Analysis of student attitudes on reflective minute paper responses in upper level biology classes

Post class reflection is an important competent of learning. One exercise is to provide minute papers, which are short, post‐class responses to a question on immediate lecture material. As such, I gave minute paper prompts to biology students, asking them to reflect on lecture material and answer a thought questions centered on important learning goals. Reflective exercises such as minute papers are thought improve student learning by allowing students to review and summarize material, recall information prior to the next class, and assess their own understanding. My aim was for students to review material more often, as short ungraded writing exercises are known to improve conceptual learning. For my class, students are given a prompt based on the material covered in lecture, and they are allowed to answer the question at home prior the next class. Answers were submitted online. Also, using this system, I allow students to use this as a forum to raise questions about topics that were unclear, concerns about the class, or any comments they did not want to bring up in class. Here, I summarize response metrics for upper level courses in physiology and in cell and molecular biology. I also compare responses that were optional versus required. Using post‐course surveys, I will report on student depth of responses, attitudes toward minute papers, and possible impacts on their learning. Assessing the utility of minute papers may help inform instructors on a simple tool to reinforce important learning concepts. This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal .