Getting Under the Hood: How and for Whom Does Increasing Course Structure Work?

“This type of research is being referred to as second-generation education research (Eddy et al., 2013; Freeman et al., 2014) and will help refine and optimize active-learning interventions by identifying the critical elements that make an intervention effective.”

“Yet the different racial and ethnic groups that are included in the URM designation have very different cultures, histories, and exposure to college culture that could impact whether a particular classroom strategy is effective for them (Delpit, 2006).”

“Finally, feeling like they are part of a community increases both performance and motivation, especially for historically underrepresented groups (Walton and Cohen, 2007; Walton et al., 2012).”

“…of our study, arguably as important as increased performance, because a sense of being part of a community (belonging) is crucial for retention (Hurtado and Carter, 1997; Hoffman et al., 2002) and has been 464 CBE—Life Sciences Education correlated with increased performance for…”

“Thus, through increased engagement with the material (because of increased interest in it) student performance will increase (Carini et al., 2006).”

“When discussing reasons for leaving STEM, many students, particularly students of color and women, describe feelings of isolation and lack of belonging (Hewlett et al., 2008; Cheryan et al., 2009; Strayhorn, 2011).”

“Specifically, we will describe these courses in terms of the increased structure format (Freeman et al. 2011; Eddy and Hogan, 2014).”

“Reducing the contribution of exams toward final grades and providing frequent low-stakes assessments have been shown to reduce grade gaps in STEM courses [46, 75].”

“Indeed, a growing body of research indicates how structure in the form of policies and procedures helps to ensure equitable engagement and success of all students regardless of their backgrounds or prior preparation (Balster et al., 2010; Eddy & Hogan, 2014; Hurtado et al., 2008; Tanner, 2013).”

“When teachers create an emotionally safe space through empathy, students are more willing to participate actively in discussions and collaborative activities (Eddy and Hogan, 2014).”

“, 2017), and that evidence-based teaching can help close the opportunity gap (Freeman et al., 2011; Eddy and Hogan, 2014; Ballen et al., 2017).”

“…supported by the development of research-validated teaching strategies that have been shown to improve student learning (Freeman et al. 2014; Handelsman et al. 2004; Kober 2015; Singer and Smith 2013) and reduce the achievement gap among student populations (Eddy and Hogan 2014; Haak et al. 2011).”

“…studying to gaps in their understanding (Krumsvik & Ludvigsen, 2012; Ludvigsen et al., 2015), they often adopt surface-level study strategies resulting in a ‘feedback gap’ where students do not effectively utilize the feedback from in-class clicker questions (Evans, 2013; Ludvigsen et al., 2015).”

“Furthermore, incorporating active learning in the classroom has been found to increase equitable outcomes for URM and first-generation students and decrease student failure rates (Stephens et al., 2012; Eddy and Hogan, 2014; Ballen et al., 2017; Gavassa et al., 2019).”

“…Derting and Ebert-May, 2010; Deslauriers et al., 2011; Freeman et al., 2014), increased retention rates (Russell et al., 2007; Haak et al., 2011; Eddy and Hogan, 2014), and reductions in the achievement gap among student populations (Haak et al., 2011; Eddy and Hogan, 2014; Theobald et al.,…”

“There are additional benefits to using random call in the classroom: hearing from many different students, rather than just those who tend to volunteer, encourages all students to have a voice and respects the diversity of student thinking (Eddy and Hogan, 2014).”

“Furthermore, active learning in large classrooms is particularly beneficial to black and first-generation college student achievement (Eddy & Hogan, 2014), suggesting that implementation of active learning-based methodologies is exceptionally important at diverse, resource-limited institutions.”

“In addition, the specific context (community college, liberal arts college, regional university, or research university) and the student population (ethnicity, gender, educational experience, economic background, and family education level) may be very important (Kardash and Wallace, 2001; Eddy and Hogan, 2014).”

“One way to do this is to hold students responsible for learning the course content before class—this is the basis of “flipped” courses (in which students acquire content before class and then perform active-learning exercises in class) or high-structure courses (in which students acquire content before class and then…”

“This observation is supported by other reports of increased course structure correlating to increased performance (Eddy & Hogan, 2014; Haak, et al., 2011).”

“For example, Black students performed significantly better and perceived a biology course to be more useful when active-learning methods were used (Eddy and Hogan, 2014).”

“…on March 23, 2018http://www.lifescied.org/Downloaded from http://www.lifescied.org/content/suppl/2017/08/14/16.3.ar54.DC1 Supplemental Material can be found at: 16:ar54, 2 CBE—Life Sciences Education • 16:ar54, Fall 2017 among underrepresented groups (Eddy and Hogan, 2014; Freeman et al., 2014).”

“, 2006), persons excluded because of their ethnicity or race (Eddy and Hogan, 2014; Theobald et al., 2020), first-generation college-going students (Eddy and Hogan, 2014), and students who come from educationally or economically disadvantaged backgrounds (Haak et al.”

“This research points to the need for further “second-generation” STEM education research focused on how specific implementations of group work may impact neurodivergent student learning (Eddy & Hogan, 2014).”

“Such findings align with research indicating more structured activities inside (Eddy and Hogan 2014) and outside of the classroom (Inkelas et al. 2007) support academic transitions and success of all students, but particularly FGCS.”

“Throughout these articles, scholars also recommended paying attention to within-group differences, such as race and major, and designing interventions for the specific population (Dika & D’Amico, 2016; Eddy & Hogan, 2014; Tibbetts et al., 2016).”

“…et al., 2014), and it may offer disproportional benefits for other groups often underrepresented in STEM, such as underrepresented minority students (Eddy and Hogan, 2014; Ballen et al., 2017b; Casper et al., 2019; Theobald et al., 2020) and first-generation students (Eddy and Hogan, 2014).”

“It has also been documented that active learning strategies in higher education science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) classes best support underrepresented populations, in particular, African American students (9).”

“examination scores or course grades than their White peers (Greene et al. 2008; Eddy and Hogan 2014), and lower socioeconomic students underperform compared to middle/high socioeconomic students on more cognitively difficult examination questions”

“Active learning strategies are associated with changes in student behaviors that correspond with increased academic success in the course (e.g., distributed studying), and attitudinal shifts in which students in active learning classes perceive their class as a community (Eddy and Hogan 2014).”

“, 2019) as practices that improve learning for all students, particularly those from diverse backgrounds (Handelsman et al., 2004; Ong et al., 2011; Eddy and Hogan, 2014; Theobald et al., 2020).”

“When a change in biology teaching is recommended, the teaching practices proposed are, broadly, increased structure [9], and increased active learning [10].”

“Many undergraduate science educators have been working on reducing the achievement gap of under-prepared students who come in to introductory biology courses at four-year institutions and have found, among other things, that the use of active learning and increased course structure could prevent URM attrition in STEM…”

“…of Georgia, 120 East Green St., Athens, GA 30602, USA Full list of author information is available at the end of the article conceptual learning and reduce achievement gaps (e.g., Eddy & Hogan, 2014; Freeman et al., 2014; Kogan & Laursen, 2014; Laursen et al., 2014; Theobald et al., 2020).”

“However, research suggests that evidence-based pedagogical practices may not serve all students equally well (Eddy and Hogan, 2014).”

“…(Derting & Ebert-May, 2010; Freeman et al., 2014; Freeman et al., 2011; Pollock & Finkelstein, 2008), class performance (Freeman et al., 2014), retention rates (S. H. Russell et al., 2007), and reduction in performance gaps among diverse student populations (Eddy & Hogan, 2014; Haak et al., 2011).”

“These practices include incorporating increased structure (Eddy & Hogan, 2014; Wilton et al., 2019), guided peer-led team-based learning (Wamser, 2006), encouraging casual student-instructor interactions (Ballen et al., 2017), and promoting in-class near-peer student-student interactions (Stanich…”

“disproportionately large benefits for underrepresented students (Haak et al., 2011; Hrabowski, 2011; Eddy and Hogan, 2014).”

“Challenge: Equity and Participation Consider the last conference you attended: Did you hear differing opinions about your work or did the dominant paradigms prevail? Who asked questions; was it only high-status experts in the field? Did you hear from multiple voices? Did newer members, like graduate students and postd…”

“Concerning Eddy and Hogan’s (2014) second explanation of their results, the in-class problem sets developed for the flipped-classroom pedagogy in our study were designed to facilitate development of critical thinking skills.”

“As active learning includes a wide variety of tools and exercises, it is important to examine which active learning tools may be most effective (Singer, Nielsen, & Schweingruber, 2012; Streveler & Meneske, 2017) and for what kinds of students (Eddy & Hogan, 2014).”

“The engagement of students using active learning techniques such as think-pair-share during clicker questions has been shown to increase student learning and decrease drop out rate (19), especially for underrepresented students (20).”

“Other research has demonstrated that outcomes from active learning can differ depending on a student’s gender or socioeconomic status (Haak et al., 2011; Eddy and Hogan, 2014; Eddy et al., 2014).”

“This is not to suggest that instructors should provide students with a fully unstructured learning environment, which can be detrimental to learning, particularly for students traditionally underserved in higher education (Eddy & Hogan, 2014; Freeman et al., 2011; Haak et al., 2011).”

“While some educators mitigate this burden by repurposing resources or sharing preparatory materials (Elliott et al., 2016; Hora & Ferrare, 2014), the effectiveness of interactive teaching remains closely tied to customizing content and activities to specific learning contexts (Eddy & Hogan, 2014).”

“Active learning increases social integration, particularly for underrepresented groups [2], and a sense of belonging is important for success in the sciences.”

“For example, instructors may choose to (a) lecture on a topic before engaging students in activities (e.g., Eddy & Hogan, 2014), (b) provide students with these activities before they provide students with lecture (e.g., Kapur, 2014), (c) intersperse these activities throughout a lecture (e.g.,…”

“The course was offered in an accelerated five-week period (as compared to the typical 10-week quarter), and was considered a “high structure” course, in which students were assigned deadlines for completing several different assignments each week (Eddy & Hogan, 2014; Lieu et al., 2017).”

“For example, results from previous studies show certain active-learning strategies reduce or eliminate demographic gaps in performance (Haak et al. , 2011; Eddy and Hogan, 2014; Ballen et al. , 2017).”

“Since prominent studies like these, DBER has focused increasingly on second-generation instructional research, using findings from educational psychology to inform instructional design and testing these designs for certain topics and student populations (Eddy and Hogan, 2014; Freeman et al., 2014).”

“The advantages of adopting such outcome-focused, student-centered approaches are numerous, including promoting equity in STEM education (37, 38).”

“Through purposeful scaffolds of student needs, instructors can support their students’ development of time management strategies and create a more positive learning environment for students and potentially reduce stress levels for students with work and caretaking responsibilities (6, 31).”

“Eddy and Hogan (2014) provide a strong model for carefully investigating the impact of instructional practices on different groups of students.”

“While numerous studies have shown the benefits of active learning over traditional lecture methods, more recent studies have demonstrated that these strategies are more impactful for certain underrepresented minority (URM) groups (8-11) .”

“…driven mostly by a significant increase in outcomes for the URM students in the study (Ballen et al., 2017), and • demonstrated a significant reduction in failure rates, an effect that was greatest for Black students and first‑generation college students (Eddy & Hogan, 2014; Freeman et al., 2011).”

“Likewise, Eddy and Hogan (2014) observed that Black students benefit more than Latin@ students from moderate-structure active-learning interventions in an introductory biology course.”

“…or active learning instruction improves academic outcomes for undergraduates (Deslauriers et al., 2011; Freeman et al., 2007; Freeman et al., 2014; PCACT, 2012), particularly for minoritized populations that often face greater challenges than their more privileged peers (Eddy & Hogan, 2014).”

“Eddy and Hogan (2014) consider increased practice CBE—Life Sciences Education • 15:es8, Winter 2016 15:es8, 7 with material (Freeman et al., 2011) as a factor through which increased course structure achieves enhanced learning.”

“Coupled with the science education literature documenting the ability of active learning to help underrepresented groups (Preszler, 2009; Haak et al., 2011; Eddy and Hogan, 2014), the instructors speculated that adding active learning to the traditional class might help underrepresented students.”

“, 2007) and decrease achievement gaps between students (Freeman et al., 2011; Eddy and Hogan, 2014).”

“This course was considered a high-structure course, as students had graded preclass assignments, graded in-class work with extensive active-learning components, and graded weekly review quizzes (Eddy and Hogan, 2014; see Table 1 for all U2 pedagogical practices).”

“…been repeatedly demonstrated to promote student academic equity amongst a diversity of undergraduate students (Haak et al. , 2011; Stein-feld and Maisel, 2012; Eddy and Hogan, 2014; Freeman et al. , 2014; Ballen et al. , 2017; Gavassa et al. , 2019; McNair et al. , 2020; Theobald et al. , 2020).”

“These assignments were hypothesized to help students distribute their learning throughout the semester and engage with content both before and after class (Eddy and Hogan, 2014).”

“…describes many ways to promote inclusion in the classroom, such as employing equitable teaching strategies (Tanner, 2013) and active learning (Eddy and Hogan 2014; Ballen et al. 2017b; Casper et al. 2019; Theobald et al. 2019), learning names (Cooper et al., 2017), using humor (Cooper et…”

“In addition, several recent models, including the persistence model (Graham et al., 2013) and the whole student model (Freeman et al., 2011; Eddy and Hogan, 2014; Gross et al., 2015) offer theoretical frameworks for increasing STEM participation and success of URMs.”