Experimenting with Different Forms of Popular Media as Sources for an Exploratory Writing Assignment in a High Enrollment Biochemistry Lecture Course
Mona Monfared
Friday, September 12th, 2025
11-11:45 am
Description
BIS103 is an upper division course where student explore bioenergetics and metabolic pathways. Metabolism is a topic often explored in popular media like blogs and social media, so I used an exploratory writing assignment to not only increase engagement with the course material but to expose students to trusted online sources in the popular media sphere. In addition to explaining the structure of the assignment, I will share survey data about the impact of the assignment as well as changes I made between quarters. For many quarters, I provided links to blogs/articles by three vetted content creators. Recently, I added the option of using their social media posts instead. Working with Andrew Simon (undergraduate researcher), we discovered that very few students selected Instagram posts over blog posts. The following quarter I gave the option to use blog posts vs YouTube videos, and students were evenly split between the two choices. Andrew qualitatively coded student responses about why students chose one form of popular media over the other, which guides me to create assignments that better reach my goals of integrating popular media with course content.
Link to video [video.ucdavis.edu]
Access the presentation slides (Google Slides; PDF)
Access the Zoom chat from the event.
About the Presenter
Mona Monfared is an Associate Professor of Teaching in the Molecular and Cellular Biology Department. She is the co-Director of the Future Undergraduate Science Educators (FUSE) Program, a Graduate Academic Certificate program for students who want to pursue teaching careers in higher education. She teaches the FUSE courses as well as BIS102: Structure and Function of Biomolecules and BIS103: Bioenergetics and Metabolism. She received her PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at UC Davis, working on understanding the molecular genetics of the female side of plant reproduction. Dr. Monfared did her postdoctoral research at the Plant Gene Expression Center at UC Berkeley/USDA studying genes involved in seed pod and leaf development as well as stem cell maintenance. She has been an instructor at a number of schools in the San Francisco Bay Area (Santa Clara University, St. Mary’s College, Holy Names College, and UC Berkeley Extension). Her current research program focuses on inclusive teaching practices and professional development for graduate students. Creating an inclusive and empowering classroom environment is a priority for her and exploring ways in which to do this is a theme of her work.
