By Katie Sieverman, Director of Content at Codon Learning

Last year, Codon Learning teamed up with Scott Freeman (University of Washington) to develop a new type of content resource that replaces traditional introductory biology textbooks. Our novel Readiness Readings, designed for introductory majors Biology, help prepare students for active learning by engaging with key information before each class session.

At the end of each semester, we survey students who used Codon to learn about their experience. The fall 2023 student survey included the first round of questions about students’ perspectives on the new Readiness Readings. We were thrilled to see the student responses comparing Readiness Readings to a traditional textbook:

We think that one reason behind this positive reception to Readiness Readings relates to a challenge I often faced when I was still in the classroom: I struggled with how to guide students to the parts of the textbook that were actually relevant for our course. Instead of wading through a deluge of information in a traditional textbook, Readiness Readings ask students to only engage with the content that is needed for the course they are taking.

Content in the Readiness Readings is directly aligned to a newly developed set of NSF-funded, nationally endorsed lesson-level learning objectives (LOs). These 163 LOs represent a consensus from over 800 faculty across the country about the most important topics to teach in introductory biology. (Check out the preprint of this study from Hennessey and Freeman on bioRxiv.) The granular, lesson-level LOs also benefit students by providing them with transparent expectations of what they should know and be able to do to succeed in the course.

There are many more reasons why we are excited about Readiness Readings. For example, they are…

Customizable. Instructors can customize every element of a Readiness Reading to match what they want to teach.
Active. Students answer guiding questions and get feedback while they read, and practice metacognition by marking sections clear or muddy. The muddy flag reminds students to come back to these sections prior to summative assessments.

Assignable. Instructors assign readings for points — making students accountable for reading — and track their progress in the instructor application.

We’re still learning about the impact of these readings and we’ll continue to refine them over time.