Table 2. Summary of COPUS observations for 31 undergraduate biology sections.
Classroom activities | abbreviation | mean ± standard deviation of percentage of class time | n sections in which activity occurred |
---|---|---|---|
Student activity | |||
Listening to instructor/taking notes, etc. | S-L | 85.21 ± 12.41 | 31 |
Individual thinking/problem solving | S-Ind | 4.17 ± 6.14 | 16 |
Discuss clicker question in groups of 2 or more | S-CG | 14.07 ± 11.69 | 26 |
Working in groups on worksheet activity | S-WG | 5.27 ± 8.69 | 10 |
Other assigned group activity | S-OG | 15.34 ± 11.75 | 26 |
Any type of student group work | S-GW | 33.20 ± 17.66 | 29 |
Student answering a question | S-AnQ | 26.50 ± 12.41 | 30 |
Student asks question | S-Q | 14.28 ± 9.42 | 30 |
Engaged in whole class discussion | SWC | 1.45 ± 4.35 | 8 |
Making a prediction | S-Prd | 0.04 ± 0.23 | 1 |
Presentation by student(s) | S-P | 0.22 ± 1.20 | 1 |
Test or quiz | S-TQ | NA | 0 |
Waiting | S-W | 1.08 ± 1.88 | 12 |
Other | S-O | 1.96 ± 2.70 | 16 |
Instructor activity | |||
Lecturing | I-Lec | 53.47 ± 23.54 | 31 |
Real-time writing on board, projector, etc. | I-RtW | 14.46 ± 15.80 | 22 |
Follow-up/feedback to entire class | I-FUp | 36.67 ± 17.69 | 30 |
Posing non-clicker question to students (non-rhetorical) | I-PQ | 31.10 ± 14.97 | 30 |
Asking a clicker question | I-CQ | 17.52 ± 12.86 | 27 |
Answering student question with entire class listening | I-AnQ | 15.21 ± 9.10 | 30 |
Moving through class and guiding ongoing student work during active learning task | I-MG | 14.69 ± 10.12 | 28 |
One-on-one extended discussion with one or a few individuals | I-1o1 | 2.01 ± 4.14 | 11 |
Showing a demo, experiment, simulation, video or animation | I-DV | 3.71 ± 4.53 | 21 |
Administration | I-Adm | 6.79 ± 3.56 | 31 |
Waiting | I-W | 3.03 ± 4.29 | 18 |
Other | I-O | 3.15 ± 3.49 | 21 |
Codes that begin with S or I are ‘students doing’ and ‘instructor doing’ codes, respectively. All definitions are from [12], with the exception of student group work (S- GW). Mean percentage of 2-minute intervals were calculated using means per class section. Activities in bold were retained for further analysis.