Cell Biol Educ 4(2): 133-137 2005
DOI: 10.1187/cbe.05-01-0059
© 2005 American Society for Cell Biology
Points of View: A Survey of Survey Courses: Are They Effective?
Argument Favoring a Survey as the First Course for Majors
Mary Lee Ledbetter
Department of Biology College of the Holy Cross Worcester, MA 01610
A. Malcolm Campbell
Department of Biology Davidson College Davidon, NC 28035
Note from the Editors Points of View (POV) addresses
issues faced by many people within the life science education community.
Cell Biology Education (CBE) publishes the POV Feature to present two or
more opinions published in tandem on a common topic. We consider POVs to be
"Op-Ed" pieces designed to stimulate thought and dialogue on
significant educational issues. Each author had the opportunity to revise or
add to his/her POV after reading drafts of the other's POV.
In this issue, we ask the question, "Are survey courses still
viable for introductory biology?" The POV question is related to the
ones asked by the National Research Council in the recent feature by Jay Labov
(www.cellbioed.org/articles/vol3no4/article.cfm?articleID=132)
and continues to be a subject of debate by many science departments, not just
biology. Often the discussion is split not only by perceived value of the
survey course, but also by the size of the institution. Therefore, we present
four POVs, plus a framing POV to set the tone. The overview was written by
Arri Eisen, who is a senior lecturer in Emory University's Biology Department
and the director of the Program in Science & Society. Representing the
Anti-Survey, Large University is Janet M. Batzli, Associate Director of the
nontraditional Biology Core Curriculum at the University of Wisconsin at
Madison. The Anti-Survey, Small College perspective is presented by David
Becker, who is an Associate Professor and Magdalena R. and John P. Dexter
Professor of Botany in the Department of Biology at Pomona College. Presenting
the Pro-Survey, Large University perspective is Douglas M. Fambrough,
Professor of Biology at The Johns Hopkins Department of Biology and Scientific
Director of the Searle Scholars Program. Finally, the Pro-Survey, Small
College POV was coauthored by Mary Lee Ledbetter and A. Malcolm Campbell.
Ledbetter is a Professor of Biology at College of the Holy Cross and a 2003
NSF Director's Award recipient. Campbell is an Associate Professor of Biology
at Davidson College and a co-Editor-in-Chief of CBE. Readers are encouraged to
compare the authors' perspectives and share their thoughts and reactions using
the online discussion forum hosted by CBE at
http://www.cellbioed.org/discussion/public/main.cfm.
Reasonable people disagree about how to introduce undergraduate
students to the marvels and complexities of the biological sciences. With
intrinsically varied subdisciplines within biology, exponentially growing
bases of information, and new unifying theories rising regularly, introduction
to the curriculum is a challenge. Some decide to focus immediately on one or a
few of the subdisciplines, for example molecular and cellular biology or
ecological and environmental biology, so that students may acquire sufficient
depth during their studies to have mastered the subdiscipline, and so faculty
can focus their efforts on areas within their expertise. Others continue to
offer a general overview of principles and concepts, couched in examples drawn
from various subdisciplines, and offering a comprehensive survey of the
diversity of living organisms. Survey introductory courses generally require
two semesters and are prerequisite to intermediate and advanced courses.
Necessarily, surveys cannot cover all possible content, and faculty expertise
may not be directly applicable to all aspects of such courses. Nevertheless we
(and our institutions) favor this approach. In arguing for survey courses, we
consider various aspects of teaching and learning in the context of liberal
arts institutions such as ours.
In preparation for this essay, we surveyed the Web sites of the top 24
colleges, as identified by U.S. News and World Report in 2004. We
examined the requirements for the major in biology, particularly whether they
included a two-semester course that addressed aspects of organismal diversity
(the area most likely to be omitted from other curricular models). The results
are summarized in Table 1 and
may serve as a foundation from which readers may want to discuss their own
choices for introductory courses. From this survey, we chose seven questions
that seemed fundamental to any discussion of how to introduce our students to
the field of biology.
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1) WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A BIOLOGY MAJOR?
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The word "major" implies to most students, educators, parents,
and employers a significant concentration of course work in one of the
traditional academic disciplines. It is understood to include both general
familiarity with most elements that contribute to that discipline and often
study of a specific area, in which the student has developed some expertise,
in depth, perhaps even including research experience. A history major is
expected to be conversant with not only European and American history, but
also elements of world history, both classical and modern. A music major is
expected to have studied both music history and music theory while developing
some practical expertise in musical performance. By the same token, the
credential of a biology major should say something about the student's
exposure to the range of subjects considered to be the biological sciences.
Even upper-division students who specialize in a subdiscipline will be able to
point to a broad foundation, a familiarity with animal, plant, and microbial
diversity and the variety they represent, no matter in which area they
subsequently focus.
And few students, even those with excellent high-school backgrounds, can
know at the outset of college which area of specialization might ultimately
attract them. High school education is too limited, and first-year
undergraduates are too intellectually inexperienced to make selections that
would set the path of their future education and career. At College of the
Holy Cross and Davidson College, we find that even students with advanced
placement (AP) courses in biology benefit from taking our Introduction to
Biology courses, as much for the intellectual approach as for the content.
After completing those survey courses, they are well prepared to explore more
specialized aspects of our curriculum, according to our resources and their
interests.
Emerging after 4 years, sheepskins in hand, our biology majors are
recognized by potential employers and by graduate/professional schools to have
experienced the range of the biological sciences, if not in all its detail and
depth, at least in representative ways that can serve as a foundation for
further learning. Both technically and intellectually, they are prepared to
contribute to society as scientifically trained.
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2) WHAT SORT OF COURSE PROPERLY PROVIDES A FOUNDATION FOR THE WEALTH OF POSSIBILITIES FOR STUDY OF LIVING SYSTEMS?
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We maintain that the introductory course should have three key features, no
matter what its content:
- Exposure to a variety of ways to observe, manipulate, and understand living
systems;
- Exposure to a variety of organisms to study; and
- Exposure to critical thinking and data analysis, no matter how the data are
generated.
Such courses provide several pedagogical functions that serve first-year
students particularly well. These courses can set a baseline for expectations
of performance (study habits, integrative thinking, attitudes) that carry
forward to upper-level courses. The courses can bring all students to the same
level of basic understanding, despite their diverse high school experiences.
Survey courses can build on the enthusiasm that motivated students to elect
biology as a discipline for study in the first place, no matter whether that
enthusiasm came from a love of outdoor exploration, fondness for pets,
excitement from understanding biological mechanisms, or curiosity about human
origins. As such, a good survey course can reduce the attrition that often
occurs when students encounter inevitable difficulties.
It might be argued that little of the content of such a broad course will
be learned thoroughly enough to be useful. That may well be true, but many
aspects of learning benefit from repeated encounters. In addition, connections
between different subdisciplines may be drawn among ideas that seemed
peripheral when first encountered. Ask yourself how a person trained
exclusively in molecular biology would appreciate the unique developmental and
behavioral features of Caenorhabditus elegans or zebra fish as model
systems. Even if the specifics are not recalled by a student after taking a
survey course, the existence of strategies and organisms beyond a limited
specialized area will be retained.
A final, practical issue is the "problem" of chemistry. Few
students enter college with enough background in organic chemistry to benefit
from studies of biochemical and molecular biological processes. Indeed, a
number of institutions whose curriculum focuses on the molecular level do not
let biology majors take any biology courses until their second year, so that
students will have sufficient chemistry to profit from the focused curriculum.
Enthusiasm for a biology major may wane if it must be put off for an entire
year.
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3) WHAT IS THE BEST STRUCTURE FOR AN INTRODUCTORY COURSE?
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Various ways to design such a course can be imagined. It may be
team-taught, taking advantage of faculty expertise while giving students a
chance to meet several faculty members and build relationships. It may be
designed around multiple small student groups, to provide students more
intimate contact with their professor and a more individual approach to the
subjects under discussion. It should have an associated laboratory/field
experience, so that from the outset, students realize that biology is not so
much a body of knowledge as a process of understanding the living world, and
that process involves constantly questioning and testing our understanding
against observation and experimentation
(Figure 1). If the course is
associated with a lab, the lab experiences should be obviously relevant to the
topics being discussed in the classroom. Ideally, lab experiences would
include some opportunity for student-driven, open-ended discovery. Lab is also
an excellent opportunity for students to learn to work cooperatively and
collaboratively. It might even be possible to structure the entire course as
lab based.
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Figure 1. A first-year student prepares her pipette as part of a self-designed
project to test the effects of environmental perturbations on an enzyme's
activity.
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Content is conveniently managed with the help of one of the comprehensive
textbooks currently available. These ideally would serve as a guide and a
resource, not a hurdle to be surmounted. Fundamental principles should be
identified and reinforced throughout the course, using both familiar and
unfamiliar examples. Focusing on principles will help students keep in mind
the "big picture," which is often submerged in the wealth of
detail, to the detriment of understanding.
Many students enter college with particular postgraduate plans in mind,
particularly medicine. They often express impatience with any biology that is
not directly "relevant" to human health and disease. Such students
are particularly well served by a comprehensive introductory biology course,
since it can reveal the true interconnectedness of the living world. Those who
enter medical school will carry with them an appreciation for that world;
other biology majors may discover that their true passion is something other
than human biology, or become interested in the intersections of biology with
other disciplines, either scientific or humanistic. The diversity of
opportunities can be revealed within an introductory course, inviting students
to find their passion based on exposure to areas they did not know they liked
or did not know existed.
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4) HOW CAN MEANINGFUL DEPTH BE PROVIDED IN A COURSE DESIGNED AS A SURVEY?
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Survey courses can create the problem of "a mile wide and an inch
deep. "But if the suggestion in #3 above for effective use of a textbook
is followed, the problem of lack of depth can be minimized. Most textbooks are
jammed full of multiple examples of a relatively few fundamental principles.
If the course focuses on fewer examples, but chooses them from equally diverse
model organisms or levels of organization, then students can learn both the
concepts and the diversity of their expression. If key biological principles
are identified while the examples are presented, and the examples are used to
enrich and bring these principles to life, then the course will not overwhelm
students with factoids and trivia, but will help them recognize that
"there is more where this came from."
Here again, laboratory and field experiences are very helpful. Students can
discover not only new concepts, but also new ways of learning. If
research-based experiences are possible, students can design, perform,
interpret, and communicate their own work, revealing connections between their
own efforts and the subdisciplines of biology. Self-discovered knowledge is
not forgotten quickly.
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5) HOW CAN INDIVIDUAL FACULTY MEMBERS PROVIDE INSTRUCTION IN AREAS OF BIOLOGY FAR FROM THEIR EXPERTISE?
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If we want our students to become lifelong learners, surely we can model
this behavior ourselves and learn enough about new areas of our discipline to
be able to convey the fundamental principles in class. All of us have had the
experience of being asked questions, even in classes directly related to our
expertise, for which we do not know the answer. Scientists have ways of
finding the answer or helping students find it. We believe that reluctance to
be found ignorant is a major obstacle preventing faculty members from
undertaking more adventuresome teaching. Another obstacle is the time required
to bring yourself up to speed in a new area. But the rewards for the effort to
learn in a new area are great. By learning in wider areas of biology, our own
ability to make connections among seemingly disparate ideas or facts is
enhanced. Making new connections provides us with new insights that can inform
not only our teaching but our research as well.
As a practical matter, an introductory course does not demand that the
instructor master the same degree of detail or currency of information as a
graduate seminar. Textbooks and resources on the Web provide suggestions for
effective presentation. At the introductory level, limited detail does not
significantly reduce the quality of the students' experience.
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6) WHAT IN THE CURRICULUM MUST BE SACRIFICED TO OFFER THIS COMPREHENSIVE INTRODUCTION?
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Choices made at the introductory level must compete with choices elsewhere
in the curriculum. In particular, if we are to spend a year on
"orientation" of the sort defended above, it may delay a student's
access to more specialized courses and technical training. We maintain that an
extra year of intellectual maturity and academic confidence will help a
student gain the most from advanced courses. By that point, too, many will
have encountered organic chemistry and calculus, essential to understanding
many advanced areas of biology. Intellectually, they are better prepared to
think in statistical terms, too, after the first year of college. In
subsequent years, progressively more specialized biology courses should be
taken, reflecting the student's developing interests and the department's
judgment as to the importance of certain key courses.
Inevitably, especially at liberal arts colleges, there will be gaps in a
student's comprehensive biological education, either because courses are not
offered or because the student's schedule prevents access to courses. Some
faculty express concern that these deficits put students at a disadvantage in
taking "gatekeeping" examinations such as the Medical College
Admission Test or the Graduate Record Examination. And once admitted to
graduate or professional school, students may be competing with students who
have experienced more thorough curricula. We have found, however, that our
students easily fill in any gaps that prove crucial for their future goals,
simply because they are skilled learners. The specific curriculum that they
have encountered is not as significant a factor for their success as the style
of instruction that encourages them to develop their own curiosity, critical
evaluations of data, self-discipline, and clear thinking. These valuable
attributes have made our students highly desirable for programs offering
further specialization after college.
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7) DOES THE INTRODUCTORY SURVEY COURSE FILL THE NEED FOR SCIENCE EDUCATION FOR NONMAJORS?
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At College of the Holy Cross and Davidson College, all students are
expected to take courses in mathematics and natural science, no matter what
their major. Math and science courses are part of the "common area
requirements" associated with our liberal arts institutions. Many
students seek to fulfill these nonhumanities requirements by taking courses in
biology. Often they elect courses designed specifically for nonmajors,
focusing on a biological topic of current interest and using it as a vehicle
to communicate the process of science and the value of scientific inquiry for
society.
However, there is no reason that a general introductory biology course
could not equally fulfill this function. Certainly science students fulfill
humanities and arts requirements in courses designed for majors. At Davidson
College, about 60 percent of the students who enroll in the survey courses
choose majors other than biology. Their education benefits from the experience
of authentic encounters with a variety of biological principles. Among the
remaining 40 percent, some did not originally recognize their attraction to
science. Thus, the course can serve both to recruit new scientists and to
educate future nonscientist citizens.
In conclusion, we believe that two-semester survey courses are an ideal way
to address the needs of students with diverse career interests and limited
previous experience. Our model of survey courses can be modified to fit
different faculty compositions and can be organized to begin at either end of
the continuum of living systems (small to large or vice versa). Students are
faced with real-world time constraints of a 4-year college curriculum,
especially at institutions that value the breadth of the liberal arts. Each
area within biology provides a burgeoning wealth of information that cannot be
covered completely in any single introductory course. We do not believe that
survey courses (or any courses for that matter) should be modeled on the
old-style litany of facts to be memorized and regurgitated. Rather, survey
courses should provide a broad perspective of biological principles
illuminated with a limited number of wisely chosen examples. When a carefully
crafted survey course is combined with active-learning methods, students can
benefit regardless of their long-term goals.
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