How to Classify Your Dragons

Schramm, Thilo; Jose, Anika; Schmiemann, Philipp

doi:10.1525/abt.2022.84.5.308

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 10 publications

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“…Hence, we changed the character tables. We replaced all names and characters (so that the emerging tree would be isomorph to the trees of Schramm et al 2021) based on the local legends of the Elwedritsche and Wolpertinger-both fantastical creatures-to eliminate the influence of previous knowledge and place a stronger focus on the tree-building (Schmiemann et al 2017;Schramm et al 2022).…”

Section: Participants Methodology and Interviewsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Building trees by juggling information and following rules: an expert interview study on tree-building and phylogenetic inference

Tyrrell,

Schmiemann

2024

Evo Edu Outreach

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Tree-thinking is a fundamental skill set for understanding evolutionary theory and, thus, part of biological and scientific literacy. Research on this topic is mostly directed towards tree-reading—the umbrella-term for all skills enabling a person to gather and infer information from a given tree. Tree-building or phylogenetic inference as the second complementary sub-skill-set, encompassing all skills which enable a person to build a phylogenetic tree from given data, is not understood as well. To understand this topic we conducted think-aloud-tasks with tree-building experts and conducted supplementary guided interviews with them. We used school-like character tables, as they are common in high schools for the experts to build trees and audio-recorded their speech while building the trees. Analyzing the transcripts of the tasks we could find a basic methodology for building trees and define a set of backbone-skills of tree-building. Those are based on an iterative cycle going through phases of organizing information, searching and setting taxa/characters, organizing and checking oneself. All experts used simple guidelines, either deploying maximum parsimony to arrive at a solution or relying heavily on their previous knowledge. From that, we were able to utilize our result to formulate a guideline and helpful suggestions especially for beginners and novices in the field of tree-building to develop a better understanding of this topic.

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Section: Participants Methodology and Interviewsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Building trees by juggling information and following rules: an expert interview study on tree-building and phylogenetic inference

Tyrrell,

Schmiemann

2024

Evo Edu Outreach

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

A Comparison of Measured Outcomes across Tree-Thinking Interventions

Daniel,

Ferguson,

Leone

et al. 2024

The American Biology Teacher

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Phylogenetic tree diagrams are commonly found in introductory biology curricula and represent the evolutionary relationships of organisms. Tree-thinking, or the ability to accurately interpret, use, and generate these phylogenetic representations, involves a challenging set of skills for students to learn. Although many introductory biology courses incorporate tree-thinking instruction, few studies have identified which instructional methods provide the best learning gains for students. We gathered data from 884 introductory biology students using the Basic Evolutionary Tree-Thinking Skills Inventory (BETTSI) to measure tree-thinking learning gains. We measured tree-thinking differences across five sections of introductory biology, each offering a different instructional intervention, and compared differences among STEM majors and non-STEM majors. After calculating paired differences, we performed a two-way repeated measure analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Scheffe’s post hoc test to identify significant differences among and between the different interventions. We found that students who engaged in active tree-thinking instruction had significantly higher tree-thinking learning gains than students who participated in passive or no instruction. Furthermore, these learning gains became even more significant as active-learning became more multifaceted. These active-learning approaches also removed knowledge gaps between STEM majors and non-majors. Instructors must select explicit and active pedagogical approaches to support student tree-thinking to accomplish positive learning gains for all students.

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How to Classify Your Dragons

Cited by 2 publications

References 10 publications

Building trees by juggling information and following rules: an expert interview study on tree-building and phylogenetic inference

Building trees by juggling information and following rules: an expert interview study on tree-building and phylogenetic inference

A Comparison of Measured Outcomes across Tree-Thinking Interventions

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