DQC Workshop

1. DQC Workshop Detroit Airport Westin - November 21, 2009 Wright Room, Westin Hotel

2. Agenda MORNING • 0730: Breakfast available (in meeting room) • 0800-0830 Very quick introductions, including ‘New Participants Sound Bites’ - one thing you’d really like to change about Intro. Biology. • 0830-0845 Overview: key project & workshop goals (Charlene) • 0845-1000 DQCs: What they are; Introduction to coding (Teams); Discussion (Andy et al.) • 0945-1000 Break • 1015-1100 DQCs – Background, Research findings, Discussion of how they can be used (includes research; Andy et al.) • 1100-1145 Ecology faculty: What they learned, What was surprising, Long-term advantages of the DQC project. Panel, posters, discussion • 1145-1215 LUNCH (provided)

3. Agenda AFTERNOON • 1215-115 Using DQCs as formative tools with active teaching; Backwards design approach (Charlene, Alan, April) – Introduction & Teams • 115-145 Using the website (Alan and Ecology Faculty) • 145-200 Break • 200-215 Ideas about using the DQC project as the basis for SoTL (all) • 215-245 Teams: What’s not clear and questions – followed by discussion • 245-330 Teams work on plans – followed by quick report out • 330-400 Evaluation (Nancy Pelaez)

4. Introductions • Very quick introductions, including ‘New Participants Sound Bites’ - one thing you’d really like to change about Intro. Biology.

5. Brief overview of DQC project • Funded by 2 CCLI grants from NSF • Key component is integration of education research on the DQCs and faculty development on use of DQCs in the classroom. Faculty are involved in this research. • Our first grant focused on ecology faculty – from community and 4 year colleges and universities. We wanted to see how faculty from a broad range of institutions use the DQCs. • For this second grant, all faculty are using the questions in Introductory Biology. You are also represent several sub-disciplines of biology.

6. Why “Questions”? • For me, one key motivation was use of the FCI (Force Concept Inventory) in physics. It seemed to be useful in helping faculty focus more on key concepts - because by using the FCI as a pre-test, faculty saw the many, very basic things their students did not understand. • Key question therefore – does use of the DQCs and associated active learning strategies truly change faculty’s teaching of Intro Bio – and how they think about teaching and learning of biology? • We also asked “What Does it Take” for faculty to effectively incorporate use the DQCs into their teaching? Also, what does that “look like”? • From the first project we learned - that incorporation of the questions/pedagogy into faculty’s courses was slower than we had anticipated. Also, presenting work in a poster session with other faculty in the project was a great motivator. Interestingly, faculty from across the institutions were dealing with many of the same issues.

7. Activities of the workshop • • DQCs: Andy Anderson et al. • Introduction to the questions, focus on coding student answers, some research findings, your involvement in the research, etc. • • Ecology faculty: their experiences with the project. • • DQCs as formative tools - with student-active teaching. • How to incorporate these into your course. • • Teams (and advisors): working together here, developing plans for the next two semesters. • • Ample time for questions and exchange • • Evaluation

8. Three Teams • • Biology Directors: Advisor is John Merrill (Randy Phillis) • • University Faculty: Advisors are Nancy Stamp, Heather Griscom, Laurel Hartley • • College Faculty: Advisors are Nicole Welch, Laurel Hartley, Kathy Williams, Barbara Abraham, April Maskiewicz • Ideal goal for groups 2 & 3: small groups of faculty working with an advisor who is at their school, in their area, or at a similar institution. “Working with” means email contact, conference calls, one-on-one – general collegial interactions. You all need to figure that out before your leave today (concrete plan). • • Biology Directors – were already a group, so you need to work together here to develop a game plan for use of the DQCs/active learning in a course, involvement in the research, and interaction during the semester.

9. DQCs (8:45-11) • Introduction to DQCs (Andy) 8:45-9:15 • Coding and Discussion (Brook) 9:15-10 • Research Findings (Laurel) 10:10-10:30 • Cross Site DQC Research (Amelia) 10:30-11

10. Introduction to DQCs Charles W. (Andy) Anderson

11. What I Plan to Talk About • Understanding informal and scientific reasoning • Working through an example: octane burning • Framework and goals for carbon cycling (processes, matter and energy principles, scale, representations)

12. 1. Making sense of informal reasoning

13. What’s the Problem? Three ways of characterizing student difficulties • Inadequate knowledge: Misconceptions • Difficulties with practice: Tracing matter and energy • Informal and scientific discourse: Differences in “social languages”

14. Inadequate Knowledge People have misconceptions: ideas that are scientifically incorrect Carbon example: explaining weight loss in humans • Exercise “burns up” food (calories) • Gases don’t weigh much

15. Limitations of “Misconceptions” Explanations • Too many misconceptions: Our lists get so long that they aren’t useful any more • Why are there patterns in misconceptions about different processes?

16. Scientific Practices (from NRC Report Taking Science to School) Strands of scientific proficiency: • Know, use, and interpret scientific explanations of the natural world • Generate and evaluate scientific evidence and explanations • Understand the nature and development of scientific knowledge • Participate productively in scientific practices and discourse.

17. Practice: Tracing Matter and Energy Students consistently have matter and energy appearing or disappearing, especially processes in which gases are converted to solids or liquids, or vice versa: • Combustion • Photosynthesis (plant growth) • Cellular respiration (animal weight loss, decay) They commonly use energy as a “fudge factor”

18. Limitations of “Practice” Explanations Persistence of unscientific practices • Why do students have so much difficulty tracing matter and energy? • Why don’t they even try? • What makes alternative explanations so attractive? Common patterns that seem to relate practices in different domains (e.g., carbon and biodiversity).

19. What Do I Mean by “Discourse?” • Discourse: “a socially accepted association among ways of using language, of thinking, and of acting that can be used to identify oneself as a member of a socially meaningful group” (Gee, 1991, p. 3) • Another term for discourses is “social languages” (as opposed to national languages such as English and Spanish) that are shared by communities of practice

20. Discourse: Informal and Scientific Reasoning • Informal (Force-dynamic) reasoning (cf. Talmy, Pinker) • Events or processes happen because actors use their powers or abilities to achieve their purposes • Actors have needs that enable them to achieve their purposes • Scientific (principled or model-based) reasoning • Events or processes happen in hierarchically organized systems at multiple scales • Processes and systems conform to principles, including conservation of matter and energy, genetic continuity, etc.

21. Example of Scientific Accounts (for Carbon) Systems Following principles At multiple scales (energy input) (energy output) (matter output) (matter input) A complete scientific explanation describes processes constrained by principles in systems at multiple scales

22. Informal (Force-dynamic) Accounts Actors With Abilities And Purposes In Settings (results that achieve purposes of actors) (needs or enablers) A complete force-dynamic explanation describes actors, enablers, purposes, settings, and results

23. The Practice of Predicting in Informal and Scientific Discourses • Informal reasoning: Interplay of “forces” (needs, desires, willpower) determines course of events. The strongest “force” wins. • Scientific reasoning: The course of events can be predicted by applying laws (e.g., conservation of matter and energy) to hierarchically organized systems

24. Science Education Gives People Choices • Most K-12 students and many adults: Dependent on informal discourse; scientific discourse is abstract, technical, incomprehensible • College science majors: Scientific discourse is thin veneer on informal reasoning about the world • Scientists: Can choose among discourses as the occasion demands; scientific discourse as default

25. 2. Analyzing an Example Question Octane Burning

26. Example Question: Oxidation Gasoline is mostly a mixture of hydrocarbons such as octane: C8H18. Decide whether each of the following statements is true or false about what happens to the atoms in a molecule of octane when it burns.

27. Alternate Forms of Octane Question • What happens to gasoline in a car’s engine? (informal) • Gasoline is mostly a mixture of hydrocarbons such as octane: C8H18. Decide whether each of the following statements is true or false about what happens to the atoms in a molecule of octane when it burns. (mixed) • Write a balanced equation for the combustion of octane (C8H18) in air. (scientific)

28. Informal Explanation of Combustion of Octane • The car (actor) has the ability to move if it has the things it needs, including a working engine, gasoline, and air. When the car burns gasoline inside its engine, the result is that the car has the energy to move. • Unfortunately, there is also another result, which is that the car pollutes the air when it burns the gasoline with carbon dioxide and other pollutants.

29. Scientific Account of Octane Burning The macroscopic events that we see and feel (hot engine, movement of the car) can be explained by events at the atomic-molecular scale: • Changes in matter: 2 C8H18 + 25 O2 16 CO2 + 18 H2O • Changes in energy:Chemical potential energy  thermal energy + kinetic energy Matter and energy are conserved

30. What Do People Understand? Students Taking Pilot Test on Carbon-transforming processes • Science majors taking initial cell biology course at Michigan State University • College chemistry is prerequisite for course • 23 students answered this question on first day of class

31. True or False • Some of the atoms in the octane are incorporated into carbon dioxide in the air. • True is scientific answer • True is informal answer • 20/23 answered “true.”

32. True or False • Some of the atoms in the octane are incorporated into air pollutants such as ozone or nitric oxide. • False is scientific answer (C and H atoms can’t become N and O atoms). • True is informal answer (One result of cars burning gasoline is air pollutants.) • 16/23 answered “true.”

33. True or False • Some of the atoms in the octane are converted into energy that moves the car. • False is scientific answer (C and H atoms can’t be converted to energy). • True is informal answer (energy is a result of gasoline burning). • 15/23 answered “true.”

34. True or False • Some of the atoms in the octane are incorporated into water vapor in the atmosphere. • True is scientific answer. • ? is informal answer (doesn’t seem unreasonable, but not something people talk about as a result of gasoline burning). • 15/23 answered “true.”

35. 3. Framework for DQC’s

36. Knowledge and Practice Framework

37. Concept Framework Focusing on Scientific Models and Theories • Processes (Scientific Models) • Principles • Scales • Representations

38. Concept Framework • Processes: Traditional focus of introductory biology courses: Models of structure and function at multiple scales Key processes for metabolism and carbon cycling. • Generation (photosynthesis, plant growth primary production) • Transformation (digestion, biosynthesis, plant and animal growth, food webs) • Oxidation (cellular respiration, combustion, animal movement, burning fuels, weight loss, energy pyramids) • Principles • Scales • Representations

39. Concept Framework • Processes • Principles “Hidden curriculum” in many introductory biology courses: Constraints on all models of processes that are taken for granted by professors, stated but not understood or applied by students Key principles for metabolism and carbon cycling: • Conservation of Matter: Matter can neither be created nor destroyed • Conservation of Energy - Energy can neither be created nor destroyed • Scales • Representations

40. Concept Framework • Processes • Principles • Scale All processes transform matter and energy and change systems at multiple scales. • Atomic-Molecular • Microscopic/Cellular • Macroscopic/Organismal • Large Scale/Ecosystems (Natural Ecosystems and Human-Influenced/Technology Systems) • Representations

41. Concept Framework • Principles • Processes • Scales • Representations Typical representations: Make details of processes visible while principles are implicit. • Box-and-arrow diagrams • Chemical formulas and equations • Cartoons showing structure and function at multiple scales (subcellular, cellular, organismal, ecosystem) This afternoon: tools for reasoning as alternate representations that make principles more explicit and visible

42. Content Framework

43. DQCs for Introductory Biology • DQCs organized around processes that generate, transform and oxidize organic carbon • Photosynthesis, including plant growth • Digestion and Biosynthesis • Respiration • Two Parallel DQCs for each process. Each DQC is limited to the front and back of one piece of paper. • Questions range from Atomic/Molecular to Ecosystem Scales • Most questions are asked at the organismal scale, but require reasoning at cellular and atomic/molecular scales.

44. DQC Example: Photosynthesis

46. Coding Student Responses

47. Practice Coding Session • Work through the “Coding Practice” worksheet in small groups to get a feeling for how to categorize student responses.

48. DQC WorkshopDetroit Airport Westin - November 21, 2009Wright Room, Westin Hotel

49. Research Goal We investigated college students’ ability to apply the principles of conservation of matter and energy across scales when reasoning about biological processes that generate, transform, and oxidize organic carbon molecules. *Faculty and students in organismal/ecologically focused classes.

50. Methods • Created Diagnostic Question Clusters (DQCs) to assess student understanding of the carbon cycle. DQCs • Combine questions in different formats: open response, multiple T/F, multiple choice, mixed • Are brief, take 15-20 minutes to complete • Require application and synthesis - don’t focus on details of biological processes • Are sometimes ambiguously worded to see whether students are attracted to vocabulary used in informal reasoning • Use items that were developed iteratively (ask open-ended questions, interview students, take common problems and use as distracters) • Classified each question based on the principle (conservation of matter or energy), process (photosynthesis, respiration, biosynthesis) and scale (atomic/molecular, organismal, ecosystem) it addressed