Alternative assessment strategy and its impact on student comprehension in an undergraduate microbiology course

Medical Microbiology is a content-intensive course that requires a large time commitment from the students. Students are typically biology or prenursing majors, including students headed for professional schools, such as medical school and pharmacy school. This group is somewhat diverse in terms of background science coursework, so it can be difficult to teach in a way that benefits all the students. Numerous changes have been implemented in our microbiology curriculum to address the different abilities of our students by altering assessment and teaching strategies. It was hypothesized that changing the assessment strategy from the traditional scheme of two or three exams and one final to a new model of seven or eight shorter exams would have a positive impact on student comprehension and retention. The quantity of material taught or expected of the students to learn did not change, but there was definitely an impact on them. Although 30.0% of students routinely did not pass microbiology in previous semesters, the new method of assessment resulted in only 9.63% not completing the semester successfully, as determined by earning a grade of C or better. There is some evidence from conversations and interviews with students that indicates a positive impact of this methodology on student attitude. Implementation of these changes in other courses and their current effectiveness will be examined in the future, with an eye towards more broadly applicable successful teaching techniques in the sciences, especially for nonmajors.