Better learners

GAMBIER, Ohio (August 14, 2003) When Bethany Lye's suitemate at Kenyon was diagnosed with a brain tumor, Lye, Class of 2003, vowed to help. She attended her friend's introductory biology course and took voluminous notes, complete with detailed diagrams and sketches of molecules, cell division, cellular structure, enzymatic reactions, and the mechanics of metabolic energy production.

Thanks to surgery and radiation therapy, Lye's friend, Marissa Boyan, Class of 2004, recovered. She returned to Kenyon after a six-month absence, although she never did complete that biology course. And Lye ended up helping more than her friend.

Encouraged by Associate Professor of Biology Christopher Gillen to share her material with other students, Lye adapted her notes and drawings for a new Web page. Her "Success in Intro Biology: A Student's Guide" debuted in fall 2001. Ongoing feedback says it's a hit. "Some people get bored" reading textbooks or printed handouts, Lye says. "This is something different. This could be someone's ticket to finally getting it."

Helping students get it online is the aim of "Courses on the Web," a multisection Kenyon Web site that includes lecture materials, supplementary information, and links, as well as exercises and interactive quizzes. Supported by grants from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), the site contains three Web-based Kenyon courses for biology majors and two for nonmajors.

Kenyon's academic Web offerings focus on the College's own students and are intended to make them better learners through online access to syllabi, course content, tutorials, and links to "external" knowledge-rich sites such as the National Institutes of Health and the Library of Congress.

Tom Susman, Class of 2004, elected to take a hands-on lab class that included examination of cat anatomy. During and after dissection, Susman and his fellow students used workstations in the lab to access Kenyon's "Cat Anatomy Tutorial." Such exercises on the Web allow students to work on their own, which means they can digest information at their own pace.

"You actually benefit from your mistakes," says Professor of Biology Joan Slonczewski, who is the program director for the College's HHMI grant. "You get instant feedback. You're testing things out and getting an immediate response. It's very different from traditional quizzes."

Learn more about Kenyon's Web-teaching resources. The way Kenyon uses the Web is part of a national trend at colleges and universities to use online tools to support learning.

One of the nation's leading liberal arts and sciences colleges and home to the Kenyon Review, Kenyon College offers 1,550 students a challenging educational experience enriched by a culture of friendship. Graduates of the college have included actor and philanthropist Paul Newman and Pulitzer-prize winning author E. L. Doctorow.