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The winning projects were chosen from 36 nominations from students, faculty and staff. Innovations were encouraged from five focus areas:
- Enriching Scholarship to focus on Life-Changing Education
- Enhancing student success through the use of alternative forms of assessment.
- Innovations to create student-centered learning environments that empower students to succeed by narrowing gaps in outcomes.
- Innovative approaches to handling the challenges and opportunities posed by Generative AI tools, including helping students develop skills for a future that includes GenAI.
- Exploring the creation of equitable, ethical and effective tech-free learning environments that promote deep thought and focus.
- Creative and meaningful linkages among coursework, curriculum and career preparation, with an emphasis on transferable skills.
Dr. Baucom's project is titled: Students Learning From Students: A Change That Makes Exams Engaging and Possibly Even Fun
Description: From years of teaching the large, approximately 500-student course Introduction to Genetics (Biology 305), Baucom noticed that some of the most constructive and engaging learning happened during office hours, where students learned not only from her explanations but also from one another as they worked through challenging problems together.
However, only a small fraction of students regularly attended office hours. She sought to recreate this collaborative learning dynamic at a much larger scale. Along with Archbold, longtime course coordinator for BIO 305, the two developed a two-stage exam process that transforms exams from primarily individual evaluative tools into a second opportunity for students to engage with course material through structured collaboration.
Students first individually complete a traditional, multiple-choice exam during lecture. Soon thereafter, they take a second “discussion exam” in their discussion sections, where they work in groups to solve more complex problems requiring deeper reasoning and synthesis. Students submit individual answers following group discussion, encouraging peer-to-peer learning while preserving individual reasoning and choice.
The discussion exams extend to all students in this gateway course the kinds of collaborative problem solving typically limited to especially interactive discussion sections or office hours. Student feedback indicates that the format improves conceptual understanding, increases confidence, and reduces the sense of working through difficult material alone.
Because the collaborative component takes place within existing discussion sections and uses the current instructional team, the model requires no additional contact hours or financial resources, thereby increasing the innovation’s potential to scale and transfer across disciplines.
