Traditionally, lecture-style teaching is adopted in biology 110 classes. We asked whether lab-themed team-presentation and two lab final mock exams had impacts on student’s learning.  Students, on the first day of the class, were divided into groups with 3-4 students each team.  Each team selected a biology lab exercise topic from 11 scheduled lab topics and made a 15-minute presentation synchronized with the lab schedule. Each team was also required to produce a one-page review sheet consisting of three parts– terminologies, a key figure or table, and 3 or 4 review questions. We found that students enjoyed this type of learning approach; moreover, higher lab final score and final lab grade had resulted from the lab-themed team-presentation class, though not significantly different, compared to the score/grade from traditionally lecture-style classes. We conclude this teaching approach played an important role in shaping students’ learning in biology 110.

Presenters

• Tennison Barnes, University of Tennessee, Martin
• Donald Shaw donalds@utm.edu, University of Tennessee at Martin
• Kattie Madden kmadden8@utm.edu, University of Tennessee at Martin
• Charle Liu cliu97@utm.edu, University of Tennessee at Martin