Digital learning material for experimental design and model building in molecular biology

Designing experimental approaches is a major cognitive skill in molecular biology research, and building models, including quantitative ones, is a cognitive skill which is rapidly gaining importance. Since molecular biology education at university level is aimed at educating future researchers, we consider it important that students already start developing these skills during their studies. In general, cognitive skills can be acquired by practicing them in the context in which they will be applied. At the start of this project, only part of the students had the opportunity to practice designing experimental approaches, whereas most students did not obtain any practice in building models at all.A general pedagogical approach in which students practice cognitive skills in their context of application is the cognitive apprenticeship approach.In this approach, students receive coaching while working on authentic problems. As students gain more experience, this coaching gradually fades or the task becomes increasingly complex.Digital learning material enables different degrees of coaching, which is needed to implement cognitive apprenticeship-style learning. There are also other benefits of using information andcommunicationtechnology (ICT), particularly if learning material is designed to consist of fairly self-contained, internet based, independent modules. For example, it is possible to generate experimental results based on the design decisions made by a student; to have students carry out numerical simulations of a quantitative model; and to handle differences in prior knowledge and working pace among students. Even though digital learning material seems attractive to realize apprenticeship-style practice for experimental design and model building in molecular biology, there are hardly any design principles available yet to exploit the opportunities the computer offers for this purpose. Developmental research is a type of research which is aimed at developing design principles for the construction of educational interventions by concurrently constructing prototypes which illustrate their application.In this project, developmental research is employed to develop design principles to construct digital learning materials for university-level molecular biology education, which enables students to practice the design of experimental approaches and the building of models. Concurrently, prototypes are constructed that illustrate the application of these guidelines.In chapter 1 an introduction is given in which molecular biology research and molecular biology education are described. Existing pedagogical guidelines and developmental research as a research approach are discussed as well.The main part of this thesis consists of chapters 2 through 6, which describe the development and evaluation of the digital cases. These chapters contain materials of articles published or in press (mostly unchanged) and are therefore structurally independent. Each chapter describes (a) case(s) witha different structure. Where appropriate, the degree of coaching is decreased within a case.Chapter 2 and 3 describe cases in which students practice the design of experimental approaches. Chapter 2 focuses on dealing with differences in prior knowledge. In chapter 3 a case is described in which an approach is applied which allows for a precise mediation of specific learning goals. Four additional cases were developed with a similar structure, but with increasingly complex tasks and a gradual reduction of coaching.Chapters 4, 5, and 6 describe cases in whichstudentspractice model building. Chapter 4 describes a case in which students are guided to build a model step by step. The model building cycle they follow was developed based on expert analysis and historical data.Chapter 5 describes a case in which students are again guided to build a model step by step according to the same model building cycle as is described in chapter 4. However, this case contains an additional element, namely the use of numerical simulations to facilitate the building of the model. The chapter consists of two parts. In the first part, the design considerations are described with respect to the current developments in research in the molecular life sciences and our vision on how education should be innovated to deal with these developments. In the second part, more general pedagogic considerations are discussed and the case and its evaluation are described in detail.Chapter 6 describes a case which contains another complexity for the students when compared to the case which is described in chapter 4. Students are no longer guided step by step, but have to organize their model building approach themselves. Chapter 7, finally, summarizes and discusses the yield of the research performed. For each chapter (paper) a specific demo-site was made. It is, however, also possible to access all cases discussed via a web page which was made for this thesis: http://mbedu.fbt.wur.nl/demo_thesis