence supports the idea that discussing clicker questions is likely to benefit learning.…”

The College Science Learning Cycle: An Instructional Model for Reformed Teaching

“…A) air, B) soil, C) water, D) sunlight.” Answers from my introductory biology students are fairly evenly split across all four answers with “air” being the least commonly chosen answer. Students then must discuss and defend their answers in their groups before I repoll the question (Mazur, 1997; Smith et al ., 2009, 2011; Knight et al ., 2015). Following the second polling, students offer explanations to the whole class for why the right answer is right and the wrong answers are wrong.…”