Integrating Pedagogy and Technology to Support Student Learning
SIMONE LAUGHTON, Instructional Technology Liaison Librarian

Abstract:
How do we provide students with meaningful ‘real–world’ experiences that enable them to learn the nuances and intricacies behind the integration of business and science? Leigh Revers, working over several years with colleagues associated with the Master of Biotechnology Program and the University of Toronto Mississauga Microelectronics Department, provides students with many opportunities to hone their skills and to develop their knowledge. With the benefit of years of practical experience in industry, he assumes the role of Vice–President of Research and Development and "recruits" student teams to complete projects. Students are introduced to basic concepts and techniques during an intensive Demo Week. Then they negotiate, collaborate, and innovate to reach their targeted milestones.

Main Article:

Leigh Revers, Lecturer and Associate Director with the U. of T. Mississauga Master of Biotechnology Graduate Program discusses his experiences using technology to support student learning in an interview with Simone Laughton, Instructional Technology Liaison Librarian at the U. of T. Mississauga Library.

SL:  How have you engaged students in the courses that you teach?

LR: I joined UTM in 2006 and was given the opportunity to develop a few key courses. I’m a lecture stream faculty member and, obviously, they like to see us teaching in innovative and exciting ways. I was given the opportunity to take on a course previously taught by Barry Saville called ‘Molecular Biology Laboratory’. The course is a standard lab course at the graduate level. It is a summer course, and the first thing that I did was to introduce the idea of projects. Normally, when students complete a Master’s degree they have a project that they work towards with their supervisors, but students in a professional program often don’t get that opportunity. I thought it would be great to give the students a ‘mini–masters’ experience; so I designed a crash course requiring students to complete a practical project in a very compressed timeframe.

The challenge was to replicate a real–world experience. My idea was to assign projects randomly in which the teams had to complete a specific task within 6 weeks. Then I had to find enough projects that would provide a meaningful experience for the teams of students. I had 32 students at the time, now I have 36 students. I was able to find project topics through collaboration with colleagues who are researchers in the field, affiliated with the St. George campus. We identified 4 different technologies that we wanted to use. For internal reproducibility purposes, we decided to duplicate the projects so that there would be 8 projects that were randomly assigned.

Many of the students have never been in a biotechnology lab before. The challenge is to teach the students the basics before they are plunged in at the deep end. We came up with the idea of having a very intense ‘Demo Week.’ While there is some lecturing during Demo Week, it mainly involves practical work. The idea is that during this week students learn basic techniques (such as PCR) and concepts such as how recombinant DNA is engineered in the test tube). We get a lot done in 7 days. It has proven to be very successful. What we've done since is to build on what we’ve learned each year. When I receive feedback from students, it is clear they really love the course and want to contribute. One improvement that was suggested was to build in the concept of monetary value, as the course really involves both science and business.

I introduced the concept of assigning value to everything, and built that into a project with clearly defined milestones along the way. So students in the project teams have an end–goal and interim objectives. This is very industry–oriented, and when the students complete the milestones, they then receive ‘lab cash’ that ultimately contributes towards their final grade. The teams have a budget, and a price list is made available. The teams also receive a kit that includes everything they need for the project. Every item in the kit has an assigned value, so the students need to keep a complete and accurate inventory. Then we open up the lab to free-market trade, so the teams can exchange things with each other because some of the teams have things they don’t need for their particular project and others want those things. Students can either use lab cash or they can exchange goods and services.

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