Submitted by Chip Nataro / Lafayette College on Sat, 08/31/2019 - 16:14

Over this past year we introduced the idea of the 1 Figure Learning Object a.k.a. the 1FLO in honor of our snakey mascot Flo. The idea of a 1FLO is to take a single figure from a paper and develop a series of questions for students to answer. This not only gets students to actively engage with the literature, it also aids them in learning to apply their knowledge to new material. I was recently introduced to a paper from the American Society for Microbiology that presents their version of a 1FLO called a "Research Box" (RB). While I can't say that I am especially interested in moss, there are some interesting points in this paper. I like that they provided examples of student work that were "well done" or "needed improvement." I am also intrigued by the last two sentences: "Another option is having students peer review each other's RBs using the rubric provided before final versions are due for grading. Knowing in advance that their classmates will be providing feedback on their work facilitiates higher quality student products." I have added quite a few more literature discussion LOs to my Inorganic 2 course this fall and I intend to use a few of our 1FLOs. I'll have to try out the RB approach to see how it works. Has this gotten you interested in 1FLOs? A collection of them has recently been published, and I would sure like to include a few more. Perhaps you have a paper in mind that might make a great addition.