Qualitative Evidence of Academic Growth

Seeing the Opening of Doors

Drawing and diagram of the inner eye by a student with no previous artistic aspirations who is now intent upon becoming a surgeon, anatomist and anatomical illustrator.

Overview of Qualitative Component of DAG

Academic gains are the ultimate door opener – they are the foundation of a truly transformational teacher. Students make dramatic levels of academic growth that are measurable and rigorous. In this section I shall demonstrate the tremendous gains my students have made through the lens of qualitative growth

Though necessitating different methods of analysis and interpretation, the growth that my students have exhibited in their academic performance has been no less discernible and dramatic qualitatively as quantitatively. Over the course of instruction my students have shown an increasing ability to understand concepts of increasing complexity, to understand vocabulary of greater richness and technicality and to use draftsmanship (i.e. drawing, diagramming) with growing facility in order to assimilate information and to convey their grasp of that information.

As can be seen in my selection of artifacts, I employ visual illustration often as a means of reinforcing important concepts, impressing upon students the centrality of physical and chemical structures in biology and differentiating my teaching in order to give students an additional modality via which to amass knowledge while simultaneously expanding my evaluative options. To this end, many of my lessons feature a drawing or diagrammatic component. Through anecdotal evidence and observing my students intently, it is evident to me that drawing (when undertaken with sufficient seriousness and purposiveness) induces my students to read and study with heightened attention to detail. Qualitatively, I definitely discerned a positive feedback cycle, wherein students commenced with comparatively crude drawings with less thorough labeling to increasingly adroit artistic expression, neatness and thorougness of labeling. This apparently increased artistic acumen seemed to generate more interest in the conceptual content and conceivably contributed to the quantitative improvements in assessment scores.

In preparing my students for Assessment II, I set aside time to confer with each student on their performance, communicate our shared expectations for improvement, and address specific deficits in their test performance as well as gaps in their general understanding of scientific concepts in which they were expected to be competent or reasonably conversant. Further, I planned particular days for class-wide reviews of assessment content upon which my students performed particularly poorly (collectively speaking) and thereby highlighted my own instructional shortcomings or areas of needed growth. Several lessons were replicated and substantially re-taught and students were given additional credit to execute anew previously assigned homework or classwork. This concerted effort on the part of myself and my students doubtless contributed to their objective, quantitative growth. Cognitively connecting structure and function with clarity contributed to qualitative improvements in my students’ performance as can be seen in each of the accompanying artifacts.

Written Expression

Student A

Increasing Accuracy of Understanding and Written Expression

These artifacts exemplify the improvement in understanding and clarity of writing in a student on a lesson re-done in review for an assessment. Clearly the student's grasp of the nature of the circulatory system has advanced appreciably as has his ability to express his ideas in a more coherent, comprehensible manner. Few skills ensure academic success more assuredly and open as many doors as excellent communicative capacity. My student's demonstration of greatly improved accuracy and thoroughness of expression augurs well for future success if it is sustained and accretes with exposure to increasingly complex content. Such is the task of a transformative teacher.

Student A's initial writing sample

Student A Evaluation.docx

Student A's initial writing feedback

Student A's subsequent writing sample

Student A2 Evaluation.docx

Student A's subsequent writing feedback

Student B

Increasing Accuracy of Understanding Augmented by Verbal Instruction

These artifacts exemplify the improvement in understanding and clarity of writing in another student on a lesson re-done in review for an assessment. This student's grasp of the adverse consequences of hyperglycemia has advanced considerably as has his ability to express his ideas in a more coherent, comprehensible manner. I have reason to attribute this improvement to special study sessions that several students elected to avail themselves of in preparation for examinations and in order to derive a deeper understanding of the concepts we covered in class. My reasons for maintaining the latter supposition derive from the fact that a large proportion of my pupils who stayed for after-school learning sessions performed well above average academically. They expressed to me that they simply wished to learn more and our conversations commonly expanded far beyond the basic content of lessons. Experiences such as these affirm the ablity of academic growth to open doors for students who are motivated to advance their knowledge, who are expected by their instructor(s) to excell intellectually, and who are given the guidance and resources to do so.

Student B's initial responses to questions concering normal and maladaptive metabolism.

Student B's amended response to question concerning maladaptive metabolism.

Student B Evaluation.docx

Initial evaluation of Student B's written responses.

Student B2 Evaluation.docx

Subsequent evaluation of Student B's written response.

Student C

Increasing Understanding of the Significance of Science in Society and Increased Capacity for Written Expression

The artifacts of Student C are writing prompts from assessments administered near the start and end of the school year, respectively. Though the interval was long, the growth exhibited by this student in his knowledge of the breadth of science, the importance of science and the utility of science is dramatic and impressive. It will be noted that I prematurely (though purposely) prompted my student(s) to make a philosophical inference about a fundamental fact of science: the inorganic origins of life. My aim was to orient my pupils at this early juncture to the type of rigorousintellectual analyses that we would be engaged in throughout the course. Though such analytic ability was lacking in this student's response in this initialassignment, it is very evident his final exposition. In the latter case, students were asked to respond to three related prompts: (I) Describe your understanding of science; (II) Describe what you consider to be the utility of science; and (III) Describe which problems (individual, regional, or global) you would attempt to mitigate (i.e. lessen) if you were a competentscientist. World hunger, crime and drug addiction are the problems identified by the student as ones that he would aim to address. The clarity with which he writes on these topics is evident in the accompanying excerpt. All three topics are ones which we explored repeatedly over the course of the year, with my students being privy to the paper on addiction cited in the CRT section (Amen-Ra, 2014). We had not discussed the drug phentanyl specifically, however, and the student's incorporation of this topic (with which he had personal, familial experience) is worthy of special mention. Also worth recognizing is the student's prescient statement (in light of the present pandemic) that "It helps people live and without science life probably wouldn't be possible or either many people would die of a disease that they couldn't figure out the problem [to]." My students are aware of my writing in Evolutionary Nutrition (Amen-Ra, 2003) wherein I wrote of the SARs coronavirus and warned of a future pandemic owing to ongoing animal exploitation and the resultant risk of zoonotic infections. If the student had this book or our discussion thereof on his mind in making his insightful comment, it is an impressive example of assimilating and appropriately employing information. If this specific work was not uppermost on his mind, it reflects admirable independent thought. Adroit assimilation and application of information and the ability to think independently are attributes that will open many doors for my students as is evident by their dramatic academic growth.

Student C's initial writing sample.

Student C Evaluation.docx

Evaluation of Student C's initial writing sample.

Student C's subsequent writing sample

Student C2 Evaluation.docx

Evaluation of Student C's subsequent writing sample

Graphic Expression

Student D

Simplicity to Complexity

As is evident in the artifacts of this student, who elected to re-do an assignment in the course of reviewing for an assessment on biochemical energetics, a much more extensive understanding of the citric acid cycle is demonstrated, including the area of the organelle in which the reactions transpire and the main molecular intermediates involved therein. Though the scores of every student improved dramatically from Assessment I to Assessment II, this student's growth was among the most marked. In my personal educational experience, I was not exposed to scientific content of this complexity until commencing college courses. If this quality of work is continued by my students, as exemplified by the progress of this pupil, it is easy to imagine their succesful entry into such professions as medicine, pharmacy, biomedical research and academic science.

Student D's initial rendering of TCA Cycle.

Graphic Evaluation Rubric.docx

Generic rubric employed to evaluate my students' graphic content.

Student D's re-rendering of TCA Cycle coincident with assessment review.

Student E

Structure & Function

Demonstrated in these artifacts (produced by student E over a span of months) is the layering of content from drawing simple structures of representative eukaryotic cells and the ultimate ability to correctly distinguish cells based upon the presence or absence of particular organelles and their chief function(s). Unprompted by text or instructor, the student recollected and included in his notes the important distinguishing fact that though prokaryotes lack a true nucleus, they do indeed have genetic material that is located loosely in a central region of the organism's single cell. Inductive reasoning is an integral aspect of science and this student's recollection shows the rudiments of such reasoning which, when mature, can lead to the kind of hypothesis construction that is the life blood of both experimental and theoretical science.

Plant Cell

Animal Cell

Contrasting Prokaryote, Plant, & Animal Cell

Student F

Function & Malfunction

Demonstrated in these artifacts (produced by student F over a span of months) is the layering of content from being able to accurately list the four phases of cell division, to understanding and illustrating the relative time that a typical cell spends in its respective phases of growth, gene replication, mitosis, and dividing proper. The rightmost image illustrates an independent project pursued on the student's own initiative that was prompted by our conversation (after class) concerning what happens when a cell incurs some genetic damage that impairs its ability to regulate its division. Cancer, I conveyed to the student, is a common result. I elaborated that carcinogenesis is preceded by mutation of specific division-regulating regions of the genome that cause the cell to divide aberrantly, leading in some cases to a tumor that may then metastisize via vessels. The student sought and found an image that illustrates this metastatic process; that image appears below. The best scientists are driven decidedly by an ambition to understand phenomena of interest to themselves. This student's exhibition of independent interest in this area is a trait that, if cultivated, can conduce to a rewarding career in science.

Listing the phases of mitosis.

Drawing the phases of mitosis.

Depicting the dysfunction of cell division, eventuating in cancer and metastasis.

Student G

Macro to Micro: Graphic Reinforcement of Conceptual Content

Again illustrated in these artifacts (similarly produced by student G over a span of months) is the 'sedimentation' of information from being able to simplistically present the passage of a morsel of food through the main structures of the gastrointestinal apparatus, to being able to accurately recall the functions of specific regions of the gut and the metabolic substances associated therewith ultimately to a detailed depiction of the microstructure of the small intestine (rightmost image). This process of 'epistemological sedimentation' is typical of the manner in which complex scientific topics are taught at the collegiate level and (in some instances) to the way in which scientific knowledge has steadily advanced over the course of human history. By promotiong this process of knowlege accretion in my pupils I am confident that many doors shall be opened and that the dramatic academic growth that they have demonstrated and that I have documented shall be self-reinforcing and result in admirable accomplishments over a lifetime of learning.

Drawing the gross anatomy of digestion.

Conveying a verbal understanding of absorption, assimilation and metabolism.

Depicting the macro-, meso-, and micro-anatomy of intestinal absorption.

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