So my microbiology had their first exam last Thursday. It wasn’t pretty. The class average was a 67. Ugh. There was one person who did awesome, and a few that did ok, but the majority of the class scored right around the average. I was really hoping for spectacular results after flipping the classroom. Instead this average is about 5pts below that of last semester’s average for the same exam. I’ve spent the last several days asking myself a lot of questions and reading through student comments posted on an informal class evaluation survey. It seems for the most part that my students felt like they studied hard. Clearly, they were not studying what I thought they should be. Here are a few adjustments that I will be making:

1) Restructuring my study guide. Right now my study guides consist of a series of bullet points framed as learning objectives. I am going to make the next one less open ended with more specific questions. I don’t want my students to sit down and memorize the study guide, but I feel it is important to give them clear guidelines as to what I expect. I will have to counter this with designing more questions on the exam that require critical thought instead of rote memorization.

2) More quizzes. I only gave one online quiz during my first unit. This was primarily because I could barely keep up with posting videos and prepping in-class activities. I think my students need the quizzes so they know where to focus their studies. In the past I have relied on MasteringMicrobiology to accomplish this task, but I abandoned it this term due to major errors in the material.

3) Provide clearly defined learning objectives for each in-class activity. One comment that I saw several times from my students was that they had a hard time connecting the in-class activities with the online lecture material. I am going to try to counter that by providing my students with learning objectives and worksheets for each in class activity that help to draw those connections.

As you can see, this whole flipping thing has created a lot more work for me. I think it will pay off in the end and the next semester that I do it will be much easier. For now I am going to trudge ahead and hope that these changes will make a difference on the next exam. I truly just want to be sure that my students are actually learning. I am trying to draw them out of the robot student mentality of information in, information out. I know my intentions are good. I just need to work on the execution.

“We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”

President John F. Kennedy, September 12, 1962, at Rice University, Houston, Texas

President Kennedy’s challenge to the United States helped launch our nation into one of the most exciting seasons of growth in science, engineering, and technology.   This was a season of bold national leadership.    As a young American citizen, I am proud to live in one of the greatest nations on earth.   Why?   It’s a nation where people can dream big and make it happen.

In 1969, the United States landed on the moon.    In 2013, how is the United States leading the world in science, technology, engineering and math(STEM)?    What is our bold national mission that captures our imagination and challenges us to become better people?

Last night, I had the great pleasure of attending a panel discussion hosted by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) of Atlanta.    The panel explored our national challenge of inspiring young people to become great US  scientists, engineers, and technologists.    Yes, We still have US based innovators like Google, Microsoft, and Apple.        The US, however, can expect to lag behind other nations in innovation and technology because we have failed to inspire the next generation to care about our craft of science and engineering.   This issue has a direct local impact on stimulating job growth and our economy.

The STEM education panel included thoughtful community leaders from Middle GA.

• Dr. Wade Shaw – Dean of College of Engineering, Mercer University / Academic Perspective
• Joe Marks – Director Material Systems, TIMCO / Local Industry Perspective
• Maj. Gen. (Ret) Bob McMahon – CEO, 21st Century Partnership / Military Perspective
• Melissa Spalding – Director of Education, Museum of Aviation, Warner Robins / Non Profit STEM Proponent Perspective
• Dr. Gilda Lyon – GA Dept. of Education, STEM Coordinator / Academic Perspective

So, how do we inspire young people to care about STEM education?   Why should they care?   I wanted to share some of the key insights I took from the panel.

• Where are our heroes?  General McMahon challenged our nation to find people who can be heroes in science and technology.    In 1969, astronauts were seen as mentors and role models for generations of US innovators, scientists, and technologists.   Who are the great role models for students today?
• How can industry support STEM education? On average, students do not feel that science/engineering is “trendy” or cool.  In some cases, students fear the responsibilities associated with STEM skills.  The panel encouraged industry to partner with local schools or youth mentoring organizations.   Ideas discussed included shadow programs or speaking in local schools.   Young people need scientists, engineers, and technologists from their community to be mentors.
• Attack the STEM education issue from an emotional point of view: Dr. Shaw made a great comment about engineering marketing.   As we market our craft of engineering to others, we often focus on the “widgets” that we build.    Look at the cool “X” we built!  Don’t you want to do this too?    Dr. Shaw suggested that we need to help young people see the profound social impact engineers and scientists have on ALL aspects of our lives.   We need to communicate to our nation that STEM education can have profound positive impacts on our communities.
• Inspire young people early and often:  Melissa Spalding suggested that a key time to inspire young people is not college or high school.    We need to inspire students to consider STEM education as early as 4th grade to middle school.   These are critical times when students start to decide what they will enjoy in their life time.
• Project based learning and simulation:   Melissa challenged teachers to inspire students using simulation and project based learning.    What if students could pretend to be engineers and scientists?   The panel acknowledged that the average teacher would be challenged by this goal since teachers are experts at teaching and not a technical craft.   I believe this is why great collaboration between industry and institutions of education is critical.   How can scientists and engineers support our teachers/students with fun and engaging learning experiences or simulations?

As an audio learner, I enjoy technologies that help me to learn by listening.   My wife and I subscribe to Audible, enabling us to consume audio books despite our busy schedules as parents.    On Free Tech for Teachers, I recently found a wonderful little tool that helps one convert the posts from your favorite blog into audio format.    Audio blog posts are often known as “podcasts.”    The tool that makes this happen is http://podcastomatic.com/ .    The following video shows you how I use this simple tool to convert one of my favorite blogs into a podcast that’s available in my Google reader.

Link to screen cast

It’s pretty awesome having the ability to listen to some of my favorite blogs “on the go!”

Photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/abrinsky/3754792367/sizes/m/in/photostream/

Yesterday we started our Spring term. I am teaching the same courses that I taught last semester, Microbiology for Health Sciences and Introductory Biology (non-majors). I am doing a major course overhaul for Microbiology (the subject of future posts I’m sure) but I am leaving the Intro Bio course alone for the most part. I am happy with the course schedule, labs, etc and I can’t afford to make major changes to two courses at once. Despite being feeling pretty confident about my organization, I wasn’t completely satisfied with my Intro Bio class last semester. Often times I felt like I was speaking to zombies and student performance on exams was absolutely abysmal. It didn’t seem to matter what I did. I did demonstrations. I had active lecture activities. We played games. I used the clicker. I feel like I put together a well organized, engaging course, but I still did not get the results I desired. In previous semesters I had some students that excelled, and others that bombed and lots of students in the middle. I really had not students last semester that did really well. My fellow faculty tell me that some semesters are just like that. I don’t know, I guess we’ll have to see what happens this semester. Unfortunately, I don’t feel like we’re off to a very good start. I had several students yesterday with bad attitudes. They were combative and put me on the defensive right from the start. They complained about the cost of the materials. One student repeatedly stopped me in the middle of my lecture to complain that I was moving too fast (yes I talk fast, but all my notes are online and it was just an introductory lecture, not major subject matter) and then complained that she was going to have to go home and read the material in the book. That can’t be good. How can I turn the attitudes around? What tools can I use to foster a spirit of learning? I don’t want an “Me vs. Them” rapport. It might be this one student, but I don’t know. I could use any suggestions that you might have. Help!!!!