{"id":4127,"date":"2022-01-10T10:25:48","date_gmt":"2022-01-10T16:25:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ele.local\/?p=4127"},"modified":"2022-08-02T10:09:23","modified_gmt":"2022-08-02T15:09:23","slug":"promoting-equity-in-biology-how-a-professor-redesigned-exams-and-online-labs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.everylearnereverywhere.org\/es\/blog\/promoting-equity-in-biology-how-a-professor-redesigned-exams-and-online-labs\/","title":{"rendered":"Promoting Equity in Biology: How a Professor Redesigned Exams and Online Labs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Even before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, Dr. Kristin Polizzotto and her colleagues at Kingsborough Community College (KBCC) in Brooklyn, New York, employed powerful online tools such as courseware from major publishers to engage students in biology online material outside the classroom.<\/span><\/p>\n

But Polizzotto encountered a vexing problem. While students in her introductory biology class were highly motivated, and most planned careers in healthcare, many struggled with the online resources and underperformed on tests.<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition to teaching the course material, <\/span>Polizzotto says,<\/span> \u201cI try to help students construct the scaffolding for how scientists think and organize information. It\u2019s a framework for all the new material they learn for the rest of their lives.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

That wasn\u2019t showing up in the assessments, though, and Polizzotto suspected access to computer hardware and wifi \u2014 while an important factor \u2014 didn\u2019t fully explain the problem. Her students were generally positive about their experience with the digital resources, but many complained about the exams and their perception of a disconnect between test questions and course learning objectives.<\/span><\/p>\n

She eventually came to believe there were two significant barriers to her students\u2019 success that she could influence: unfamiliar language on the exams and unaffordable course materials. Instead of an issue of readiness or effort on the students\u2019 part, Polizzotto says, \u201cI realized this was an equity issue.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Over the following two years, Polizzotto and colleagues engaged in two major efforts to make the teaching and learning in introductory biology online at KBCC more equitable.<\/span><\/p>\n

Revising tests and quizzes for language clarity<\/b><\/h2>\n

As described in a 2019 case study<\/a>, Polizzotto began by taking a close look at the courseware test bank questions that students most often answered incorrectly.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn some cases I was surprised because I thought they were easy questions,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen I asked the students about it, it became clear they misunderstood the questions due to the wording. I realized the questions were easy for me because I\u2019m a native English speaker with a broad background in the sciences.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Non-native English speakers are common at KBCC, which is part of the City University of New York system. Its student population of 15,000 includes many recent and first-generation immigrants. \u201cMany speak Farsi, South Asian languages, or Russian,\u201d Polizzotto says, \u201cand there are quite a number of French Creole speakers from the Caribbean.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Given the language challenges, many of Polizzotto\u2019s students had an additiona<\/span>l cognitive load<\/a> during exams and quizzes to comprehend how questions were worded instead of the actual substance or content. \u201cSometimes,\u201d she says, \u201cthe words being used were unnecessarily fancy, so to speak.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n