Cargando…
Exploring the MACH Model’s Potential as a Metacognitive Tool to Help Undergraduate Students Monitor Their Explanations of Biological Mechanisms
When undergraduate biology students learn to explain biological mechanisms, they face many challenges and may overestimate their understanding of living systems. Previously, we developed the MACH model of four components used by expert biologists to explain mechanisms: Methods, Analogies, Context, a...
Autores principales: | , , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
American Society for Cell Biology
2016
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4909334/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27252295 http://dx.doi.org/10.1187/cbe.15-03-0051 |
_version_ | 1782437823279792128 |
---|---|
author | Trujillo, Caleb M. Anderson, Trevor R. Pelaez, Nancy J. |
author_facet | Trujillo, Caleb M. Anderson, Trevor R. Pelaez, Nancy J. |
author_sort | Trujillo, Caleb M. |
collection | PubMed |
description | When undergraduate biology students learn to explain biological mechanisms, they face many challenges and may overestimate their understanding of living systems. Previously, we developed the MACH model of four components used by expert biologists to explain mechanisms: Methods, Analogies, Context, and How. This study explores the implementation of the model in an undergraduate biology classroom as an educational tool to address some of the known challenges. To find out how well students’ written explanations represent components of the MACH model before and after they were taught about it and why students think the MACH model was useful, we conducted an exploratory multiple case study with four interview participants. We characterize how two students explained biological mechanisms before and after a teaching intervention that used the MACH components. Inductive analysis of written explanations and interviews showed that MACH acted as an effective metacognitive tool for all four students by helping them to monitor their understanding, communicate explanations, and identify explanatory gaps. Further research, though, is needed to more fully substantiate the general usefulness of MACH for promoting students’ metacognition about their understanding of biological mechanisms. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4909334 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2016 |
publisher | American Society for Cell Biology |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-49093342016-06-24 Exploring the MACH Model’s Potential as a Metacognitive Tool to Help Undergraduate Students Monitor Their Explanations of Biological Mechanisms Trujillo, Caleb M. Anderson, Trevor R. Pelaez, Nancy J. CBE Life Sci Educ Article When undergraduate biology students learn to explain biological mechanisms, they face many challenges and may overestimate their understanding of living systems. Previously, we developed the MACH model of four components used by expert biologists to explain mechanisms: Methods, Analogies, Context, and How. This study explores the implementation of the model in an undergraduate biology classroom as an educational tool to address some of the known challenges. To find out how well students’ written explanations represent components of the MACH model before and after they were taught about it and why students think the MACH model was useful, we conducted an exploratory multiple case study with four interview participants. We characterize how two students explained biological mechanisms before and after a teaching intervention that used the MACH components. Inductive analysis of written explanations and interviews showed that MACH acted as an effective metacognitive tool for all four students by helping them to monitor their understanding, communicate explanations, and identify explanatory gaps. Further research, though, is needed to more fully substantiate the general usefulness of MACH for promoting students’ metacognition about their understanding of biological mechanisms. American Society for Cell Biology 2016 /pmc/articles/PMC4909334/ /pubmed/27252295 http://dx.doi.org/10.1187/cbe.15-03-0051 Text en © 2016 C. M. Trujillo et al. CBE—Life Sciences Education © 2016The American Society for Cell Biology. This article is distributed by The American Society for Cell Biology under license from the author(s). It is available to the public under an Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0). “ASCB®” and “The American Society for Cell Biology®” are registered trademarks of The American Society for Cell Biology. |
spellingShingle | Article Trujillo, Caleb M. Anderson, Trevor R. Pelaez, Nancy J. Exploring the MACH Model’s Potential as a Metacognitive Tool to Help Undergraduate Students Monitor Their Explanations of Biological Mechanisms |
title | Exploring the MACH Model’s Potential as a Metacognitive Tool to Help Undergraduate Students Monitor Their Explanations of Biological Mechanisms |
title_full | Exploring the MACH Model’s Potential as a Metacognitive Tool to Help Undergraduate Students Monitor Their Explanations of Biological Mechanisms |
title_fullStr | Exploring the MACH Model’s Potential as a Metacognitive Tool to Help Undergraduate Students Monitor Their Explanations of Biological Mechanisms |
title_full_unstemmed | Exploring the MACH Model’s Potential as a Metacognitive Tool to Help Undergraduate Students Monitor Their Explanations of Biological Mechanisms |
title_short | Exploring the MACH Model’s Potential as a Metacognitive Tool to Help Undergraduate Students Monitor Their Explanations of Biological Mechanisms |
title_sort | exploring the mach model’s potential as a metacognitive tool to help undergraduate students monitor their explanations of biological mechanisms |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4909334/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27252295 http://dx.doi.org/10.1187/cbe.15-03-0051 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT trujillocalebm exploringthemachmodelspotentialasametacognitivetooltohelpundergraduatestudentsmonitortheirexplanationsofbiologicalmechanisms AT andersontrevorr exploringthemachmodelspotentialasametacognitivetooltohelpundergraduatestudentsmonitortheirexplanationsofbiologicalmechanisms AT pelaeznancyj exploringthemachmodelspotentialasametacognitivetooltohelpundergraduatestudentsmonitortheirexplanationsofbiologicalmechanisms |