An Open-Inquiry Assignment for Small and Advanced Undergraduate Science Courses

INTRODUCTION

A critical feature of active learning is student-centered instruction, which considers students as autonomous intellectual agents (1). One of the means by which student-centered learning could be achieved is inquiry-based exercises. They entail components of scientific investigation such as posing scientific questions, designing strategies, and doing experiments (2–4). Putting more emphasis on critical thinking and less on the lecture content, inquiry-based learning has been shown to increase student interest in science and research (5–8).

Small and upper-level courses are conducive to active learning, but didactic teaching is as prevalent in these courses as in medium, lower-level courses (9). To promote student-centered learning in a small, advanced, discussion-based college-level class, an inquiry-based assignment dubbed HERE (Hypothesize, research, and explain) was designed. The structure of HERE is simple; it asks students to generate their own research questions as well as reasonable hypotheses, read scientific papers that have addressed the questions, and present the findings to the class. Through HERE, students demonstrated their interdisciplinary thinking, and the post-course survey responses indicated positive impacts of the assignment on student learning.

PROCEDURE

The HERE assignment was implemented in an advanced molecular biology course with an enrolment of 15 students (Appendix 1). The students had learned how to read primary literature and present lab results in prerequisite courses, but they were not conversant with these skills. HERE was expected to reinforce them.

Appendix 2 illustrates the timeline of the HERE assignment. After the last lecture of each topic, students devised their own research questions related to the lecture material. The instructor of the course met with each presenter to help them prepare for the presentation. Students needed the most help in two particular areas: making a coherent and interesting storyline and forming discussion questions that could engage the audience. During the semester, each student completed two HERE assignments.

The HERE presentation comprises the significance of research questions, background information, findings from research papers, and discussion questions for the audience (Appendix 3). Students’ performance was evaluated based on four criteria: the quality of the HERE question, the logic of the hypothesis, and the content and delivery of the presentation (Appendix 4). In addition to the grade, each student received detailed comments from the instructor and two classmates after the presentation.

CONCLUSION

In the post-course survey, 13 out of 15 students strongly recommended the instructor should assign HERE again in future iterations of the course. In particular, all the students strongly agreed to the following statement, “I liked the fact that I was asked to come up with my own questions and work on them, instead of having the instructor assign questions to me.” This universal response suggests that students highly value the inquiry-based nature of HERE and appreciate the opportunity to follow their own curiosity. Students also reported self-assessed gains in skills such as developing research questions and refining them (Fig. 1), indicating that HERE helped students develop critical scientific skills.

FIGURE 1.

Post-course survey responses. On the last day of class, all the enrolled 15 students participated in the post-course survey (Appendix 5). They reported their self-assessed gains in scientific skills and communication skills. Throughout the semester, each student completed two HERE assignments and evaluated two peers’ presentations.

A common feature of students’ HERE questions was interdisciplinarity (Appendices 3 and 6). Many students wondered how the lecture material was related to the subjects of their own interests such microbiology and immunology, which demonstrates students’ preferences and their ability to apply their knowledge in one area to another. Interdisciplinary approaches are critical in solving complex scientific problems, but most science courses lack interdisciplinary materials or activities (10, 11). Without any cumbersome restructuring of the course content, the current course promoted interdisciplinary learning thanks to HERE. Moreover, a wide range of students’ HERE topics complemented the narrow scope of the advanced course.

HERE also made a positive contribution to the classroom atmosphere. Keeping the HERE assignments in mind, students asked many “how” and “why” questions during the lecture, which helped create an interactive environment. In addition, the instructor could get to know individual students through their HERE presentations.

Another effect of HERE on teaching was that the instructor was compelled to play the role of facilitator of student learning. Brazilian educator Paulo Freire described the importance of teachers and students coming together as equals in his book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed: “The teacher is no longer merely the-one-who-teaches, but one who is himself taught in dialogue with the students, who in turn while being taught also teach. They become jointly responsible for a process in which all grow” (12).

This blurred line between the teacher and the student best describes the classroom during HERE presentations. The topics that students chose for their HERE assignments were diverse and thus often outside of the instructor’s expertise. This condition prodded the instructor to relinquish the role of a “sage on the stage” and become a “guide on the side” (13). She still significantly contributed to student learning, but in different ways; the instructor provided guidance on scientific thinking and communication during one-on-one meetings and showed how scientists think critically by asking questions and commenting on students’ presentations. HERE gave the instructor an opportunity to put the abstract idea of being a facilitator in the classroom into practice and demonstrated that the role of facilitator of student learning is as active and critical as that of the traditional lecturer.

The success of the HERE assignment is contingent upon the size of the class and instructor’s help. Fifteen students seem to be the maximum enrollment to ensure sufficient attention to each presenter as well as the balance between the lecture time and HERE presentations. Moreover, the structure of HERE was so novel that the instructor implemented three support systems: she gave her own HERE presentation as an example at the beginning of the semester, ran some in-class exercises for generating hypotheses, and met with individual students prior to their presentations to provide guidance. Studies have shown that unstructured pedagogical tools could possibly alienate introverted, highly apprehensive individuals and students with less prior knowledge (14–17). Therefore, these vulnerable students could benefit from HERE only when sufficient supports are available.

The HERE assignment is a tool that could help instructors create a learner-centered, inquiry-based learning environment in their small, advanced, and non-lab courses. The study described here demonstrates students’ satisfaction with HERE and the instructor’s positive experience in playing the role of a facilitator. HERE requires little preparation time and its structure is not specific to biology courses. Therefore, HERE could be easily implemented into other science courses.