CANCER CELL BIOLOGY

As a PostDoc in the Collaborative Electronic Learning Lab (CELL) at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I was interested in using asynchonous, interactive modules to help students understand cancer cell biology more deeply.  I conceived of a simulation in which students were presented with a patient's background and a slate of assays that they could run to determine what was causing the growth of tumor cells.  Students learned about the research process and data analysis along with the cellular mechanisms of cancer as they worked through this problem-based activity.  I designed and developed this interactive learning module from soup to nuts, working only with biologists for fact-checking and teachers and students for testing.  My colleague, Susanne Bockholt, and I took the module into the classroom to test the student and teacher response, producing the following peer-reviewed article that was published in the Journal of Cell Biology Education.

CANCER CELL BIOLOGY: A STUDENT-CENTERED INSTRUCTIONAL MODULE EXPLORING THE USE OF MULTIMEDIA TO ENRICH INTERACTIVE, CONSTRUCTIVIST LEARNING OF SCIENCE

Susanne M. Bockholt, J. Paige West, Walter E. Bollenbacher

Multimedia has the potential of providing bioscience education novel learning environments and pedagogy applications to foster student interest, involve students in the research process, advance critical thinking/problem-solving skills, and develop conceptual understanding of biological topics. Cancer Cell Biology, an interactive, multimedia, problem-based module, focuses on how mutations in protooncogenes and tumor suppressor genes can lead to uncontrolled cell proliferation by engaging students as research scientists/physicians with the task of diagnosing the molecular basis of tumor growth for a group of patients. The process of constructing the module, which was guided by scientist and student feedback/responses, is described. The completed module and insights gained from its development are presented as a potential “multimedia pedagogy” for the development of other multimedia science learning environments.

CELL BIOLOGY EDUCATION, VOL. 2, 35-50, SPRING 2003   |  View the full article