A Complete Solution for Teaching Biology
What is included with Expert TA’s Enhanced Biology Platform?
- (New) Edit the OpenStax Textbooks: Utilized our intuitive editor and then easily distribute your customized version of the text via our eReader.
- Textbook Questions: Every question from both the first and second edition of the OpenStax Biology textbook
- Additional Advanced Questions: In each chapter, 15 to 30 automatically-assessed engaging question types such as Drag-and-Drop Labeling, Sorting, Ranking, Calculations, etc.
- – PhET Simulations: We have problems designed to prompt students to engage with the activities in an detailed and specific manner, helping them get the most out of each exercise.*
- Test Bank: Over 800 additional questions that are not available publicly. The majority of these were written by the authors of the book exclusively for the Expert TA system.
- Thought and Review Questions: An extensive collection of essay-type questions that can be manually-graded for assessment purposes, or given automatic scores for participation assignments.
- Cost: Free for instructors and just $35 per semester per student.
- Problem Library: Table of Contents with question counts
(New) Editable eBooks with OpenStax
As a proud partner of OpenStax we aim to enhance their materials and offerings by providing technology solutions that they may not have themselves. Currently there is no way directly via OpenStax for instructors to customize or edit the texts in an eReader format.
We are happy to help the adopters of these texts by now providing such an editor and corresponding eReader. Instructors will be able to rearrange, rewrite, change/add images, add new sections/chapters, or easily do more advanced things like embed videos or PheT simluations. Your edited version of the textbook will be distributed through an eReader and available to students from the main class management page in Expert TA, or you can simply provide them the URL via your syllabus or as a link in your LMS system.
Spring 2024
- At a cost of $5 per student,
- instructors can push edits at any time throughout the semester
- instructors can continue to deliver their custom text via our hosted eReader to ensure you students have the most up to date version. When distributed via the online eReader, you custom text is a living document.
- If you prefer to continue with a free option for you students, as an instructor you can still make changes via our editor and simply export as a PDF and provide to your students.
Advanced Version (Coming Fall 2024)
- $15 per student per Semster
- Advanced Highlighting features
- Ability for instructor to message directly through eBook via highlights and comments.
- At instructor’s discretion, students can be allowed to share their eBook highlights and comments with the instructor or class
- Collaborative Authoring and Version Control: Multiple faculty can coordinate and edit a custom version together, with version control.
Click to Enlarge Animation
If you are interested in learning more about this, use the form provided at the top of this page to contact us.
About the Book
| Biology 2e is designed to cover the scope and sequence requirements of a typical two-semester biology course for science majors. The text provides comprehensive coverage of foundational research and core biology concepts through an evolutionary lens. Biology includes rich features that engage students in scientific inquiry, highlight careers in the biological sciences, and offer everyday applications. Interspersed throughout each chapter are various types of practice and homework questions that help students understand—and apply—key concepts. |
| The 2nd edition has been revised to incorporate clearer, more current, and more dynamic explanations while maintaining the same organization as the first edition. Art and illustrations have been substantially improved, and the textbook features additional assessments and related resources. |
Engaging Question Types
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| Studies show that students retain more information when concepts are brought to life with educational exercises that are more interactive. For example, when students actively build the structure of DNA (shown left), they remember the experience more readily than if they simply selected a multiple choice answer. |
| Immediate Feedback helps students who are making mistakes get back on track. In the adjacent animation, notice the provided feedback when an incorrect answer is submitted. |
| Traditional question types, such as Multiple Choice and True/False, still have an important role in assessment but are more effective when combined with more interactive materials. |
| Expert TA has designed our online homework platform to contain an appropriate combination of traditional and interactive questions. |
| Drag-and-Drop labeling: shown above, is one example of interactive questions that get students more involved in the learning process. |
| Algorithmic Calculations: Including randomized numbers, students are asked to calculate things such as PH level, age via carbon-dating, chemical energy change in reactions, probabilities for Mendel models, values for gas pressure and respiration, mortality rates, population growth rates, and more. |
| Ranking: Students actively order elements related to their size, sequence, etc. |
| Sorting/Categorizing: Students group items based on specified criteria. |
| Identify Feature: Students point-and-click on an area or areas of a given image to identify a specific element or feature. |
| Matching/Pairing: Items are moved to be paired with their corresponding relational “mate”. |
Interactive Chapter Summaries
We, like you, want students to read the textbook carefully enough to retain key concepts. It can be a challenge to both convince students to do the assigned reading and to also monitor comprehension.
Expert TA’s assignable chapter summaries incentivize students to pay attention to some of the most important parts of the book. Rather than students passively reading through the textbook, they become active participants.
From the same grade sheet containing other assignments, instructors can quickly assess what percentage of the class is completing the readings and the class’s overall level of understanding.
About the Authors
Both Dr. Jung Choi and Dr. Mary Anne Clark are senior authors of the OpenStax Biology 2e. textook and have partnered with Expert TA in order to help create a collection of enhanced digital materials and assessments to accompany the book.
Dr. Jung Choi is an Associate Professor at Georgia Tech and is also the director of the Bioinformatics Master’s Degree program. As a supporter of Open Education, he was excited to take on the role of senior author for both the first and second editions of the Introductory Biology textbook published by OpenStax. Dr. Choi maintains an educational blog related to biology, where he discusses his approach to the flipped classroom, advocates for the use of instructional technology, and offers insights from both his teaching experience as well as his educational research.
Dr. Mary Anne Clark earned her Ph.D. from Bryn Mawr College and is a Professor of Biology at Texas Wesleyan University. She is a senior author of the OpenStax 2nd ed. Biology textbook. Throughout Dr. Clark’s career, she has continually worked to rethink her instructional approaches to encourage more effective student learning in biology. Dr. Clark has an interest in designing educational materials in a way that is accessible to the general public. In 2009, she developed “Genome Island”, a virtual science environment in Second Life dedicated to the study of genetics.
A Stress-Free Semester
You and your students should be thinking about biology, not about course setup and technological configurations. Expert TA knows this and has gone to great lengths to make the entire experience as smooth as possible.
- Simple Registration: You share a registration link, students go through an easy three-step process, and they are enrolled and taking assignments.
- LMS Integration: Instructors can synchronize grades with their LMS gradebook. For students, single sign-on provides access to all the course materials from one location.
- A Commitment to Customer Service: The company was created on the idea of building great educational solutions, but to the Account Managers at Expert TA we think of ourselves first as a customer service company.
