Active Learning Outside the Classroom: Implementation and Outcomes of Peer-Led Team-Learning Workshops in Introductory Biology

“Self-efficacy (Bandura, 1977) is integral to the formation of scientific identities (Trujillo and Tanner, 2014) and provides a speculative mechanism by which our program may have influenced persistence in biology and other STEM majors.”

“A recent meta-analysis of 225 studies demonstrated that incorporation of active-learning interventions in a variety of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields increases student grades and decreases failure rate (Freeman et al., 2014).”

“Good facilitators model conventions of language and behavior and provide scaffolds such as targeted explanations or Socratic questions (Collins et al., 1989; Dennen and Burner, 2007).”

“Identification can ameliorate incompatibilities students perceive between science and their core beliefs and habits (Chambers, 1983; Brickhouse, 1994; Pat Marsteller, Monitoring Editor Submitted January 15, 2016; Revised May 31, 2016; Accepted June 7, 2016 DOI:10.1187/cbe.16-01-0051 *Address…”

“…by students from many ethnic, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds, by presupposing familiarity with implicit premises and values that are culturally narrow (Brickhouse, 1994; Brickhouse et al., 2000; Lee et al. 1995; Aikenhead, 1996; Gilbert and Yerrick, 2001; Brown, 2004; Rahm, 2008).”

“This seems to contradict implications of other studies that persistence is closely associated with performance (Haak et al., 2011).”

“However, despite evidence supporting positive outcomes (Smith et al., 2009), it remains a challenge for many faculty to incorporate active-learning pedagogies into wellhoned courses and sequences of lectures.”

“These questions are meant to be difficult and address higher levels of understanding in Bloom’s taxonomy (Crowe et al., 2008).”

“To enable comparisons across programs, departments, and institutions, future research should use established metrics for self-efficacy in STEM courses and career paths (Fencl and Scheel, 2005; Lent and Brown, 2006; Sawtelle et al., 2012).”

“Thus, peers have remarkable potential as facilitators, because they embody “instructional congruence” (Lee and Fradd, 1998), bridging gaps between fellow students’ perceptions of science and of themselves or their desired future selves.”

“Self-efficacy (Bandura, 1977) is integral to the formation of scientific identities (Trujillo and Tanner, 2014) and provides a speculative mechanism by which our program may have influenced persistence in biology and other STEM majors.”

“These interventions range from incorporating think–pair–share activities into lecture-based courses to replacing lecture entirely with instructor-and-peer-facilitated group work in problem-based learning (PBL) courses (Eberlein et al., 2008).”

“Underprepared students have been classified as such by parental education (Harackiewicz et al., 2013), socioeconomic/geographic identifiers (Gilbert and Yerrick, 2001; Rahm, 2008), or academic background such as AP status (Scott et al., 2010).”

“…by students from many ethnic, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds, by presupposing familiarity with implicit premises and values that are culturally narrow (Brickhouse, 1994; Brickhouse et al., 2000; Lee et al. 1995; Aikenhead, 1996; Gilbert and Yerrick, 2001; Brown, 2004; Rahm, 2008).”

“…study groups will discuss and solve difficult problems is based on the structure of the PLTL workshop program at Northwestern University (Born et al., 2002), which in turn was inspired by the workshop calculus model pioneered at the University of California–Berkeley (Fullilove and Treisman, 1990).”

“There are likely to be many differences between them, including interest in and commitment to pursuing STEM degrees (Morgan et al., 2013).”

“Good facilitators model conventions of language and behavior and provide scaffolds such as targeted explanations or Socratic questions (Collins et al., 1989; Dennen and Burner, 2007).”

“This finding is consistent with expectations based on theories that lecture courses can marginalize students from underrepresented groups and that this effect is potentially ameliorated by opportunities for guided participation with diverse peers (Lee and Fradd, 1998; Price, 2010).”

“Good facilitators model conventions of language and behavior and provide scaffolds such as targeted explanations or Socratic questions (Collins et al., 1989; Dennen and Burner, 2007).”

“To enable comparisons across programs, departments, and institutions, future research should use established metrics for self-efficacy in STEM courses and career paths (Fencl and Scheel, 2005; Lent and Brown, 2006; Sawtelle et al., 2012).”

“While many biology departments have responded by implementing significant transformations of their introductory curricula to more active and inquiry-based models and course-based undergraduate research experiences (Wei and Woodin, 2011; Knight et al., 2015), many others struggle with the challenges and expenses of rev…”

“Importantly, PLTL programs have been reported to improve retention or persistence for URM or underprepared students, with persistence usually defined as reduced attrition from courses or sequences of courses (Drane et al., 2005; Preszler, 2009; Stanger-Hall et al., 2010; Batz et al., 2015).”

“…by students from many ethnic, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds, by presupposing familiarity with implicit premises and values that are culturally narrow (Brickhouse, 1994; Brickhouse et al., 2000; Lee et al. 1995; Aikenhead, 1996; Gilbert and Yerrick, 2001; Brown, 2004; Rahm, 2008).”

“…by students from many ethnic, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds, by presupposing familiarity with implicit premises and values that are culturally narrow (Brickhouse, 1994; Brickhouse et al., 2000; Lee et al. 1995; Aikenhead, 1996; Gilbert and Yerrick, 2001; Brown, 2004; Rahm, 2008).”

“URM students begin to associate white race with scientist identity as early as elementary school, getting most of this image association from school and school-provided materials such as textbooks (Walls, 2012).”

“…by students from many ethnic, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds, by presupposing familiarity with implicit premises and values that are culturally narrow (Brickhouse, 1994; Brickhouse et al., 2000; Lee et al. 1995; Aikenhead, 1996; Gilbert and Yerrick, 2001; Brown, 2004; Rahm, 2008).”

“…of their introductory curricula to more active and inquiry-based models and course-based undergraduate research experiences (Wei and Woodin, 2011; Knight et al., 2015), many others struggle with the challenges and expenses of revamping the content and style of well-honed sequences of lectures…”

“Rates of attendance by students in the non-AP and AP groups were not different.”

“Importantly, PLTL programs have been reported to improve retention or persistence for URM or underprepared students, with persistence usually defined as reduced attrition from courses or sequences of courses (Drane et al., 2005; Preszler, 2009; Stanger-Hall et al., 2010; Batz et al., 2015).”

“Importantly, PLTL programs have been reported to improve retention or persistence for URM or underprepared students, with persistence usually defined as reduced attrition from courses or sequences of courses (Drane et al., 2005; Preszler, 2009; Stanger-Hall et al., 2010; Batz et al., 2015).”

“…that study groups will discuss and solve difficult problems is based on the structure of the PLTL workshop program at Northwestern University (Born et al., 2002), which in turn was inspired by the workshop calculus model pioneered at the University of California–Berkeley (Fullilove and…”

“…by students from many ethnic, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds, by presupposing familiarity with implicit premises and values that are culturally narrow (Brickhouse, 1994; Brickhouse et al., 2000; Lee et al. 1995; Aikenhead, 1996; Gilbert and Yerrick, 2001; Brown, 2004; Rahm, 2008).”

“By contrast, curricular structures that incorporate active learning are thought to improve learning and engagement, particularly when facilitated by peers (Woodward et al., 1993).”

“Importantly, PLTL programs have been reported to improve retention or persistence for URM or underprepared students, with persistence usually defined as reduced attrition from courses or sequences of courses (Drane et al., 2005; Preszler, 2009; Stanger-Hall et al., 2010; Batz et al., 2015).”

“, 2010) to voluntary-enrollment programs in which attendance is expected (Snyder et al., 2015) to mandatory workshops with graded assignments (Preszler, 2009).”

“The additional use of underpreparedness as a criterion to identify at-risk students has been justified by arguments that ethnicities are overaggregated (Alessandria, 2002; Lee, 1997).”

“Student persistence as biology or STEM majors and minors and subsequent enrollment in postgraduate programs are categorical data, and so the chi-square tests were used to determine relationships between persistence and groups, and postgraduate enrollment and groups.”

“The boost could be disproportionately beneficial for students from MGS even if average grades are still low, because URM students in STEM are less grade-sensitive and more persistent, on average, than nonURMs (11, 40).”

“Short-Term Student Retention Small-group discussion sections that promote informal interactions among students have been demonstrated to improve URM student retention to graduation (Kudish et al., 2016).”

“…could include highly structured peer-led team-learning sessions during which students work through a packet of new questions (Hockings et al. , 2008; Snyder et al. , 2015) or more relaxed sessions during which students work through problems that have already been provided (Kudish et al. , 2016).”

“Engaging with peers on relevant material improves performance, retention, and critical thinking (Kudish et al., 2016; Stefanou, & Salisbury-Glennon, 2002).”

“The fact that students identifying with HU groups were slightly more likely to attend PSI is in agreement with other reports (Kudish et al., 2016; McGee, 2005; Moore & LeDee, 2006; Peterfreund et al., 2008).”

“Additionally, evidence suggests that overlapping social and professional networks, particularly in the form of learning communities, contribute to a stronger sense of group identification (Stolle-McAllister et al. 2011, Hall et al. 2014, Kudish et al. 2016, Maton et al. 2016).”

“Since the program began in 2005, the rate of persistence of underrepresented minority students as biology majors or minors has increased to the same level as that of majority students (Kudish et al., 2016).”

“Traditionally, these courses consist of lectures that “relay decontextualized scientific minutiae” and “presuppose a familiarity with implicit premises and values that are culturally narrow” (Kudish et al., 2016, p. 10, 1).”

“…better benefit from other social constructivist methods such as peer-led team learning (PLTL in biology; Preszler, 2009; Snyder and Wiles, 2015; Kudish et al. , 2016) or learning assistant method (LA in biology; Batz et al. , 2015; Talbot et al. , 2015; Van Dusen et al. , 2015; Sellami et al.…”

“There are many performance studies in introductory biology using PLTL (Drane et al., 2005; Preszler, 2009; Snyder and Wiles, 2015; Carlson et al., 2016; Kudish et al., 2016) and LA (Batz et al.”

“It has been shown through student evaluations and quantification of assessment scores in both undergraduate and graduate level biology/medical courses that peer-mentored workshops can dramatically enhance student engagement and learning (13, 21), increase graduation rates, and reduces failure rates in STEM courses (1,…”

“There are a few studies [17]-[18] that presented active learning approaches for out of class activities.”

“Previous work has often narrowly focused on students’ use or perceptions of individual resources (e.g., textbooks, Ruggeri, 2020; peer-facilitated learning, Kudish et al. , 2016; mentors, Pfund et al. , 2016).”