The Use of Faies (First Aid in English System) Method to Develop the Students' Writing Ability

This research aimed to find out the improvement of the students' writing ability in term of grammar covering simple past tense and past continuous tense and vocabulary covering verb and noun, especially in recount text at the eighth-grade students of SMP Unismuh Makassar. The researcher used a classroom action research (CAR) which was conducted in two cycles where each cycle consisted of four meetings and the application consisted of four steps namely planning, action, observation, and reflection. The technique of collecting data is writing test and observation and technique of data analysis is quantitative. The number of the research subject was 26 students in class VIIIB and all the students were male. The research findings indicated that using FAIES method could improve the students writing ability in terms of grammar and vocabulary. It was proved by the students' mean score in the test of cycle II, the result was (75.25) which increased 15.15 % from the cycle I mean score (60.1). It was highly increased from a diagnostic test (D – test) mean score (48.2). The students' achievement in cycle II indicated that it had met the researcher score target (75) where the classification of students' score was 4 students got excellent score where the percentage was 15.4%, 11 students got good score where the percentage was 42.3%, 10 students got fair score where the percentage was 38.5% and 1 student got poor score where the percentage was 3.8%. Based on the findings of the research above, the researcher concluded that FAIES method were successful in improving the students' writing ability covering grammar and vocabulary for recount text at the eighth-grade students of SMP Unismuh Makassar class VIIIB .

subject, it will make us be active learners rather than passive receiver of information like I write then I remember. It also helps us absorb and process information from a topic that we are going to write and we will be deeply involved to the subject in order to get good sense.
Another beneficial of writing is it is important for many aspects of social, practitioners, and professional of communication. Those who have difficulties in expressing themselves in writing are handicapped in society. Schwegler in Sudarman (2011) also explained that writing is one of the hardest things that people do because it requires thinking. He also said that, there are several components in writing that should be mastered in writing such as grammatical structure, vocabulary, coherence, organization, and content. Those components are related to one another in order to produce a good writing. The absence of one of those components will produce poor result of writing.
As we know, one of the most difficult of language skills is writing. The ability to write strongly dealt with the use of punctuation, structure, vocabulary, and organization of paragraph. On the other hand, writing is one way to develop our opinion, ideas, or our thought for formal or informal sentences. And also there are many aspects that make students cannot write well, such as; they do not have enough ideas to write, they cannot generate a good writing, the class climate does not support or probably they do not understand what they must do. But more than all, there are two classic problems that to be some causes why the students cannot write in English language because they are less the vocabulary and cannot use grammar in their writing. It makes the students lazy to write by using English language. In this case, the researcher has found similar case among the student of SMP Unismuh Makassar especially at class VIIIB. According to English teacher of SMP Unismuh Makassar, the biggest problem of the students to write in English language, because they are lack vocabulary and they cannot write a paragraph and even a sentence with correct grammar. Furthermore, even they have an idea on their head they cannot write it down.
Based on the result of diagnostic test at VIIIB class of SMP Unismuh Makassar, the mean score of the students' achievement in writing English was very low. It was about 48.2 mean score but the standard of curriculum (KKM) was 70 and the target score is 75. To make them easy in writing an English sentence, teachers have to find a good teaching method to solve this problem because students need a structured and supportive environment to be able to practice the writing habits and processes of successful writers. One of good teaching method which offers by the writer is First Aid in English System (FAIES). The use of FAIES method will be helpful the student to develop their ability in writing. It is a flexible method which can adapt with each situation and each material so the students never boring to follow the teaching and learning process. Giving the students real object and match the situation with the material facilitates the students to understand the material. Teaching by using target language but apply it in direct action makes the student get any new vocabularies by analyzing, and teaching grammar by giving lots of examples than stress on pattern so the students apply grammar rules as habitual either in speaking and writing.
How does FAIES method improve of the students' vocabulary in writing skill at the eight year students of SMP Unismuh Makassar? How does FAIES method improve the students' writing skill in terms of grammar at the eight year students of SMP Unismuh Makassar?
The result of this research is expected to be useful contribution for the teacher of English writing to find out and to analyze the students' proficiency in writing, to give useful information for teaching and learning process in developing the students' ability in writing. The scope of this research limited to the application of FAIES to develop the students' ability in writing for recount text at the VIIIB grade students of SMP Unismuh Makassar. The writing assessment focused on vocabulary, which consist of verb and noun and grammar, which consist of simple past tense and past continuous tense.

FAIES (First Aid in English System)
FAIES is the best and unique method in teaching because it is a flexible method which can adapt with any situation in the classroom and use many ways in teaching which makes the students fell easy to understand the lesson especially in English writing through enjoyable way. According to Freud in Wollheim (1981), FAIES (First Aid in English system) is the teaching method to emphasize or stress on communication which consist of directional approach, functional approach, situational approach, and drilling technique. It is actually merging from those 3 approaches and 1 technique. This is the best method for the teacher because this method is flexible. When the situation in the class is change this method can follow the situation by situational approach. So the students never fell boring to follow teaching and learning process. Based on the subject of this research is junior high school this method is suitable for young students which do not have basic in English language.
Freud in Wollheim (1981) implies that this method merging from three approaches and one technique and it has characteristic based on the approach and technique which is underlying this method. The characteristics as follow:

Directional Approach
Directional approach sometimes also called direct method or natural approach. It is a method for teaching foreign languages that refrains from using the students' native language and just uses the target language. It was established in Germany and France around 1900.This approach was developed initially as a reaction to the grammar-translation approach in an attempt to integrate more use of the target language in instruction. Furthermore, it is a teaching approach for teachers to use the target language by giving a real object or sample such as pictures or video that related to the teaching material, a good model of pronunciation, demonstration and action in explaining the new things or lessons.
The advantages of directional approach are: 1. It makes the learning of English interesting and lively by establishing direct bond between a word and its meaning.
2. It is an activity method facilitating alertness and participation of the pupils.
3. It is the quickest way of getting started. In a few months over 500 of the commonest English words can be learnt and use in a sentences. This serve as a strong foundation of further learning.
4. Due to application of this approach, students are able to understand what they learn, think about it and then express their own ideas in correct English about what they have read and learnt. 5. In psychological side, it is a sound method or approach as it proceeds from the concert to the abstract.
6. This approach can be usefully from the lowest to the highest class. 7. Through this approach, fluency of speech, good pronunciation and power of expression are properly developed.
8. In addition, through this approach, the students are encouraged to automatically say the English words without feeling shy or afraid of making mistakes.

Functional Approach
It is a teaching approach for teachers to explain the grammars without using formula, but rather than give many sentences and speaking patterns. The benefit of this approach is the students are strongly asked to use the sentences correctly to communicate with others.
In functional approach, teacher should know the function of the language. In teaching English, teacher must tell students what is the function of every tenses, or grammar. The function of each grammar and how to make a correct sentence that is using grammar. Teacher must teach students clearly in the function of grammar.
Functional approach is similar with grammar translation method.

Situational Approach
This approach developed by British applied linguists in the 1930s, and it has survived, so far, by completing later approaches and methodologies such as Audio-Lingual Method, Communicative Language Teaching, Total Physical Response, The Silent Way, Community Language Learning, the Natural Approach, Suggestopedia, etc.
The view of this approach is to insure that the language that is being taught is realistic, all the words and sentences must grow out of some real situation or imagined real situation. Thus, the meanings of words are tied up with the situations in which they are used. The students know the meaning of the word "blackboard", not because they have looked it up in a dictionary, but because they have learned the word in situations; by hearing commands such as: "Look at the blackboard!"; "Clean the blackboard!", "Write on the blackboard!" This example stresses the association between the word "blackboard" and the action of "looking at it", "cleaning it", or "writing on it. Even if the classroom environment is limited, the teacher's inventiveness should be put into practice in the pretence of a situation picked up from outside the classroom. That is why, this approach stress the teachers to create or develop teaching situations based on the lesson that is explained and give practice which mostly be done in airs, role plays, drama or simulations. The situational environment should be presented in such a way that even the slowest students gets involved in what the teacher or the other students do and say in the classroom. The idea of making the students cooperate with one another underlines the social touch of this approach. Students are always eager to take part in make-believe situations, especially when they assume roles and enact a situation before the rest of the class.
The theory backing up the Situational Approach includes the following principles: 1.) Language learning is habit-formation 2.) Mistakes are bad and should be avoided, as they make bad habits.
3.) Language skills are learned more effectively if they are presented orally first, then in written form.
4.) Analogy is a better foundation for language learning than analysis.

5.)
The meanings of words can be learned only in a linguistic and cultural context.
Since it is an approach, the tenets of Situational Language Teaching can be carried out by several methods: i.e. the Audio-lingual Method, the Direct Method, Community Language Learning, etc.

a. Drilling Technique
Drilling is a technique that has been used in foreign language classrooms for many years. It was a key feature of audio-lingual method approaches to language teaching, which placed emphasis on repeating structural patterns through oral practice.
It is a teaching technique for teachers to drill the students by asking them to repeat after teachers to make them remember about the lesson, even after they have already arrived home and have done other activities. Drilling means listening to a model, provided by the teacher, or a tape or another student and repeating what is heard. Drilling is a technique that is still used by many teachers when introducing new language items to their students. Harmer (1991), states that drilling is mechanical ways if getting students to demonstrate and practice their ability to use specific language items in a controlled manner.
From those theories above, it can be concluded that drilling is a technique that has been used in foreign language classrooms which emphasis on repeating structural pattern through oral practice to demonstrate students' ability in using specific language items in a controlled manner. The purposes of drilling for the teacher and student are:

Students:
1. Provide for a focus on accuracy. Increased accuracy is one of the ways in which a learner's language improves so there is a need to focus on accuracy at certain stages of the lesson or during certain task types.
2. Provide learners with intensive practice in hearing and saying particular word or phrases. They can help learners get their tongues around difficult sounds or help them imitate intonation that may be rather different from that of their first language.
3. Provide a safe environment for learners to experiment with producing the language. This may help build confidence particularly among learners who are not risk takers.
4. Help students notice the correct form or pronunciation of a word phrase.
Noticing or consciousness rising of language is an important stage in developing language competence. 5. Provide an opportunity for learners to get immediate feedback on their accuracy in terms of teacher or correction. Many learners want to be corrected.
6. Help memorization and atomization of common language patterns and language chunks. This may be particularly true for aural learners.
7. Meet students expectation, i.e. they may think drilling is an essential feature of language classrooms.

Teacher:
1.) Help in term of classroom management, enabling us to vary the pace of the lesson or to get all learners involved.
2.) Help the teacher recognize if new language is causing problems in terms of form or pronunciation.

CONCEPT OF WRITING
According to Byrne (1990), writing can be said to be the act of forming these symbols: making marks on a flat surface of some kind. But writing is clearly more than the production of graphic symbols, just as speech more than the production of sounds. In Cambridge Advance Learner's Dictionary at the third edition that writing is the activity of creating pieces of written work, such as stories, poems or articles.
The process of the written is how to create the creative idea and write down into essay from Gebhard in Rini (2011). According to Cox in Sulmiati From all of the statements above, the writer concludes that writing is a tool of communication which used to express the idea in our mind and send the messages from the writer to the reader in written materials.

The Importance of Writing
There are many reasons why writing is important, are: a. Writing is the primary basis upon which your work, your learning, and your intellect will be judged in college, in the workplace, and in the community.
b. Writing expresses who you are as a person.
c. Writing is portable and permanent. It makes your thinking visible.. d. Writing helps you move easily among facts, inferences, and opinions without getting confused and without confusing your reader.
e. Writing promotes your ability to pose worthwhile questions.
f. Writing fosters your ability to explain a complex position to readers, and to yourself.
g. Writing helps others give you feedback.
h. Writing helps you refine your ideas when you give others feedback.
i. Writing requires that you anticipate your readers' needs. Your ability to do so demonstrates your intellectual flexibility and maturity.
j. Writing ideas down preserves them so that you can reflect upon them later.
k. Writing out your ideas permits you to evaluate the adequacy of your argument.
l. Writing stimulates you to extend a line of thought beyond your first impressions or gut responses.
m. Writing helps you understand how truth is established in a given discipline.
n. Writing equips you with the communication and thinking skills that you need to participate effectively in democracy.
o. Writing is an essential job skill.
Raimes in Rini (2011) also states that some reasons about the importance of writing. According to him, writing is helpful the students, the reasons for that are: a. Writing reinforces the grammatical structures, idiom, and vocabulary that have been taught to the students.
b. When the students write, they also have chance to be adventurous with the language, to go beyond what they have learned to say, to take risk.
c. What the students write, they necessarily become very involved with the new language; the effort to express ideas or thinking on paper.

Characteristics of Good Writing
What are the criteria of good writing? To defining good writing is almost difficult. Some readers cannot be defined it but they know that a piece of writing good or not when they have read it. So, good writing is "community standards" differ from community to community and from discipline to discipline, even to the point of flat contradiction between various disciplines consider good or merely competent writing. But generally speaking, we can agree on the following:

a. Clarity and focus
In good writing, everything makes sense and readers do not get lost or have to reread passages to figure out what is going on. Focused writing sticks with the plot or core idea without running off too many tangents.

b. Organization
A well-organized piece of writing is not only clear, it is presented in way that is logical and aesthetically pleasing. We can tell non-linear stories or place your thesis at the end of an essay and get away with it as long as your scenes or ideas are well ordered.

c. Ideas and themes
It is the topic of the paper relevant? Does the story come complete with themes? Can the reader visualize the poem or the other product of writing?
For a piece of writing to be considered well crafted, it has to contain clearly identifiable ideas and themes.

d. Voice
This is what sets you apart from all other writers. It is our unique way of stringing words together, formulating ideas, and relating scenes or images to the reader.

e. Language (word choice)
We writers can never underestimate of fail to appreciate our most valuable toolswords. Good writing includes smart word choice and well-crafted sentences.

f. Grammar and style
Many writers would wish this one away, but for a piece of writing to be considered good (let alone great), it has to follow the rules of grammar (and break those rules only when there is a good reason). Style is also important in ensuring that a piece of writing is clear and consistent. Make sure that we keep a grammar book and style guide handy.

g. Credibility or believability
Nothing says bad writing like getting the facts wrong or misrepresenting oneself. In fiction, the story must be believable (even it is impossible) and in nonfiction, accurate research can make or break a writer.

h. Thought -provoking or emotionally inspiring
Perhaps the most important quality of good writing is how the reader responds to it. Does she or he come away with a fresh perspective and new ideas? Does he close the cover with tears in his eyes or sense of victory?
How readers react to your work will fully determine your success as a writer.

CONCEPT OF RECOUNT TEXT
There are some types of text taught in junior high school: descriptive text, procedural text, recount text, and narrative text. Recount text is taught to eighth grade students in Junior High School based on Standard Competencies and Basic Competencies. Hornby (1985) states that a recount is to tell somebody about something, especially something that someone has experienced. A recount text is a text that tells about something that happened to retells past events or activities and has a purpose to give detailed information about what and when of that events.
A recount text usually uses the past tense covering the simple past tense, the past continuous tense, or the past perfect tense. There are a number of reasons on why people may write about the past. This refers to some three types of recount text, among other are: 1) A Personal recount is retelling of an activity that the writer or speaker has been personally involved (e.g. oral anecdote, diary entry) 2) A factual recount is recording the particulars of an incident (e.g. report of science experiment, police report, news report, historical account) 3) An imaginative recount tells about an imaginary story and gives a detail of events (e.g. a day in the life of a roman slave) Third, reorientation is stating a personal comment of the writer to the story or concluding the text. In this stage, the writer summarizes the events is ended and any issue or problems are completely resolved by characters.

A. Conceptual Framework
Learning process is the main activity in this research. There is interaction between teacher and the students and valuable educative. Teaching and learning process is done and guided to reach the maximal result. To reach the maximal result, the teacher must be able to design the learning model based on the material subject and to practice the students' writing. The teacher designs and plans teaching activity based on the teaching program. The teacher should master the teaching method in order the students can understand the subject easily. The role of teachers as educator is very complex not just limited when the learning and teaching process running out, but the teachers also as administer, evaluator, counselor and so on, based on their capability. In teaching and learning activity, many factors to develop the students' writing ability, one of them is applying FAIES method in teaching.
In improving the Students writing ability focus on vocabulary and grammar, teacher use CAR (Classroom action research) to apply FAIES method which consists of planning, action, observation and reflection in each cycle. Referring to the previous explanation about FAIES method in order to have a good command, for more understanding about the applying of FAIES method in writing, the conceptual framework underlying this research is presented in the following diagram:

RESEARCH METHOD
In this research, the teacher used CAR (Classroom Action Research) principle to collect the data. It was conduct through two cycles, where each cycle consisted of four phases. They were planning, action, observation and reflection.

Cycle I
The first cycle consisted of planning, action, observation and reflection as follows:

Planning
Before started to teach the teacher prepared the materials for teaching the students. So that, the teacher did not confuse what he or she should teach to his or her students when stayed in front of the students. The plan as follows: a. The teacher made lesson plan after getting the problems.

A Classroom Action Research
Finding of FAIES method in improving the students' vocabulary and grammar for recount text.

Planning Action
Observation Reflection e. Teacher used target laguage when teaching which was sometimes followed by the native language. Then explained the grammatical side without using formula, but rather than gave many examples of sentences and pattern in spoken way.
f. The teacher gave the students good model of pronunciation if there was unfamiliar word for them then asked them to repeat it.
g. Teacher asked each duo to write the recount text based on the pictures and apply the grammar pattern when they write.
h. Teacher reminded about the last session's subject in order the students could understand about the materials as a whole.

Observation
In the observation, phase the researcher observed by using observation sheet. This observation as follow: a. Situation of teaching and learning activity b. The students' present c. The students' respond of the material d. The students' achievement

Reflection
After collecting data, the researcher evaluated the teaching learning process. Then, the researcher reflected herself by seeing the finding of the observation, whether the teaching learning process of writing by using FAIES was good to employ in teaching and learning process. After reflecting the researcher found that the students could create a piece of recount text if they worked in pair but when they did it individually they found some difficulties. Considering this problem the researcher decided to conduct the next cycle.

Cycle II
After cycle I had finished, the result of the teaching and learning process by using FAIES method found that there was improvement of students' writing ability but it was not significant with target that was expected by the researcher.
So, cycle II was taken to improve the cycle achievement. Basically, the planning at the first cycle and the second cycle had the same steps. In this cycle, the researcher tried to improve some deficits on the first cycle by changed the situational environment in the class room where in the first cycle the students worked in pair but at the second cycle, the researcher asked the students work individually.
The first cycle consisted of planning, action, observation and reflection as follows:

Planning
Before started to teach the teacher must prepared the teaching materials for students. So that, the teacher did not confuse what he or she should teach to his or her students when stayed in front of the students.
The plan as follow: a. The teacher made lesson plan after getting the problems in the previous cycle from the reflection.
b. The teacher made an instrument evaluation that would be used in classroom action research. It was adapted from the result of cycle I.
c. The teacher made format of an observation sheet to see the condition of students in the teaching and learning process.

Action
The action at cycle II adapted based on the result of the reflection of previous cycle in teaching materials and the activity which instructed by the teacher in the teaching and learning process.
a. The teacher gave motivation to the students to elicit curiously about what the teacher was going to explain by opening up their mind by motivation session.
b. Teacher used target laguage about 70% during teaching and learning process that following with the translation in the first language.
c. The teacher gave the story picture as real object to the students and let the students analyzed about that picture.
d. The teacher asked the students about what information that they had got from the picture and asked them to write a piece of recount text about the pictures individually.
e. Teacher controlled the students while they did the assignment then when the teacher got the students error, the teacher directly corrected and gave explanation.
f. The teacher gave the students good model of pronunciation if there was unfamiliar word for them then asked them to repeat it.
g. Teacher reminded about their error in their tasks and gave some explanations which were needed by the students.

Observation
In the observation phase the researcher did observation by using observation sheet. This observation as follow: e. Situation of teaching and learning activity f. The students' present g. The students' respond to the material h. The students' achievement

Reflection
The data value from evaluation gathered for data analysis, so the researcher could reflect data value of evaluation at the cycle II.

Variables
The variable was one of very important element of research, this research used two kinds included of variables as follow: 1. Independent variable Independent variable of the research was the use of FAIES method in teaching writing skill.

Dependent variable
Dependent variables consisted of the students' developing in writing focused on vocabulary and grammar.

Indicators
The indicators of this research were: 1. The indicators of the students' writing vocabulary were noun and verb.
2. The indicators of the students' writing grammar were simple past tense and Past continuous tense.

RESEARCH SUBJECT & INSTRUMENT
The subject of this research conducted at the eight year students of SMP Unismuh Makassar in 2012 academic year in class VIIIB that consisted of 26 students at South Sulawesi. In this classroom action research, the research instruments that used were test and observation.

The researcher used writing test to asses and examined the students'
writing ability. The teacher gave test in last of cycle to find out the improvement of the students' writing ability. The test that had given to the students related with recount text after FAIES method was implemented in teaching and learning process. The Instrument that used was essay test.
The researcher gave 1 number essay test; the students asked to make a piece writing in recount text.

Observation sheet was used to collect data about the students' participation
in teaching and learning process in writing through the implementing b.) The activity of students' data in the class action research got from the process of observation format.

Writing test
There were some categories in giving students' writing score achievement.

Scoring rubrics of writing
a. Rubric Scoring of Simple Past Tense Score Criteria 4 Excellent; There are almost no errors in the use of simple past tense. 3 Good; There are few errors in the use of simple past tense 2 Fair; There are many errors in the use.simple past tense.  Poor; almost all sentences contain errors in changed the common nouns into proper nouns, identified and spelled each nouns. (Arter, 2012:21) In giving score with the students' ability in writing there were some categories that used by the researcher, as follows: 1. Calculating the score of the students' writing test by using following formula:

Score = 100
Notation: X = Score of the students N = Score maximum 100 = Standard score (Heaton, 1988: 146) 2. Calculating the mean score of the students' writing test by using the following fomula:  The researcher converted classification of the students' score, the researcher extends score 85 as maximum or excellent classification. To classify the students' score, there were 3 classifications which were used as follows:  (Hasan in Ediawati, 2011) Percentage the students' participation through the following formula: The researcher observes many aspects to assess the implementation of FAIES method. The students show their progress in every meeting. In attitude the researcher observes about students' participation in learning by using FAIES method, are they active or passive. The next, the researcher observes students' respond during teaching and learning process, are they good or bad. The researcher also observes the students' understanding, do they get the point of subject matter or not. In the first meeting the researcher finds that the students still difficult in writing by using correct grammar and vocabulary in creating a recount text. The students have less motivation, because they feel not confidence with their writing result.

Score
The researcher resolves this problem by using FAIES method. By using this method the researcher tries to solve the students' difficulty in grammar by gives them lots of example. They are stimulated to find the grammar pattern with their own by observing many examples which given. Then the researcher tries to solve the students' poor in vocabulary by using target language more than native language, the purpose is make them accustomed hear the target language which naturally add their vocabulary, if there an unfamiliar word for the students, the researcher explains the meaning and demonstrates good model of pronunciation then asks them to repeat it and then the researcher put students in pair. In a pair, they work together to analyze the pictures or other real object which is given by the researcher. Then every group makes a recount text based on the pictures. The researcher observes students' correspond every meeting. The result of the observation that have been done by researcher concludes that FAIES method improves students' correspond. The students admit that they enjoy this method.
They do not feel bored, but more enthusiastic to follow the teaching learning process. The students looked braver and more confident to write and express their ideas regularly in their writing. They also admit that they become active and full of concentration in the classroom.
The use of FAIES method especially always use target language, serves real object from their surrounding and makes the students in pair, group or individually can make the students more active and it causes the improvement of their writing skill. The improvement of students can be seen in the improvement of students' score. The result of test shows the significant improvement. The use of FAIES method in teaching writing can overcome the students' difficulty in expressing their ideas. The students also have a positive response to the implementation of teaching writing by using FAIES method. The students' writing skill can be improved trough FAIES method, because in this method they can share with their friends in their own pair, which makes easily understand and real object which is given for them make them easily to get the ideas for writing. If they get difficulty in the terms of grammar, FAIES method can reduce this problem by directional approach where teacher directly explain to each students who has problem about it and if they have problem about vocabulary drilling technique as the content of FAIES method can reduce it by telling them the words that they need and gives good model of pronunciation and asks then to repeat so that they remember that words even they have went home.

The Students' Writing Skill in Grammar
The improvement of the students' writing skill in grammar at the eighth grade students of SMP Unismuh Makassar as result of the students' assessment of cycle I and cycle II is described as follows:

The Students' Writing Skill in Vocabulary
The improvement of the students' writing skill in vocabulary at the eighth grade students of SMP Unismuh Makassar as result of the students' assessment of cycle I and cycle II is described as follows:

The Improvement of Students' Writing Skill
The improvement of students' writing skill by using FAIES method is deal with grammar and vocabulary. It can be seen clearly in the following

The Improvement of the students' activeness in the process of teaching and learning
The result of the observation of the students' activeness improves in the process of teaching and learning toward the use of FAIES method. The observer conducts a classroom action research to improve the students writing ability at the eighth grade of SMP Unismuh Makassar which is conducted through 2 cycles during 8 meetings that is taken by observer through observation sheet. The result of students' activeness after doing the observation is presented in the following table:

DISCUSSION
The research findings indicates that the students' writing ability through FAIES method show the improvement of the students' writing ability, from the improvement can be showed in the process from the cycle I to cycle II. The researcher has changed the activity to be more interesting in cycle II so that the students can show the improvement more significant than in cycle I. In cycle I the researcher give less motivation, less clear explanation and the real object which is given to the students less interesting related to the implementation of FAIES method. But in cycle II, the students very enjoy the method because the researcher gives more motivation, gives explanation intensively and uses funny story pictures which make the students more attracted.
At the beginning, the students is hard to understand the explanation and lazy to write recount text by their own word. Their ability in writing was still far from the target that wants to be reached by the researcher. But after reflected this problem, the researcher tries to resolve this problem by gives them more motivation, extensive explanation and also gives the real object which more interesting than before. The researcher asks the students about their difficulty to write recount text and gives explanation as the way to solve their problem and when the researcher gets the students' error, the researcher gives explanation about their error and asks them to change it in the correct form. As the result, the students become more active and easy to write which automatically improved the students' ability in writing skill.
There are some processes that researcher can explain as follow: 1. The first meeting in cycle I, before gives material to the students the researcher gives them motivation. It is important because the researcher considers that each student comes to the class with their own thought and their own purposes so it is very important to unite the objective of the students before begin the teaching and learning process. Then the researcher gives the students material about recount text. It discusses what is recount text, the different between other text is and how to create a piece of recount text. Because FAIES method suggests giving the real object which related to the material, so the researcher gives the students a piece of diary which also as one form of recount text. The researcher gives explanation by using target language but sometimes followed by the native language its aim to make the students have become accustomed listen target language and naturally their vocabulary can improve. If there is an unfamiliar word for the students, the researcher will explain the meaning and gives good model of pronunciation then asks them to repeat it. After gives clear explanation, the researcher divides the students in pair then asks them to write a diary as their task. The last, the meeting is ended by giving the conclusion about the material to make the students understand it as a whole.
2. The second meeting in cycle I, the researcher gives the material about Simple Past Tense in verbal form. Same as the first meeting, the researcher gives the students motivation and the real object in this case the researcher gives the pictures as the example of simple past tense in infinitive, negative and interrogative form. The researcher explains it also by using target language and gives good model pronunciation with the new words which can appear.
Then manages the students in pair and asks them to make some sentences of simple past tense as their task. And the last the meeting is ended by giving the conclusion about the material to make the students understand it as a whole.
3. The third meeting in cycle I, the researcher gives the students material about Simple Past Tense in nominal form. The process of this meeting is same with the first and the second meeting, but the researcher find that the students are still difficult to make a recount text. 4. The fourth meeting in cycle I, in this meeting the process is still same, the researcher gives material about Past Continuous Tense and pictures as real object which related to the material. By looking the picture each duo is asked to do the task about past continuous tense.
The result of FAIES method after applying action shows that the students' score is improving. This score is taken from students writing test in cycle I and calculating by using mean score and data analysis. After that the researcher uses the score of test to find out the students improvement percentage. The students' writing ability in cycle I is improve but the mean score was still low. It was about 60.1, so the researcher decides to continue in cycle II.
5. The first meeting in cycle II, in this meeting the researcher still uses FAIES method. But in this cycle the researcher do not divide the students in pair but individually. Its aim to make each students be autonomous do their task and create a piece of writing. The researcher gives each student a funny story pictures without a title and they are asked to analyze that pictures. Then the researcher gives short explanation about that picture by using target language to stimulate their idea and asks them to give the title of the picturesequences then make recount text by retell the story in the pictures.
6. The second meeting in cycle II. The researcher has prepared untitled story pictures for the students. As usually the researcher opens the class by giving the students motivation before serve the material. Same at the previous meeting, the researcher divides the story pictures for each student and asks them to analyze the story picture. After they analyze it, the researcher asks them about the information that they have got from the story pictures. Next, researcher gives short explanation about it to connect the students' idea with the story picture. When the students have got the explanation, the researcher asks them to give the title of the pictures and make a recount text it. While the students are doing their task, the researcher controls each student' worksheet.
If the error is found the researcher directly gives some correction and explains it. At this meeting the researcher observes that students can create a sentence with correct grammar but their vocabulary was still low despite they have progress in cycle I. 7. The third meeting in cycle II. The researcher gives the students story pictures which the title about COMING LATE. The process of this meeting is still same. In this meeting the students looked enjoy and easier make recount text.
They can create it better than before.
8. The fourth meeting in cycle II. This is become the last meeting in cycle II and the process of teaching and learning is same as the meeting before. The researcher gives story pictures which title is about STOMACHACHE. In this meeting, the students are enthusiast, very active and enjoy in learning process. They can produce a good recount text and show well enough.
The result of cycle II in using FAIES method shows the students' improvement. The score is taken from students' writing test in cycle II and calculating by using the mean score in data analysis. And then the researcher uses the mean score in cycle I and cycle II to find out the students' improvement percentage. The students' improvement in using FAIES method have improved significantly form cycle I to cycle II, the mean score improve from 60.1 to 75.25.
As the result based on the findings above shown after calculating the students' score in cycle I and cycle II. It proves that the use of FAIES method can improve the students writing skill. The discussion dealing with the interpretation of findings derived from the result of finding about the observation result of students writing skill in terms of the result of students' activeness in teaching and learning process where grammar dealing with simple past tense and past continuous tense while vocabulary dealing with verb and noun.

The improvement of students' writing grammar
The improvement of students' writing grammar, the researcher finds that the mean score in D-test the students just get 42.5 and in cycle I is 62.15.
Then in cycle II is 77.0. Meanwhile there is a significant improvement after using FAIES method. In the pre-test and in the first cycle, the sense of students' grammar is vague for the readers. The researcher finds the students error in writing simple past and past continuous tense and they are still confusing to arranger the words into good sentence. The difficulty of the students in writing is analyzed by researcher. So, the researcher decides to do the cycle II by doing revision in the lesson plan which prepares in revision planning of cycle II. Where, the researcher explains about the step to write the correct sentence. The researcher also gives more examples about it. Besides, the researcher gives the better guidance for the students in writing good recount text. From explanation above, the researcher analyzes that the students' skill in writing recount text in term of grammar is improve, where the students mean score in cycle I and cycle II was higher than D-test.

The improvement of students' writing vocabulary
The improvement of the students' skill to write a good recount text by using FAIES method has effect that is effective. Where, the researcher finds in the data source of vocabulary that the students just get 53.8, it means that it is far from the target, but after application of FAIES method in cycle I the students score is 58.15 and 73.5 in the cycle II.
During the teaching and learning process in cycle I, the researcher finds that vocabulary of the students also not use appropriate in the recount text. The students are difficult to write or express their ideas because they are lack of vocabulary. Therefore, the students are difficult in writing.The researcher decides to do cycle II by doing revision in the lesson plan which prepare in revision planning of cycle II. The result of revision planning to resolve the students' difficulty in writing is writing activity, the researcher gives explanation about the vocabulary that has to use in writing recount text and guides them to put the words in a sentence by using correct grammar. It is done consistently in each meeting so the students to be accustomed to use appropriate vocabulary in their writing.

Observation Result
Based on the data analysis as result of observation sheet of students' participation in learning process in previous findings shows that the participation of students from the first meeting till fourth meetings in cycle I are 54.3%, 58.7%, 62.5%, and 64.0% with mean score 59.9%. Percentage of the first till fourth meeting of the cycle II was 66.4%, 58.7%, 73.1% and 77.9% with the mean score 69.02%. The improvement of the students' activeness in teaching and learning process from cycle I to cycle II is 9.12%.
This FAIES method is new for the students, but in meeting by meeting they understand that the way of this method not only give them chance to work in pair but also motivate the students to make and present a good recount text. If they get difficulty of expressing their ideas, FAIES method can reduce this problem trough gives them real object. They can help each other. So, it is interested. FAIES method has positive social interaction behavior and attitude effects in teaching and learning process, because they work together as a partner, students needs to engage such interactive abilities as a leadership, trust building, conflict management, constructive criticism, encouragement, compromise, negotiation and clarifying. After they are good as team work FAIES also let them do their task individually which makes them become autonomous. Teacher needs descried expected social interaction behaviors and attitudes of the students and to assign particular students specific rules to ensure that they consciously work on these behaviors in their team work and guides them to be autonomous as individual person.
Finally, they know form of a good work in learning writing. It gives a good respond although their activeness not achieves 100% but they are good participants during learning and teaching process.


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Assessment of Student Learning Associated with Tree Thinking in an Undergraduate Introductory Organismal Biology Course

We assessed student learning of tree-thinking concepts in an Introductory Organismal Biology course with labs that had been converted to inquiry-based instruction. Students made significant gains in their abilities to map characters onto cladograms and apply the principle of parsimony, but struggled with the concept of recency of common ancestry.

INTRODUCTION
Many introductory organismal biology students seem to have a difficult time understanding the evolutionary connections among organismal groups. The way introductory biology courses are taught is partly to blame. Brewer (1996) noted that historical and comparative approaches, which are important for really understanding the significance of evolutionary theory, are given short shrift in our students' evolutionary biology education. In contrast, natural selection and the functional perspective, with its emphasis on what a structure does today as opposed to its historical evolutionary roots, is often the focus of evolutionary modules within Introductory Biology courses (Brewer, 1996). Padian (2008) pointed out that most high school and college biology textbooks cover the principles and data of microevolution (genetic and population changes) and speciation fairly well. What they do not do, however, is cover what is known about the major evolutionary changes over time or above the species or population level (macroevolution), and how these changes are understood (Padian, 2008).
Phylogenies and tree-thinking instruction can provide tools to bridge the gap between classic historical approaches to teaching evolution and the more traditional emphasis on natural selection and microevolutionary change. After all, Darwin used a phylogenetic tree as the sole graphic illustration to explain evolution by natural selection in On the Origin of Species (Darwin, 1859). Baum et al.'s (2005) call to arms argued that "tree thinking," or having a mindset that considers phylogenetic trees as testable hypotheses of evolutionary relationships within and between groups of organisms, should be a major theme in our students' evolution training. These authors pointed out that phylogenetic analysis (inference of phylogenetic trees to interpret ancestor-descendant relationships) is rarely used outside the realm of professional evolutionary biologists. In addition, the recently published Advanced Placement Biology curriculum (College Board, 2011) considers tree reasoning to be essential knowledge ("Essential knowledge 1.B.2: Phylogenetic trees and cladograms are graphical representations (models) of evolutionary history that can be tested").
However, having students learn about and use phylogenies is not trivial (for review, see Meisel, 2011). Students hold several misconceptions that prevent them from using phylogenies effectively and that present "fundamental barriers to understanding how evolution operates" (Meir et al., 2007, p. 76). Gregory's (2008) review of student understanding of phylogenetic trees listed 10 prominent student misconceptions; among these are: branches appearing later in a tree represent "higher" taxa; similarity indicates relatedness; and relatedness of taxa can be determined by counting the number of nodes separating them. Recent papers by Novick et al. (2010) and Halverson (2011) have explored cognitive aspects of student interpretation of phylogenetic trees as representations. For example, Novick et al. (2010) found that simply representing trees with synapomorphies labeled on the branches improves student comprehension of the representation. These latter types of studies link educational initiatives that seek to incorporate tree-thinking approaches into the classroom to fundamental research questions about how students learn.
Previously, we described the restructuring of an introductory organismal biology course for majors to reincorporate some of the study of biodiversity that had been lost upon moving to an inquiry-based laboratory framework (Smith and Cheruvelil, 2009). Our curricular interventions consisted of a series of instructional activities in the classroom and laboratory that focused on tree thinking to teach organismal diversity in an evolutionary context (Smith and Cheruvelil, 2009). We used phylogenies to provide a problem-based experience, following the advice of Perry et al. (2008), who pointed out the need to engage college students in active, hands-on curricula relevant to macroevolution. The laboratory exercises were based on those proposed by Singer et al. (2001) and Giese (2005), and were similar in spirit to exercises developed by Julius and Schoenfuss (2006), who used a set of vertebrate skulls for character matrix construction and subsequent phylogenetic analysis to increase students' scientific literacy. These exercises were implemented in an introductory organismal biology course in the Lyman Briggs College (LBC) at Michigan State University (MSU), a residential college for students majoring in the natural sciences.
In this paper, we report our assessment of the student learning gains associated with these curricular interventions over the course of two semesters of instruction and the effects that these interventions had on student understanding of phylogenetic trees and evolution. To carry out our work, we designed, validated, and implemented a Phylogeny Assessment Tool (PhAT), in which students were given two phylogenetic trees, or alternative hypotheses, representing possible evolutionary relationships of five taxa (Figure 1). Before and after instruction, we used the PhAT to assess how well our stu-dents had learned how to map characters onto the two phylogenetic trees, to apply the principle of parsimony to decide which of the two given hypotheses (trees) was more likely to be the correct hypothesis, and to interpret phylogenetic trees as representations of a set of ancestor-descendant relationships. This last part provided insight into our students' understanding of "recency of common ancestry," a core concept of tree thinking that is the basis of the misconception that "similarity indicates relatedness" (Gregory, 2008).

Study Context
The Course. The study was carried out in the LBC introductory organismal biology course (LB144) at MSU during the Fall semesters of 2008 and 2009. This four-credit course consists mainly of suburban and rural Michigan students, with ∼10% of them coming from groups traditionally underrepresented in the sciences. About half of the students take LB144 as freshmen, and half as sophomores. The students enter the class with a range of biology backgrounds and math preparedness. LB144 is taken by science majors (mainly human biology and physiology), and includes many preprofessional students.
During both semesters, LB144 students attended two 80-min class sessions per week and a 3-h combined recitation and lab. The 80-min classes (80-110 students) used a "bookends" instructional model (Johnson et al., 1998), with mini-lectures interspersed with small group exercises, individual writing, personal response pad (i.e., clicker) questions, and other active/collaborative learning activities. The combined recitations/labs met in sections of 16-24 students each, which were staffed by an LBC professor or a graduate teaching assistant, along with two undergraduate learning assistants. Students in the recitation/labs worked in teams of three to four students, yielding four to six research teams per lab section.
During Fall 2008, 216 LB144 students were enrolled in two lecture sections and 10 recitation/lab sections. During Fall 2009, 168 students were enrolled in two lecture sections and eight recitation/lab sections. During both Fall 2008 and Fall 2009, LB144 was team-taught by two LBC biology professors, with one of us (K.S.C.) serving as one of the two instructors in each semester. Within each semester, all class and recitation/lab sections were taught by equivalent teaching teams and were provided the same instructional materials and activities.
Learning Goals. We implemented a set of curricular interventions for the classroom and recitation/laboratory designed to help our students understand evolution. These interventions were centered on a tree-thinking approach that used phylogenetic trees as testable hypotheses of evolutionary relationships within and between groups of organisms (Smith and Cheruvelil, 2009). Our premise was that, by developing and using "tree-thinking" skills, our students would be able to: 1) use data to discern between two alternative hypotheses (phylogenies); 2) use objective criteria (e.g., the principle of parsimony) to argue which of two alternative hypotheses was better supported by data; and 3) demonstrate an understanding of phylogenetic trees as depictions of ancestor-descendant relationships based on recency of common ancestry. Our overarching objective based on these three goals was to help our students understand evolution, not as a set of "just so" stories but as a rigorous framework for constructing knowledge that is amenable to testing using generally accepted scientific methods.
Instructional Activities. Much of the classroom and recitation/lab content and activities during Fall 2008 and 2009 that specifically related to tree thinking followed those described in detail in Smith and Cheruvelil (2009). Briefly, students were assigned the book chapter "Phylogeny and Tree of Life" (Campbell et al., 2008) to read prior to class. This was followed by classroom content and exercises about phylogenetics and tree thinking that engaged students in practice interpreting phylogenetic trees that were built with morphological, developmental, and molecular biology data. Students were given instruction on mapping characters on alternative trees and choosing the most likely hypothesis of evolutionary relationships using the principle of parsimony (Smith and Cheruvelil, 2009).
Introductory exercises in recitation/lab followed these classroom instructional activities. These exercises engaged students in making comparisons among organisms by having them collect morphological data, build data tables, and then apply these collected data to a comparison of different hypotheses of evolutionary relationships among five mammalian skeletons. These introductory exercises were followed by 2 wk of observations and dissections of exemplars representing nine animal phyla, and a capstone phylogeny experience. During the capstone experience, students completed a team assignment that brought together the information from their weeks of observations and dissections with the tree-thinking techniques practiced during the introductory exercises to evaluate two competing hypotheses of how the nine animal phyla are related (Smith and Cheruvelil, 2009). Thus, 4 wk of recitation/lab time and 1 wk of class were devoted to thinking about and practicing tree-thinking skills and macroevolutionary patterns and processes.

Assessment of Student Learning
Design of the PhAT. We developed and used a three-part PhAT ( Figure 1) to assess student learning of tree-thinking skills. We chose to develop our own assessment tool for the purposes of this study, primarily because existing assessment tools in the area of phylogenetics, such as the Tree-Thinking Quiz (Baum et al., 2005) or the Conceptual Inventory of Natural Selection (Anderson et al., 2002), did not explicitly assess students' abilities to map traits on trees, apply the principle of parsimony, and explain common ancestry as the basis of phylogenetic reasoning. Part A of the PhAT was designed to assess student understanding of how to interpret and manipulate (i.e., map characters onto) phylogenetic trees. Part B asked students to use "tree thinking" to solve a biological problem (compare two hypotheses), and part C asked students to relate these activities to more abstract evolutionary concepts (e.g., common ancestry). Parts B and C were each split into two parts (B and B and C and C , respectively), such that we first asked the main question and separately asked for the open-ended rationale for a student's answer (i.e., explain your reasoning). Splitting these questions allowed us to assess to what extent the learning gains resulted from identifying the correct tree (in part B) or the correct pair of taxa (in part C) compared with the extent to which gains resulted from applying correct logic.

Development and Validation of the PhAT.
The PhAT was developed in consultation with experts both in tree thinking and the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) to produce an assessment tool for selected aspects of undergraduate tree thinking. The PhAT was conceived during a meeting of the Tree Reasoning in Evolution Education (TREE) Working Group at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NES-Cent) in May 2008, which included leading experts in all aspects of phylogenetic trees and extensive discussions of how students interact with and interpret phylogenetic trees. The PhAT itself was developed during a research residency (J.J.S.) in July 2008 in the American Society of Microbiology's Biology Scholars Program, which focused on the development of SoTL projects. The initial PhAT was developed over the course of this 3-d residency in an iterative process that involved trials of prototypes of the PhAT with groups of residents and staff involved in the research residency (20-25 college biology instructors who teach across the range of the biology curriculum). The SoTL experts and biology instructors at the research residency provided feedback at each intermediate stage of PhAT development, and the iterative presentation and feedback process led to the production of the finalized PhAT ( Figure 1). As a measure of content validity, posttests from year 1 were examined and analyzed by two independent verifiers (J.J.S. and Dr. Louise Mead, Education Director for the BEACON Center for the Study of Evolution in Action at Michigan State University) in addition to S.A., who scored all the pre-and posttests for both Fall 2008 and Fall 2009. This process indicated that the PhAT responses obtained from the students were indicative of expected responses.

Institutional Review Board.
Before data collection for the research study was begun, the project (including the PhAT) was submitted to the MSU Institutional Review Board (IRB X08-1057). The project was designated as "exempt." Administration and Scoring of the PhAT. During both semesters, the PhAT was administered as a pretest during the first week of class as an ungraded, in-class exercise. During Fall 2008, posttests were given during December as a part of the final exam for the course (total exam worth 150 points out of 900 class points total), whereas during Fall 2009, posttests were part of the second of three lab exams that occurred during a November class session (total exam worth 24 points out of 1000 class points total). All pre-and posttests for both years were scored by one of the authors (S.A.), and The key for part A is shown, with symbols mapped onto both tree I and tree II. Note that that the figure shows only one of the multiple correct ways to map the minimum of eight evolutionary changes onto tree I; all correct mappings were given full credit. For example, for both "Large incisors" and "Large canine teeth," independent losses could have occurred on the branches leading to rat and rabbit, or a loss could have occurred in the common ancestor of rat, rabbit, dog, and cat, followed by a secondary gain in the common ancestor to dog and cat. On the other hand, there is only one way to map characters minimally onto tree II. For the first part of part B (part B ), the correct answer is tree II, which requires seven evolutionary changes, as opposed to tree I, which requires a minimum of eight changes. Refer to Table 2 for correct responses to part B . For part C, the closest relatives in tree I are the dog and cat, while in tree II, the closest relatives are the rat and rabbit. In both cases, the reason is they share a common ancestor more recently than any other pair of taxa. Refer to Table 2 for correct responses to part C . scoring of the PhAT for this study was independent of any grading that occurred for the course itself. Figure 2 shows the scoring rubric that was used for part A of the PhAT, which connects to the idea that having synapomorphies displayed on branches allows students to understand trees better . In part A, students were asked to map the evolution of large canine teeth, expanded metatarsals, and large incisors onto two different phylogenetic trees (alternative hypotheses) that were chosen out of the 15 possible phylogenetic trees for the relationships of rats, rabbits, dogs, and cats, with opossums as the outgroup (see Smith and Cheruvelil, 2009). Students were provided with three characters (placenta, prehensile tail, hopping locomotion) already mapped onto both trees, plus a key illustrating how to indicate mapped evolutionary changes (Figure 1). During both semesters, 0.5 point was awarded for each character correctly mapped on both tree I and tree II (Figure 2), for a total of three points (no partial credit). The multiple equally parsimonious mappings of characters onto tree I (see Figure 2 legend) were all given full credit.

Scoring the Three Parts of the PhAT.
In part B, students were first asked to choose one of the two trees shown in part A as the better of the two hypotheses. Part B was scored separately for the choice of the correct tree (part B ) and for the reasoning for choosing a tree (part B ). During both semesters, students earned one point for an answer of tree II in part B , with no partial credit awarded. Students were then asked to provide the reasoning that they used to choose one tree over the other. On the basis of our instructional activities, we anticipated that students would apply the principle of parsimony to choose a preferred hypothesis. Students earned full credit (two points) in part B for answering "principle of parsimony," "fewer number of [evolutionary] events or character changes or traits reappearing/disappearing," or "Occam's razor." Partial credit was awarded to students who wrote "fewer number of ticks/marks," but did not explain in biological terms what their answer meant (one point).
In part C, students were asked to identify which two taxa were the closest relatives in a phylogenetic tree, thereby demonstrating an understanding of phylogenetic trees as representations of ancestor-descendant relationships. Students were asked to indicate which animals they thought were the two closest relatives in either tree I or tree II (whichever tree the student put down as the answer to part B) and to explain their reasoning for picking a particular pair of taxa (i.e., more recent shared ancestry). Students were awarded one point for the answer "rat and rabbit" for part C if they chose tree II in part B, and one point for the answer "dog and cat" if they had incorrectly chosen tree I in part B. In response to "Explain your reasoning" (part C ), we expected students to argue that the two most closely related organisms are the ones that share the most recent common ancestry (two points). Students were awarded partial credit for the answer "they are sister taxa" (one point).
Learning Gains. Absolute learning gains were used to assess student learning on each separate part of the PhAT, as well as the combined total learning gain. Absolute learning gains were calculated as (posttest score − pretest score), both as absolute gain and percentage gain. Student's t test (onetailed; paired) was used to test for significant gains (differences between mean pretest and mean posttest scores) within semesters. Student's t test (two-tailed; unequal variance) was used to test for significant differences in learning gains between semesters on each separate part of the PhAT, as well as the combined total. Normalized learning gains (Meltzer, 2002;Weber, 2009), calculated as (posttest percent − pretest percent)/(100% − pretest percent), were also used in t tests to assess differences in the combined total gains on the PhAT.

Tests for Association between Different Aspects of Tree
Thinking. Tests of association were used to examine connections between a student's abilities to map characters onto trees (part A), apply the principle of parsimony (parts B and B combined), and view trees as representations of the recency of common ancestry (parts C and C combined). Chi-squared tests of independence, as implemented in the interactive calculation tool developed by Preacher (2001), were used to test for associations between students' responses to parts A, B, and C of the PhAT in all three combinations (A and B, A and C, and B and C) for both semesters. Before the tests were conducted, data were pooled into two categories for the PhAT: a student either had a learning gain (positive value) or no gain (zero or negative value) for parts A, B, or C.

Learning Gains
Significant learning gains were observed for the PhAT as a whole and each part of the PhAT, except part B during Fall 2008 (Table 1 and Figure 3). Similarly, significant learning   (Table 1 and Figure 3). In both semesters, we found the largest learning gains for part B , which asked students to explain their reasoning for choosing one tree over the other as a preferred hypothesis (59.51 and 75.77% in 2008 and 2009, respectively). There were no significant gains in either semester for part B , which asked students to choose the preferred tree. Smaller learning gains were observed for part C , which asked the students to explain their rationale for choosing the two closest relatives in tree. In Fall 2008, the gain was 11.71%, while in Fall 2009, the gain in part C was not significant.  the explanation given by students for choosing one tree over the other as a preferred hypothesis. On the other hand, no significant learning gains were observed for part B , which asked students to identify which of the two trees was a better hypothesis based on the data. In both semesters, a large number of students (75% in Fall 2008 and 67% in Fall 2009) chose the incorrect tree in part B because they had mapped characters incorrectly in part A; these students subsequently applied correct tree-reasoning logic to decide upon the best hypothesis (i.e., parsimony). For part C of the PhAT, learning gains were more or less equivalent across the two subparts of the question, and across years (12.68% for part C and 11.71% for part C in Fall 2008, and 9.82% for part C and 5.21% for part C in Fall 2009; Table 1). However, the pretest scores for these two parts of part C were highly dissimilar. In both semesters, the pretest scores for part C (which two taxa are closest relatives) was greater than 70%, while the pretest scores for part C was 10% or less in both semesters.
For the extended response portions of part B (part B , Why is the tree you chose better?) and part C (part C , Why are the taxa you chose closest relatives?), we established key phrases/categories that allow us to score the written responses from the students (Table 2). In both semesters, for part B , we observed a striking increase from pretest to posttest in the number of students providing what were considered to be correct (or partially correct) responses. During Fall 2008, 60.6% of the students (131/216) indicated, "principle of parsimony," "there are less events," or "fewer is better/simpler/Occam's razor" (full credit), or "fewer marks" (partial credit) on the posttest as compared with only 0.5% (1/211 students) on the pretest. The increase was also remarkable during Fall 2009, when 88.4% of the students (145/164) gave full-or partial-credit responses on the posttest as compared with 12.7% (21/165) on the pretest.
One potential concern was that in their responses to part B , students might be exhibiting "procedural display" (Bloome et al., 1989), in which a correct answer that receives full credit is given, but without any evidence of genuine understanding. Nearly all of the learning gains in part B occurred by virtue of using the word "parsimony" (or some related phrase) in the explanation for why a particular tree was chosen (75.77% gain). Thus, we examined the student responses to determine what proportion of these responses might be characterized as "minimalist." No students responded simply with the word "parsimony" or phrase "principle of parsimony" without an explanation of what that word or phrase meant. A set of representative responses is shown in Table 3.
For part C , we observed a small but significant increase in fully or partially correct responses from the pre-to the posttests in Fall 2008, while there was no significant difference before and after instruction in Fall 2009. During Fall 2008, 12.5% of the students (27/216) indicated the full-credit responses "They share the most recent common ancestor" or "They evolved from/share a close or most common ancestor" on the posttest, as compared with 1.4% (3/211) on the pretest (Table 2). A full 87.5% of the students gave incorrect responses on the posttest during Fall 2008 (189/216), with the most common incorrect responses being, "They share the same/most characteristics/traits" (58.8%; 127/216) and "They are sister species (or taxa)" (23.6%; 51/216). Results for part C during Fall 2009 were similar to those obtained during Fall 2008, although the number of students who indicated on the posttest, "They are sister species (or taxa)" fell to 11.0% (18/164; Table 2).

Associations between Different Aspects of Tree Thinking: Comparisons across Semesters
We also tested for associations between students' responses to the different parts of the PhAT. For these comparisons, the scores for parts B and B were pooled, as were the scores for parts C and C . During Fall 2008, we observed a significant Table 3. Sample student written responses for part B of the PhAT Part B . Explain the reasoning that you used in your answer for part B . In other words, how did you decide that one tree was better than the other? "Evolution of any kind is unlikely, so by Occam's Razor the tree with the fewest events is most likely. Occam's Razor states that the solution with the fewest assumptions is usually right." "The total change in traits in phylogenetic tree I is 8 changes, in tree II it is 7, the principal [sic] of parsimony says the simplest explanation is most likely the correct one, seven changes is simpler than 8 so tree II was chosen." "The reasoning is that [in] Tree I the animals would go through 8 evolutionary events and in tree II 9 events. Because animals tend to evolve in the least complex manor [sic], or with as few changes as possible, tree I makes more sense for these phyla because of the less events." "Based on the rule of parsimony and Ockham's razor, which states a phenomena should 'make the least # of assumptions possible,' I based my decision by counting the evolutionary changes in each figure. Tree I has 8 while Tree II has 7. Since 7 has less, it is simpler and [therefore] better." "Tree II has fewer evolutionary events than Tree I and thus follows the rule of parsimony more closely (which calls for fewest assumptions to be made and simplest explanations to be explored first)." association between gains on parts B and C of the PhAT (χ 2 test: p < 0.05), while in Fall 2009, there was a significant association between gains on parts A and C of the PhAT (χ 2 test: p < 0.05; Table 4). None of the other tests for association was significant.
Comparisons across semesters indicated that observed learning gains on the PhAT as a whole, and for parts A, B , and B , were significantly higher during Fall 2009 than they were during Fall 2008. During Fall 2009, we observed a 35.28% gain in part A as compared with a gain of 26.42% during Fall 2008; for part B , we observed a gain of 6.13% during Fall 2009 as compared with a 7.80% loss during Fall 2008; and for part B , there was a gain of 75.77% in Fall 2009 compared with 59.51% in Fall 2008 (Figure 4). All of these gains/losses were significant (t test: p < 0.001). On the other hand, the observed learning gains on parts C and C were not significantly different between Fall 2008 and Fall 2009 (t test: p > 0.1).

What Students Learned about Tree Thinking and Evolution
Students during both semesters made significant gains in their abilities to "map" characters parsimoniously onto two competing phylogenies (alternative hypotheses) in part A of the PhAT. Gains were modest, however, and even during Fall 2009, when the gain in part A was highest, mean posttest score was only 63.5%, indicating that many students still lacked mastery in mapping characters onto trees after instruction. By far the most common mistake made in part A was for students to indicate multiple parallel gains on terminal branches rather than indicating a single trait gain more basally in the tree, followed by a subsequent loss, which would have resulted in fewer evolutionary changes overall.
Students needed to have three pieces of information when thinking about how to map each individual character onto  , and B of the PhAT, as well as for the total score on the PhAT. Significance of differences across years was determined using t tests (two-tailed). *, significant at α = 0.05; **, significant at α = 0.01; ***, significant at α = 0.001; n.s., not significant.
the tree: 1) for any single character the best mapping provides the fewest number of chances; 2) in general, gains are more likely than losses, but losses are possible; 3) the outgroup indicates the ancestral condition and provides a polarity for the gain and loss of traits. This final point seems particularly important for the mapping of the large canine teeth and perhaps provides an explanation of why students gave more steps to tree II. Our sense is that the instructional activities used in the courses did not make these three points explicit. Our data indicate that students did not learn these concepts as well as we might have liked. This appears to be a strong finding within our study, and our results can inform future instruction, pointing toward an emphasis on explicit instruction and practice with respect to gains and losses and as seeking the most parsimonious character reconstruction possible. The strongest learning gains observed during both Fall 2008 and Fall 2009 occurred for part B of the PhAT, with 85.28% of the students indicating the principle of parsimony in part B as the reason to "prefer" one tree (hypothesis) over the other during Fall 2009. Thus, the students appear to have learned that different tree topologies can be interpreted as alternative hypotheses, and that parsimony (Occam's razor) can be used to decide which of two alternative hypotheses is better supported by evidence (observational data). Parsing out the two halves of part B indicated that almost none of the observed gain occurred with respect to being able to choose the most parsimonious tree (6.13% gain; Table 2). This was caused, in part, by virtue of students incorrectly indicating tree I as the preferred tree in part B of the PhAT, because they mapped traits incorrectly in part A. Many of these students subsequently applied appropriate tree-thinking logic in part B and received full credit for this part of the PhAT. In addition, many students chose tree I as the better tree (an incorrect response), presumably because "dog" and "cat," which are shown as sisters in tree I, have all of the same characteristics in the data table. It would be interesting to test the effect of this aspect of the data as a distracter for students.
Despite strong gains in both parts A and B of the PhAT during both Fall 2008 and Fall 2009, students had a difficult time learning/understanding the concept that taxa are grouped together on a phylogenetic tree by virtue of how recently they shared a common ancestor. Although students were able to indicate which taxa were closest relatives on a tree (part C ), they were not able to indicate why they should be considered closest relatives, and the concept of (recency of) common ancestry was rarely mentioned in posttest responses (Table 2). Most students instead indicated that organisms are more closely related, because they are most similar to each other.
Inference of relatedness by virtue of similarity is common ("Tree-thinking Misconception #4" in Gregory, 2008) and may hinder students' ability to see the representations of ancestordescendant relationships depicted by trees. Catley et al. (2010) also found that few of their students used the terms "ancestor" or "descendent" to describe aspects of phylogenies, and even fewer used the term "common ancestor." This problem may be compounded when students learn to carry out phylogenetic analysis using molecular sequence data. In many introductory molecular phylogenetics lessons, students build similarity/distance matrices and construct genetic distancebased dendrograms (e.g., Maier, 2001;Flammer, 2007), rather than taking a cladistic approach with its emphasis on shared ancestry. In lessons such as these, it needs to be made clear to students that the similarity used to build trees has arisen due to shared ancestry (the organisms are similar, because they are related), an important point that is easy to omit.

Comparing Student Evolutionary Understanding across Semesters
We found significantly larger learning gains on both parts A, B , and B of the PhAT during Fall 2009 as compared with Fall 2008. Thus, the teaching team may have done a better job of teaching students how to map characters onto trees and apply the principle of parsimony during Fall 2009 than during Fall 2008, perhaps through the application of scientific teaching approaches (Handelsman et al., 2007). Partly in response to documentation of the small positive impacts of course activities on student evolutionary understanding during Fall 2008, instructors made changes to the course for Fall 2009. In fact, the entire semester was "infused with evolution," with the goal of linking each class session to some aspect of evolutionary theory. Although not all of these linkages were phylogenetic, many of them were. Additionally, the Fall 2009 students individually read a scientific journal article about phylogenetics (Li et al., 2008), prepared answers to questions about the article, and then had a group discussion of the paper and its implications in class. Although not tested directly, these instructional interventions implemented during Fall 2009 may have contributed to the observed differences in student learning gains on parts A and B of the PhAT between Fall 2008 and Fall 2009. This instructional feedback loop provides an example of how assessing the impact of instructional activities on student learning through the use of a pre/posttest design can positively impact teaching and learning, and how assessment with the PhAT can be used to guide instruction.

The PhAT as an Assessment Tool
While the PhAT may provide a useful tool for assessing aspects of tree thinking, it is appropriate to ask exactly which aspects of tree thinking are measured by the PhAT, and how. For example, we know that students improved in their abilities to map traits onto phylogenetic trees (a tree-thinking skill). What is less clear is what it means when students are unable to map traits onto a phylogenetic tree. What do they fail to grasp? In these cases, it is unclear whether the error is in transferring and/or translating the elements of the character matrix to the tree, students do not understand the concept of a synapomorphy, or students simply do not know they are being asked to map traits parsimoniously. Future work with the PhAT will have to take into consideration the fact that the ability to map characters (parsimoniously or not) is a skill in and of itself and could be assessed separately from the ability to map characters parsimoniously.
One weakness with the PhAT as implemented was that part B , which was scored as correct if the students chose tree II and incorrect if they chose tree I, did not allow us to give full credit to students who chose tree I based upon a parsimony criterion. Many students (close to 30% in the Fall 2008 posttests) mapped characters onto tree II nonparsimoniously; chose tree I as the best tree, because it required fewer evolutionary steps; and then received partial or full credit for their rationale for choosing their tree. This was the reason we originally split out parts B and B as separate items and may explain the lack of observed learning gains for part B in both Fall 2008 and Fall 2009. It was also possible for students to select the right tree in part B , but for the wrong reason. This was a less serious issue, and it only occurred in ∼5% of the Fall 2008 posttests.
Finally, as noted by other authors (e.g., Catley et al., 2010), the concept of common ancestry as the basis of evolutionary relatedness appears to be a difficult one for students to grasp. Using the PhAT, we found that students continuously indicated that relatedness was due to similarity (not common ancestry), a misconception that persisted even after instruc-tion. The problem may have been exacerbated in our case due to our choice of phylogenetic trees for comparison. Tree II, which is the more likely tree than tree I (via parsimony criteria), does not show "dog" and "cat" as sister taxa, despite the fact that the character matrix clearly shows these two taxa sharing all characteristics. The grouping in tree II may thus simply be counterintuitive for students, given the character matrix. Future use of the PhAT could include showing two trees that are consistent both intuitively and with respect to parsimony.
The PhAT also does not appear to be an isomorphic measure of a single entity. While significant positive associations were observed between student responses to parts B (B and B pooled) and C (C and C pooled) of the PhAT during Fall 2008 and between parts A and C in Fall 2009, these associations were neither strong nor consistent. Further work needs to be undertaken to determine whether there is an association between a student's ability to map characters correctly onto a phylogenetic tree, an understanding of parsimony as a criterion for evaluating the strength of hypotheses, and/or a student's understanding of a tree as a depiction of ancestordescendant relationships.

CONCLUSIONS
Evolutionary (or phylogenetic) trees provide an excellent framework for students to organize information about groups of organisms within an evolutionary context. Phylogenies provide explicit hypotheses about ancestor-descendant relationships. In addition, although not explored in the current study, phylogenies can be used to incorporate a temporal component to the evolutionary process (assuming equal evolutionary rates), and they provide a way to help students see how biological traits are shared across taxonomic groups. Phylogenies can also move evolutionary biology lessons from the level of microevolution to the level of macroevolutionary change, which is often missing in standard curricula (Padian, 2008). Finally, by using parsimony as an optimality criterion, phylogenies provide an excellent avenue for students to conduct hypothesis testing in introductory organismal biology courses.
Using the PhAT, we found that the tree-thinking curriculum within the introductory organismal biology course at the LBC at MSU (Smith and Cheruvelil, 2009) provided students with the tools necessary to improve their treethinking skills. The PhAT provides a short, open-ended tool that can be used to assess student ability to map characters on phylogenetic trees; apply an objective criterion to decide which of two trees (alternative hypotheses) is "better"; and demonstrate an understanding of phylogenetic trees as depictions of ancestor-descendant relationships. In the two semesters studied here, we observed significant learning gains on each aspect of the PhAT, with the strongest learning gains observed for students' abilities to map characters onto phylogenetic trees and apply the principle of parsimony to evaluate competing hypotheses. The PhAT can be readily adaptable to other courses that include phylogenetic trees and tree thinking and can form the basis of future research to provide deeper insight into student learning and understanding of phylogenetic trees.