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Gains in Affect and in Scientific Literacy from Peer‐Led Team Learning in a Literature‐Based First‐Semester Biochemistry Course
Author(s) -
Dries Daniel Robert
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.2019.33.1_supplement.617.9
Subject(s) - facilitator , teamwork , medical education , psychology , literacy , task (project management) , scientific literacy , affect (linguistics) , mathematics education , pedagogy , science education , medicine , engineering , social psychology , systems engineering , communication , political science , law
Science is a social endeavor that requires communication and collaboration with scientists of various expertise and background. Traditional lecture, however, can cast learning as a passive, individualized task. To model the scientific community for students, a sophomore‐level biochemistry course was redesigned using the primary literature as the principal content from which biochemical concepts were extracted. Working in groups alongside a peer facilitator, students constructed their own knowledge by interrogating the literature, researching answers to their questions, and sharing with their group, while instructor‐led activities and just‐in‐time mini‐lectures grounded the class in a common experience. Attitudinal post‐surveys showed student affective gains in teamwork, inquisitiveness, and scientific literacy. Moreover, graduates self‐reported greater preparation for post‐graduate work than peers in their program. Together, these results suggest that peer‐led team learning using the primary literature can lead to gains in competencies and skill development while still accruing knowledge of biochemistry content. This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal .