Cleveland Lacy M, McCabe Thomas M, Olimpo Jeffrey T
Department of Physics, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO 80401.
MAST Institute, Ross Hall, University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, CO 80639.
J Microbiol Biol Educ. 2017 Apr 27;19(1). doi: 10.1128/jmbe.v19i1.1368. eCollection 2018.
In response to empirical evidence and calls for change, individual undergraduate biology instructors are reforming their pedagogical practices. To assess the effectiveness of these reforms, many instructors use course-specific or skill-specific assessments (e.g., concept inventories). We commend our colleagues' noble efforts, yet we contend that this is only a starting point. In this Perspectives article, we argue that departments need to engage in reform and programmatic assessment to produce graduates who have both subject-matter knowledge and higher-order cognitive skills. We encourage biology education researchers to work collaboratively with content specialists to develop program-level assessments aimed at measuring students' conceptual understanding and higher-order cognitive skills, and we encourage departments to develop longitudinal plans for monitoring their students' development of these skills.
针对实证证据和变革呼声，本科生物学教师个体正在改革他们的教学实践。为评估这些改革的成效，许多教师采用特定课程或特定技能的评估方式（如概念清单）。我们赞赏同事们的崇高努力，但我们认为这仅仅是个开端。在这篇观点文章中，我们主张各系需要进行改革和项目评估，以培养出兼具学科知识和高阶认知技能的毕业生。我们鼓励生物学教育研究者与内容专家合作，开发旨在衡量学生概念理解和高阶认知技能的项目层面评估，并且我们鼓励各系制定纵向计划，以监测学生这些技能的发展情况。
