Teaching Students How to Check Their Work While Solving Problems in Genetics

Although problem solving is a highly valued skill, the processes involved are rarely taught in our undergraduate biology classes. An essential component skill of monitoring and reflection during problem solving is work checking, a process used by experts while solving problems to determine if their solution is achieving the goal. The results of work checking may reveal errors or inconsistencies, indicating a need for iteration. Using think-aloud interviews, we identified that most students in our undergraduate genetics course did not engage in checking while solving problems. In response, we made changes to the course curriculum to include explicit teaching of work checking, practice and feedback on work checking, and allotting a small number of course points for demonstration of checking on quizzes and exams. Analysis of students’ written answers and think-aloud interviews revealed that significantly more students engaged in checking after our curriculum change, even when not prompted. Results of this study highlight the value of explicitly teaching context-specific, problemsolving processes in our science courses. Teaching Students How to Check Their Work While Solving Problems in Genetics