BIOL 301 – Cell & Molecular Laboratory

Strategy goal(s)

There are several goals: student engagement, application of techniques used in class and investigation of further techniques, association of course material to real-world biological problems, students teamwork and communication skills.

Description

BIOL 301 is normally a hands-on, ‘wet-lab’ course where students design and perform inquiry-guided experiments based a set of available techniques/reagents, then analyze and present their results. This is not directly possible in a remote setting. One of the tools that we are using to give them a feel for doing molecular and cell biology experiments is the use of a case study-based 2D, immersive simulation platform. In these simulations (of which they will use five in the first month or two of term), students perform virtual experiments addressing a particular bio-medical need, problem or phenomenon, including collecting and analyzing data, and answering questions on the experiments used and results.

Our proposed strategy is to group students into teams mentored by a teaching assistant to design their own case study-based simulation along the lines. This would include:

1. Choosing a topic and investigating the literature surrounding it to present a valid and fact-based case study in which to set the research question.
2. Choosing 2-3 molecular and/or cell biology techniques and scripting out the workflow of these experiments to take someone through their performance.
3. Provide data that result from the experiments performed and guide the user through their interpretation.
4. Provide ‘check-point’ questions for the user to answer while doing the simulation.
5. Create a short (3 min) promotional video of their simulation.

Graded items would be the script of their simulation plus their promotional video. Grading would be performed both by TAs/course staff and by peers. Feedback opportunities would be provided not only by the mentoring TA, but also through at least one draft.

Comments

This strategy is brand new and we are still hammering out the details. Two major issues that will need to be addressed to make this successful are:

1. Preparation of the TAs for mentoring such a project. Most have experience as lab demonstrators helping students do particular experiments rather than guiding students through a research process, thus they will need training and support in inquiry-guided teaching. Similarily, for this fall in general, they will need training on working with student groups remotely.
2. Because we would leave the topic and the experiments the students use open, we need to have a clear and detailed scaffold to guide students through the steps of the project, as well as a robust rubric for grading. This could be similar to the type of rubric used by granting agencies (e.g. NSERC) to assess grant proposals, and TAs would be provided with some samples to grade ahead of time to both test the rubric and calibrate their grading.

Since we are trying several new strategies in running a remote laboratory course, we will create student questionnaires where they can give feedback on their response to these strategies. Some, such as the one described, could be used in the future as an assignment in this or another course.