Biological Sciences (61) A review of the undergraduate biology laboratory experiences at the University of South Carolina revealed a lack of emphasis on science inquiry skills, dissimilar introductory experiences for transfer students and the lack of comprehensive performance assessment benchmarks. USC's Biology Department has enacted several inquiry-based reforms, including the frequent use of peer review, and is now integrating a performance assessment system to illuminate the students' evolving inquiry skills. We have chosen the Calibrated Peer Review system developed at UCLA as the central mechanism to achieve these goals. The objectives of this project are to 1) integrate the Calibrated Peer Review system in our introductory and sophomore biology laboratories; 2) develop comprehensive performance assessment criteria and evaluation of the efficacy of our undergraduate curriculum by tracking changes in student inquiry skills from freshman to senior year; 3) provide professional development for faculty and teaching assistants in the pedagogical practices associated with inquiry-based, reflective learning; and 4) integrate curriculum reforms at our largest two-year partner institution (Midlands Technical College). The Calibrated Peer Review software facilitates students' critical thinking and evaluation skills by providing a framework within which students 1) receive guided experiences in evaluating example work (calibration phase), 2) anonymously review the work of peers and 3) self-assess. We are evaluating the impact of these reforms by tracking changes in students' written lab reports across freshman, sophomore and senior year. Capturing these laboratory reports via the CPR system provides a novel mechanism to evaluate the efficacy of our curriculum as a whole. We are providing professional development to faculty and teaching assistants responsible for enacting the curricular innovations. The fourth objective extends these curriculum reforms to Midlands Technical College. We are comparing performance of MTC transfer students in the sophomore level USC courses to the performance of students who took the entire sequence at USC to determine the effectiveness of the curriculum alignment efforts over time.
