NUTR 250: Human Nutrition and Metabolism-A Peer Review of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio

The purpose of this portfolio was to purposefully introduce and evaluate activities that are aimed at improving student learning and performance in NUTR250 – Human Metabolism, a large lecture-based 200-level course. Activities were designed to improve class preparation and ascertain student learning beyond exams (objective 1), provide time to review class material (objective 2), balance material related to concepts and knowledge (objective 3), and assess the effectiveness of activities (objective 4). To address objective 1, students completed weekly prequizzes, which improved student reading and preparation prior to class in approximately 2 out of 3 students. On average, students spend 33±27 min per week reading and 34±15 min per week completing the pre-quiz. Objective 2 involved the use of a student-response system (iClicker) in class and teaching assistant-led recitation prior to each exam. Students reported that the iClicker helped them understand course material (agreement: 3.9±0.8 on 1-5 scale) and that recitations were a useful addition to the course (agreement: 4.2±0.9 on 1-5 scale) Objective 3 was addressed by labelling lecture content based on key concepts and key knowledge, which improved the performance on selected concept questions (93% vs. 75%) and knowledge questions (53% vs. 41%) during the final exam when compared to the previous semester Greatest predictors of overall class performance were the average exam score (r=0.95) and the final exam score (r=0.84). Attendance, iClicker performance, and average pre-quiz scores were also significantly correlated with class performance (r=0.6-0.7)