Why are we doing this? The role of personal relevance in developing biological information literacy using cyber Peer-led Team Learning

Student-centered learning necessitates that students engage with an array of materials to develop their own understandings, often requiring students to find and critically engage with biological information. This project describes a course (BIOL 131; Biology II: Development, Structure and Function of Organisms) that utilizes cyber Peer-led Team Learning (cPLTL) as a student-centered approach to enhance students’ biological information literacy. Emphasizing the social aspects of learning, students work together in small groups led by a peer mentor using online meeting software. Scaffolded across the first half of the semester, students were given information literacy focused questions as part of a weekly problem set, beginning with finding images or videos on the Internet to eventually examining experiments to understand what kind of evidence biologists use to solve problems. In the cPLTL environment, students teach one another to be critical and consider ethical guidelines in using biological information. In the second half of the semester, the students applied what they had learned to create academic posters. The first iteration of the redesigned course was successful in making Biol 131 more student-centered and did enhance students’ biological information literacy. However, a review of the small group sessions revealed some students did not make the connection between the weekly information literacy questions and developing a greater understanding of how biological information holds personal relevance. In the next iteration of the course, efforts will be made to reframe the information literacy component to emphasis students’ engagement with biological information in personally relevant ways.