Revised Assessment Plan for the Department of Biological Sciences

The Department of Biological Sciences has restructured its Assessment Committee for AY 2004-05 to ensure that there will be timelier reporting about departmental assessment activities. The new Assessment Committee met and reviewed and approved the departmental response to the Evaluation Report that we received in spring 2004 about our Assessment Plan submitted in fall 2003 as shown below:

Student Outcomes:

We have re-evaluated and rephrased the learning outcomes for Biology majors to better reflect how each learning outcome will be assessed.

• Goal #1: Students should have a solid understanding of the fundamentals of

biology;

• Assessment: Seniors will take the national Educational Testing Service (ETS) Biology

Field Test; overall performance should be at or above the national average test scores.

• Goal #2: Students should be able to read and understand the primary biological

literature and develop critical thinking skills (to avoid mere memorization

of facts) with the maturity of someone with a baccalaureate degree;

• Assessment: Seniors will prepare a writing portfolio on scientific topics as part of the

required writing intensive senior capstone course (BIOL 4700). The Assessment Committee will evaluate portfolios.

• Goal #3: Students should be able to write and speak clearly and thoroughly about

subjects relating to biological sciences;

• Assessment: Seniors will make an oral presentation on their research topic (in addition

to the written paper) as part of the required writing intensive senior capstone course (BIOL 4700). Students will receive written peer comments of their presentations. Further, a standard evaluation form will be developed and used by all the WAC course instructors.

Note: there are many other opportunities for biology majors (of any class year) to make oral presentations-research lab meetings, lab classes, Honors Brown Bag seminars, spring Biology UG Research Symposium, spring Sigma Xi Symposium, and the National Conference on Undergraduate research (NCUR) as well as national research society meetings. Although the latter are not required activities, they are strongly encouraged by Biosciences faculty.

• Goal #4: Students will be encouraged to appreciate relationships among the various

sub-disciplines of biology and realize what they do not yet clearly understand and know how to improve their level of understanding.

• Assessment: During the senior capstone course the student in-class performance will be

assessed for the ability of the student to synthesize information from different sub-disciplines of biology and related sciences.

Approaches to Assessment:

As noted above, Biosciences will assess progress toward departmental assessment goals. Assessment of progress toward the accomplishment of departmental goals is based on three approaches. The two most direct annual measures, the taking of the ETS Field Biology Test and the writing portfolio, are embedded in the requirement for biology majors to take the writing intensive senior capstone course entitled “Biological Literature and Communication” (BIOL 4700). This primary focus of that course is to help our students learn to read the primary scientific literature, and develop critical thinking skills as they analyze the scientific experimental design, data presentation and analysis. It is taught by experienced faculty who guide the students through frequent writing assignments, a major term paper, and an oral presentation.

• The ETS Field Biology Test: The ETS Biology Field Test will be taken by every biology major during their senior year at the conclusion of BIOL 4700. It will be administered at the end of term in both fall and spring semesters, as well as at the end of summer session 3. The examinations will be sent to ETS for marking and then returned to the department for evaluation. The Assessment Committee will review the performance of UT Biology majors in each of the sub-disciplinary areas (Cell Biology, Molecular Biology/Genetics, Organismal Biology, and Population Biology/Evolution) as well as the overall score. UT student scores will be compared with scores of biology majors from the 342 other colleges and universities in the United States that also take the ETS exam. That group includes several peer institutions of the Urban 13/21 Universities. The department has regularly administered the ETS Field Biology Test over past 10 years with data collection and analysis well underway.

• Writing Portfolio: As part of BIOL 4700, seniors write about topics based on research from the primary literature. Starting with fall 2003, each student now prepares a portfolio from course assignments including work submitted at the beginning and end of the term. The portfolios will be reviewed by the Departmental Assessment Committee to ensure that the student learning outcomes are achieved. Thus, the writing portfolios will include work that demonstrates students’ ability to think and write critically about the primary biological literature. Student work collected by course instructors each term will be kept in a secure file cabinet in the department office (BO 1025).

The third, and more indirect, assessment measure that we plan to initiate involves a post-graduation questionnaire to be sent to former B.S. Biology students.

• The Alumni Questionnaire is a new measure that will be administered for the first time in AY 2004-05 (it is currently under development). The department has gathered the names and addresses for Biology majors that have graduated over the past 20 years. As a first measure, the questionnaire will be sent to alunmni/ae who graduated five years ago and will attempt to assess the value of their undergraduate education as preparation for their graduate/professional schools or job placements. In order to increase the “return rate”, we plan to ask for an electronic response on our website so that we can utilize the eListen software to help with data analysis (if possible).

Timeline for Assessment:

As outlined above, the student learning outcome data currently are gathered directly from senior Biology majors through the use of the ETS field test and senior capstone course activities and will be gathered indirectly from the new alumni questionnaire under development.

Specific Changes to the Curriculum and Program over the last 2-3 years:

In summer 2000, the former Department of Biology was reorganized to form a new Department of Biological Sciences. The faculty interested in ecology and environmental sciences realigned with the former members of the Department of Geology to form a new Department of Earth, Ecological and Environmental Sciences. At that time there was a restructuring of the undergraduate curriculum to better reflect the new departmental focus, and a new core requirement for Developmental Biology (BIOL 3090) was substituted for the former requirement for Ecology (BIOL 3050). In addition, we have enriched our elective course offerings at the 4000-level to include courses in Cancer Biology, Developmental Genetics and Molecular Biology. Thus, we have a particular interest in analyzing the performance of our students on the ETS Field Biology Test to determine whether those changes have had any impact.

Specific Changes in Department Program Planning and Resource Allocation over the last 2-3 years:

To date, our review of the performance of our students on the ETS Field Biology Test has not necessitated any major changes in our curriculum. Our students’ performance has been similar to Biology majors at comparable institutions. However, we are constantly refining our courses to ensure that our students are well prepared for their future careers. For example, we have written several grant proposals to acquire new computers and instruments to enhance the quality of the student lab experiences. Within the last three years, close to $160,000 has been garnered from OBOR and TEAF for hardware, software and new microscopes and sophisticated instrumentation. We also have established the new Center for Molecular Biology (CMB) with almost $1M of state-of-the-art instrumentation that is available for upper division students. In addition, with the recent recruitment of six new faculty with active research programs, we are strongly encouraging all our students to conduct undergraduate research with our faculty (or elsewhere) to help them improve their critical thinking skills as well as their understanding of a specific research area. We have an annual undergraduate research symposium each spring at which our students can make oral presentations about their research projects. Lastly, within the past two we have convinced the college to allow our Biology faculty (rather than senior pre-med students) to serve as instructors in the ARS 1000 orientation course taken by freshman so that we can better acquaint our students with the course requirements for the major, career counseling, and peer mentoring, as well as ensuring that our first year students have immediate contact with their future faculty advisor.

Types of Assessment Data to be Gathered (2004-05):

As noted above, the ETS Field Biology Test will be administered at the end of the BIOL 4700 course, students in BIOL 4700 will prepare portfolios, and data will be collected from an alumni questionnaire. The writing portfolios were prepared for the first time during AY 2003-04, and they will be evaluated in AY 2004-05. The alumni questionnaire will be completed and mailed out during the coming academic year. It is hoped that those latter two activities will enable the department to gather additional assessment data to gain a better perspective on student learning.

Individuals Responsible for Assessment (2004-05):

For the past ten years, Dr. Charles Creutz has been responsible for the administration and analysis of the ETS Field Biology Test. As part of our restructuring, Dr. John Plenefisch has been appointed as the new chair of the Assessment Committee and he will assume that responsibility. Dr. Creutz remains on the committee and another new appointment, Dr. Emilio Duran, also has been made. The Assessment Committee will be responsible for the oversight of the assessment activities in the department. The Committee will prepare an annual report to be shared with the Undergraduate Affairs Committee and the department (at a faculty meeting). The final report should be submitted to the chair no later than May of each spring term.

Selected faculty members are responsible for teaching the senior capstone course. During the 2003-04 academic year, Drs. Creutz, Duran and Leaman taught BIOL 4700. Drs. Duran and Creutz have taught this course for several years and they worked with Dr. Leaman who taught that course for the first time in fall 2003. Dr. Plenefisch will teach BIOL 4700 for the first time in spring 2005 and he will alternate that responsibility with Dr. Anthony Quinn in alternate spring terms. As new faculty members teach BIOL 4700 they will be mentored by experienced instructors. The Assessment Committee will review the portfolios submitted by the students in BIOL 4700 and submit the findings of their review to the Chair.