Whiteboarding Draws Upon Multiple Learning Processes to Increase Performance in a College Biology Course

• In Event: Roundtable Session 3
  In Roundtable Session: Pedagogy and Student Outcomes

Abstract

Despite calls for reformed postsecondary education, the majority of college science courses continue to be taught using lecture-based formats. This quasi-experimental study was conducted in an upper-level animal physiology course (N = 53) and examines the effectiveness of the whiteboarding strategy, which involves students responding to prompts around key concepts on an erasable hand-held whiteboard for in-class discussions, formative assessments, and group activities. Whiteboarding was incorporated in lectures for target concepts that were tested on summative exams. Results from within-group paired t-tests showed that students performed significantly greater on items that assessed whiteboard concepts compared to non-whiteboard items on all three summative exams. Processes underlying whiteboarding that leads to enhanced learning and implications for postsecondary teaching are discussed.

Authors

• Caron Inouye, California State University - East Bay

• Christine Sue-Jeung Lee, California State University - East Bay

• Kathryn N. Hayes, California State University - East Bay