Your browser doesn't support javascript.
loading
Mostrar: 20 | 50 | 100
Resultados 1 - 20 de 21
Filtrar
1.
Biochem Mol Biol Educ ; 52(1): 58-69, 2024.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-37815098

RESUMO

We present as a case study the evolution of a series of participant-centered workshops designed to meet a need in the life sciences education community-the incorporation of best practices in the assessment of student learning. Initially, the ICABL (Inclusive Community for the Assessment of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology/BMB Learning) project arose from a grass-roots effort to develop material for a national exam in biochemistry and molecular biology. ICABL has since evolved into a community of practice in which participants themselves-through extensive peer review and reflection-become integral stakeholders in the workshops. To examine this evolution, this case study begins with a pilot workshop supported by seed funding and thoughtful programmatic assessment, the results of which informed evidence-based changes that, in turn, led to an improved experience for the community. Using participant response data, the case study also reveals critical features for successful workshops, including participant-centered activities and the value of frequent peer review of participants' products. Furthermore, we outline a train-the-trainer model for creating a self-renewing community by bringing new perspectives and voices into an existing core leadership team. This case study, then, offers a blueprint for building a thriving, evolving community of practice that not only serves the needs of individual scientist-educators as they seek to enhance student learning, but also provides a pathway for elevating members to positions of leadership.


Assuntos
Médicos , Estudantes , Humanos , Bioquímica/educação , Biologia Molecular/educação , Aprendizagem
2.
CBE Life Sci Educ ; 20(3): ar35, 2021 09.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-34100646

RESUMO

Metabolic systems form the very foundation of life and as such are broadly taught in the molecular life sciences. Here, we describe the biochemistry educator community-based development and use of an assessment instrument designed to evaluate students' ideas about metabolic pathway dynamics and regulation in undergraduate biochemistry courses. Analysis of student responses showed that most students were able to interpret visual representations in an unfamiliar metabolic pathway and that many could make basic predictions about how the system would be expected to respond to changes. However, fewer students generated nuanced responses that accounted for both microscopic changes at the protein level and macroscopic changes in pathway product outputs. These findings identify some of the challenges of meaningfully assessing students' understanding of metabolic pathways and could inform how instructors think about teaching and assessing metabolism in undergraduate biochemistry and beyond. The results also suggest future avenues for biochemistry education research.


Assuntos
Bioquímica , Estudantes , Humanos , Redes e Vias Metabólicas
3.
CBE Life Sci Educ ; 20(2): es6, 2021 06.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-33900121

RESUMO

With support from the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB), a community of biochemistry and molecular biology (BMB) scientist-educators has developed and administered an assessment instrument designed to evaluate student competence across four core concept and skill areas fundamental to BMB. The four areas encompass energy and metabolism; information storage and transfer; macromolecular structure, function, and assembly; and skills including analytical and quantitative reasoning. First offered in 2014, the exam has now been administered to nearly 4000 students in ASBMB-accredited programs at more than 70 colleges and universities. Here, we describe the development and continued maturation of the exam program, including the organic role of faculty volunteers as drivers and stewards of all facets: content and format selection, question development, and scoring.


Assuntos
Bioquímica , Estudantes , Bioquímica/educação , Certificação , Humanos , Biologia Molecular/educação , Universidades
4.
Biochem Mol Biol Educ ; 35(3): 172-80, 2007 May.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-21591084

RESUMO

Biochemistry courses at Seattle University have been taught exclusively using process oriented guided inquiry learning (POGIL) without any traditional lecture component since 1997. In these courses, students participate in a structured learning environment, which includes a preparatory assignment, an in-class activity, and a follow-up skill exercise. Instructor-designed learning activities provide the content of the course while the cooperative learning structure provides the content-free procedures that promote development of critical process skills needed for learning. This format enables students to initially explore a topic independently, work together in groups to construct and refine knowledge, and eventually develop deep understanding of the essential concepts. These stages of exploration and concept development form the foundation for application to high level biochemical problems. At the end of this course, most students report feeling confident in their knowledge of biochemistry and report substantial gains in independence, critical thinking, and respect for others.

5.
CBE Life Sci Educ ; 16(1)2017.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-28188280

RESUMO

Multiple-choice assessments provide a straightforward way for instructors of large classes to collect data related to student understanding of key concepts at the beginning and end of a course. By tracking student performance over time, instructors receive formative feedback about their teaching and can assess the impact of instructional changes. The evidence of instructional effectiveness can in turn inform future instruction, and vice versa. In this study, we analyzed student responses on an optimized pretest and posttest administered during four different quarters in a large-enrollment biochemistry course. Student performance and the effect of instructional interventions related to three fundamental concepts-hydrogen bonding, bond energy, and pKa-were analyzed. After instructional interventions, a larger proportion of students demonstrated knowledge of these concepts compared with data collected before instructional interventions. Student responses trended from inconsistent to consistent and from incorrect to correct. The instructional effect was particularly remarkable for the later three quarters related to hydrogen bonding and bond energy. This study supports the use of multiple-choice instruments to assess the effectiveness of instructional interventions, especially in large classes, by providing instructors with quick and reliable feedback on student knowledge of each specific fundamental concept.


Assuntos
Bioquímica/educação , Compreensão , Feedback Formativo , Estudantes/psicologia , Ensino , Humanos , Conhecimento
6.
Biochem Mol Biol Educ ; 44(2): 179-90, 2016.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-26566786

RESUMO

Assessment instruments designed to measure student conceptual understanding and skills proficiency related to biochemistry are important to transform undergraduate biochemistry education. The purpose of this study was to develop an assessment instrument to measure student understanding of protein structure and enzyme inhibition in a new context, that of saturable binding. A community of biochemistry educators was involved in an iterative process of designing and testing of this assessment, which consists of true/false and open-ended questions that map to low and high levels in Bloom's taxonomy. A total of 188 students' responses were collected from seven different institutions and were graded by two independent raters using a rubric. Results from this administration indicate that most students were able to answer the questions related to lower-levels in Bloom's taxonomy; however for higher-level questions, students had more difficulty. The results from this assessment can give instructors insight into the ways in which persistent incorrect or incomplete ideas related to protein structure and binding events can hinder knowledge application. Also, the use of a community of practice to develop assessment instruments of this type and the format of the instrument itself could be a useful model for development of assessment instruments in the future.


Assuntos
Avaliação Educacional/métodos , Avaliação Educacional/normas , Inibidores Enzimáticos/farmacologia , Aprendizagem Baseada em Problemas , Proteínas/antagonistas & inibidores , Proteínas/química , Estudantes/psicologia , Compreensão , Inibidores Enzimáticos/química , Humanos , Conformação Proteica
7.
Toxicol Sci ; 68(2): 465-72, 2002 Aug.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-12151643

RESUMO

2,3,7,8 Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD), a ubiquitous environmental toxin, has been shown to cause a human skin pathology called chloracne. The majority of laboratory mouse strains, with the exception of mice bearing a mutation in thehairless gene, fail to display overt signs of chloracne upon exposure to TCDD. As a result, only minimal data exist on the effects of TCDD in adult haired mice and no data exist on the effects of TCDD in developing mouse skin. Here we report that TCDD affects the temporal expression of protein markers of keratinocyte terminal differentiation during murine skin morphogenesis. Immunohistochemical analysis of E16 mice reveals accelerated expression of the intermediate filament-associated protein filaggrin in response to TCDD. At a later developmental time and after birth, expression of filaggrin and loricrin is indistinguishable between treatment and control groups. At E16 expression of keratins 5, 6, and 10 are unaltered in TCDD-exposed individuals and TUNEL analysis shows no apoptotic cells in the basal and spinous layers of either treatment or control groups. At E16, immunohistochemical analysis of AhR-null mouse skin reveals accelerated filaggrin expression in both vehicle and TCDD exposed animals. We therefore hypothesize that AhR acts as a modulator of late stage keratinocyte terminal differentiation.


Assuntos
Poluentes Ambientais/toxicidade , Feto/efeitos dos fármacos , Queratinócitos/efeitos dos fármacos , Exposição Materna/efeitos adversos , Dibenzodioxinas Policloradas/toxicidade , Pele/efeitos dos fármacos , Animais , Animais Recém-Nascidos , Biomarcadores , Feminino , Feto/patologia , Proteínas Filagrinas , Proteínas de Filamentos Intermediários/metabolismo , Queratinócitos/metabolismo , Masculino , Proteínas de Membrana/metabolismo , Camundongos , Camundongos Endogâmicos C57BL , Camundongos Knockout , Morfogênese/efeitos dos fármacos , Morfogênese/fisiologia , Gravidez , Receptores de Hidrocarboneto Arílico/genética , Pele/embriologia , Pele/crescimento & desenvolvimento
8.
Biochem Mol Biol Educ ; 42(3): 213-23, 2014.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-24599610

RESUMO

The increasing availability of concept inventories and other assessment tools in the molecular life sciences provides instructors with myriad avenues to probe student understanding. For example, although molecular visualization is central to the study of biochemistry, a growing body of evidence suggests that students have substantial limitations in their ability to recognize and interpret basic features of biological macromolecules. In this study, a pre/posttest administered to students at diverse institutions nationwide revealed a robust incorrect idea about the location of the amino acid side chains in the protein α-helix structure. Because this incorrect idea was present even after a semester of biochemistry instruction at a range of institutions, an intervention was necessary. A community of expert biochemistry instructors collaborated to design two active learning classroom activities that systematically examine α-helix structure and function. Several participating faculty used one or both of the activities in their classrooms and some improvement of student understanding of this concept was observed. This study provides a model of how a community of instructors can work together using assessment data to inform targeted changes in instruction with the goal of improving student understanding of fundamental concepts.


Assuntos
Bioquímica/educação , Comportamento Cooperativo , Conformação Proteica , Estudantes/psicologia , Humanos
9.
CBE Life Sci Educ ; 13(3): 516-28, 2014.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-25185234

RESUMO

Threshold concepts (TCs) are concepts that, when mastered, represent a transformed understanding of a discipline without which the learner cannot progress. We have undertaken a process involving more than 75 faculty members and 50 undergraduate students to identify a working list of TCs for biochemistry. The process of identifying TCs for biochemistry was modeled on extensive work related to TCs across a range of disciplines and included faculty workshops and student interviews. Using an iterative process, we prioritized five concepts on which to focus future development of instructional materials. Broadly defined, the concepts are steady state, biochemical pathway dynamics and regulation, the physical basis of interactions, thermodynamics of macromolecular structure formation, and free energy. The working list presented here is not intended to be exhaustive, but rather is meant to identify a subset of TCs for biochemistry for which instructional and assessment tools for undergraduate biochemistry will be developed.


Assuntos
Fenômenos Bioquímicos , Bioquímica/educação , Disciplinas das Ciências Biológicas/educação , Comportamento Cooperativo , Educação , Grupos Focais , Humanos , Estudos Interdisciplinares , Entrevistas como Assunto , Conhecimento , Projetos Piloto , Editoração , Estatística como Assunto , Estudantes
12.
Biochem Mol Biol Educ ; 39(6): 405-11, 2011.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-22081543

RESUMO

Although the idea of using a workshop to educate potential users about a set of materials or techniques is not new, the workshops described here go beyond simple dissemination and create ongoing communities of practice that support widespread and sustained improvement in the biochemistry classroom. The degree to which pedagogical innovations improve student learning on a national level depends on how broadly they are disseminated and how they are implemented and sustained. Workshops can be effective in disseminating ideas and techniques, but they often fail to sustain implementation. This paper describes Core Collaborators Workshops (CCWs) that were specifically designed for biochemistry faculty to improve the quality of active learning materials, support faculty in transforming their classrooms, and disseminate these efforts nationally. This CCW model proved very effective to date as shown by the fact that, 8 months after the last CCW, all workshop participants reported using at least some of the instructional materials discussed during the workshop. In addition, participants remarked that the superior community building and direct mentoring available through the CCWs greatly increased their confidence in implementing this new curricular approach and has made them more likely to act as leaders themselves.


Assuntos
Bioquímica/educação , Educação Profissionalizante/métodos , Disseminação de Informação/métodos , Docentes , Aprendizagem Baseada em Problemas , Estudantes , Estados Unidos
13.
Biochem Mol Biol Educ ; 39(2): 102-9, 2011.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-21445901

RESUMO

Biochemistry is a challenging subject because student learning depends on the application of previously learned concepts from general chemistry and biology to new, biological contexts. This article describes the development of a multiple-choice instrument intended to measure five concepts from general chemistry and three from biology that are considered prerequisite for biochemistry learning. This instrument is specifically designed with a factor structure that includes three multiple-choice items for each of the eight concepts and the most common incorrect ideas that students could have as distractors. It can be used as a pretest to identify students' incorrect ideas about those concepts and to determine if instruction helps students overcome those incorrect ideas when used as a posttest. Results from a confirmatory factor analysis support a very good fit for an eight-factor solution. This manuscript represents a report on the current state of instrument development. We seek to share our methods and instrument design principles with the broader community.


Assuntos
Bioquímica/educação , Biologia/educação , Química/educação , Avaliação Educacional/métodos , Humanos , Estudantes
19.
Eukaryot Cell ; 5(4): 712-22, 2006 Apr.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-16607018

RESUMO

Endoplasmic reticulum-associated degradation (ERAD) mediates the turnover of short-lived and misfolded proteins in the ER membrane or lumen. In spite of its important role, only subtle growth phenotypes have been associated with defects in ERAD. We have discovered that the ERAD proteins Ubc7 (Qri8), Cue1, and Doa10 (Ssm4) are required for growth of yeast that express high levels of the sterol biosynthetic enzyme, 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase (HMGR). Interestingly, the observed growth defect was exacerbated at low temperatures, producing an HMGR-dependent cold sensitivity. Yeast strains lacking UBC7, CUE1, or DOA10 also assembled aberrant karmellae (ordered arrays of membranes surrounding the nucleus that assemble when HMGR is expressed at high levels). However, rather than reflecting the accumulation of abnormal karmellae, the cold sensitivity of these ERAD mutants was due to increased HMGR catalytic activity. Mutations that compromise proteasomal function also resulted in cold-sensitive growth of yeast with elevated HMGR, suggesting that improper degradation of ERAD targets might be responsible for the observed cold-sensitive phenotype. However, the essential ERAD targets were not the yeast HMGR enzymes themselves. The sterol metabolite profile of ubc7Delta cells was altered relative to that of wild-type cells. Since sterol levels are known to regulate membrane fluidity, the viability of ERAD mutants expressing normal levels of HMGR was examined at low temperatures. Cells lacking UBC7, CUE1, or DOA10 were cold sensitive, suggesting that these ERAD proteins have a role in cold adaptation, perhaps through effects on sterol biosynthesis.


Assuntos
Aclimatação/fisiologia , Proteínas de Transporte/fisiologia , Retículo Endoplasmático/metabolismo , Proteínas de Membrana/fisiologia , Fosfoproteínas Fosfatases/metabolismo , Proteínas de Saccharomyces cerevisiae/fisiologia , Saccharomyces cerevisiae/fisiologia , Esteróis/biossíntese , Enzimas de Conjugação de Ubiquitina/fisiologia , Ubiquitina-Proteína Ligases/fisiologia , Proteínas de Transporte/genética , Temperatura Baixa , Deleção de Genes , Proteínas de Membrana/genética , Fosfoproteínas Fosfatases/genética , Complexo de Endopeptidases do Proteassoma/fisiologia , Proteínas de Saccharomyces cerevisiae/genética , Proteínas de Saccharomyces cerevisiae/metabolismo , Transdução de Sinais , Esteróis/análise , Enzimas Ativadoras de Ubiquitina/metabolismo , Enzimas de Conjugação de Ubiquitina/genética , Ubiquitina-Proteína Ligases/genética , Regulação para Cima
20.
SELEÇÃO DE REFERÊNCIAS
DETALHE DA PESQUISA