ArticleFree Access

Exploring Biology: A Vision and Change Disciplinary First-Year Seminar Improves Academic Performance in Introductory Biology

Caroline J. Wienhold

Wisconsin Institute for Science Education and Community Engagement, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI 53706

Search for more papers by this author

and

Janet Branchaw

*Address correspondence to: Janet Branchaw (E-mail Address: [email protected]).

Wisconsin Institute for Science Education and Community Engagement, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI 53706

Department of Kinesiology, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI 53706

Search for more papers by this author

Daron Barnard, Monitoring Editor

Published Online:11 May 2018https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.17-08-0158

View article

Abstract

The transition to college is challenging for most students, especially those who aspire to major in the science, technology, engineering, or mathematics disciplines, in which introductory courses can be large and instruction less than optimal. This paper describes a novel, disciplinary first-year seminar (FYS) course, Exploring Biology, designed to address many of the challenges facing aspiring biology students beginning their academic careers at a large public research university. The course addresses typical FYS goals, such as community building, introduction to resources, and academic skill development, and introduces students to the core concepts of biology defined in the 2011 Vision and Change report. Relative to a matched comparison group of students, Exploring Biology alumni were retained at higher rates and had higher levels of academic performance in a subsequent introductory biology course, suggesting Exploring Biology has a positive impact on future academic performance in the discipline. Results from course evaluations and an alumni survey show that, overall, students valued both the FYS components and biology components of the course. These results provide evidence that the Exploring Biology disciplinary FYS model is an intervention that may increase academic success and retention in biology.

Vol. 17, No. 2

June 01, 2018

Supplemental Materials

Metrics

Downloads & Citations

Downloads: 327

Citations: 5

History

Submitted: 8 August 2017

Revised: 29 January 2018

Accepted: 7 February 2018

Information

© 2018 C. J. Wienhold and J. Branchaw. CBE—Life Sciences Education © 2018 The American Society for Cell Biology. This article is distributed by The American Society for Cell Biology under license from the author(s). It is available to the public under an Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0).

We thank the many teaching fellows, faculty members, and peer leaders who have contributed to the development and refinement of the Exploring Biology FYS course. In particular, we thank Teri Balser, who developed and taught the original version of the course. Tawnya Cary, Christopher Trimby, Amber Smith, Jessica TeSlaa, Amanda Butz, and Jane Harris-Cramer offered substantial input and review of this paper. Eshwar Udho, Christine Fabian, Tawnya Cary, Christopher Trimby, Jessica TeSlaa, and Jane Harris-Cramer assisted with coding alumni survey data. This work was funded by an Undergraduate Science Education grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to the University of Wisconsin–Madison (#52006959) and by the Wisconsin Institute for Science Education and Community Engagement (WISCIENCE).

PDF download