A New Learning Environment in the Biotech Lab Technician Program

Jeanette Mowery, instructor of "Protein Bioseparations," did not start using technology in her classroom for the same reasons that the majority of instructors featured on the Learning Through Technology (LT²) web site did. The majority of professors highlighted in other case studies incorporated computer-enhanced learning activities in order to solve what they saw as a problem with student learning. Jeanette, on the other hand, did not have a particular problem that she was trying to solve when she began using Andrew Booth's Protein Lab software in her course. Instead, she was introduced to the software by her colleague, Lisa Seidman, instructor in the biotechnology program, who had purchased several different software packages to be used in the Biotechnology Lab Technician Program, and who recognized the potential that Protein Lab had to improve student learning.^a

However, after talking about Protein Lab with Jeanette and her colleague, Becky Pearlman, who also uses the software to teach "Protein Bioseparations," we found that both of them value the software's potential to help solve some of the more common problems with student learning that are described throughout the LT² web site.

One of these problems is students' inability to comprehensively and meaningfully understand a particular concept. This problem applies to Jeanette's students, who she said would "lose the big picture" without the software because they would spend "so much time doing the actual technique." In other words, students would learn certain protein separation techniques at certain times, but might not fully grasp the fact that those techniques are a part of a larger, trial and error process. (To understand more about the trial and error process of protein purification, see the section in this case study entitled "What is Protein Purification?") One instructor agreed with Jeanette and said that, "when you expose new students to a single process, they tend to think the whole world revolves around those techniques and those issues." According to him and Jeanette, this limited view point is exactly the wrong one to have if students wish to understand the process of protein purification.

Another opinion that Jeanette and her colleagues share with other instructors featured in the LT² web site is that the lecture approach creates a learning environment that often fails to facilitate meaningful learning. Jeanette told us that if she were only to lecture on protein purification, she would have many students who tried to memorize purification strategies as opposed to seeing it as a process that necessitates trial-and-error.^b

The MATC Biotech faculty have several goals that they think will lead to the creation of a learning environment that addresses the problems stated above. The first of these is that they want to convey to students that protein purification is a process that is unique to each protein^c (see, "What is Protein Purification"). According to Jeanette, students who do not understand this concept will be able to purify beta-galactosidase, the protein on which Jeanette's students spend a semester, but will not have the experimentation skills that will be necessary in their future positions as lab technicians.

Another faculty goal is to ensure that students do hands-on work, purifying real proteins, in the wet lab both to develop experimentation skills, and self-confidence. A "Protein Bioseparations" instructor says that, because of the hands-on training they receive, students will have the confidence they need to perform at the same or higher level as any of their future lab colleagues.^d

Finally, Becky Pearlman, Molecular Biology Instructor, has made it her goal to use technology only inasmuch as it provides an advantage over a textbook. To her, this means something that has an interactive component.^e

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a. Marco, interviewer: What problems were you actually trying to solve when you decided to use the Protein Lab?
Jeanette: Well, that's not how it really presented itself to me. I used it because it was here, and it was a teaching tool. And I didn't really have very high expectations of it because, for one thing, it was pretty old and this was six years ago that I first had it. But when I used it, I was amazed at how well it did the job.

b. Jeanette: Even though I say all through the semester that you can't memorize a strategy, if they didn't have something to give them perspective, they would come away from the lesson saying, "Well, when you purify a protein, you do X, Y, and Z." Lecture material doesn't get imprinted in the brain quite the same way. It's just hard for them to think outside the box.

c. Jeanette: Just due to the fact that they do a technique, run a gel and get some data, they start to see how there's not just one process for purifying any protein. It's a bunch of different things put together and so much of this comes about through trial and error. I need them to see that all those other techniques are there, and that the lessons they learn are valuable.

d. Instructor: I think the one-on-one, face-to-face personal contact work is important as well as just the absolute fundamental hands-on, do it with your own hands, see it and learn it with your own eyes, ears and hands. When you bring students into the lab, I feel that the personal one-on-one attention you give them is really critical in developing their self-confidence. Because even though our students are often times more skilled in the lab, they still get paid the same amount as students with bachelor's degrees who may not even have any lab experience at all. There's a prejudice against tech school graduates. So they must leave our program with a good sense of accomplishment and just feeling good about themselves.

e. Becky: If the technology you are using looks just like the textbook, then I don't think it's that useful. I think it has to have something above and beyond what the textbook could offer you. To me, anything that has some kind of interactive component is better for the students. I'm not crazy about just question and answer, but it's better than just having to read something online. And I know people say, "Oh, but it has hyper links." I'll say, "Yeah, a textbook has an index too."