基于信息化技术的慕课在人体组织学教学中的应用

探讨慕课在人体组织学授课中的应用效果.选取185名2019级临床医学生随机分为研究组和对照组.研究组采用慕课+腾讯课堂线上直播的授课方式;对照组采用腾讯课堂线上直播的授课方式.通过应用"问卷星"单元测试、闭卷考试和问卷调查来分析将慕课引入组织学授课的教学效果.研究组学生的单元测试和期末考试成绩均显著高于对照组.研究组问...     

基于“玩课网”对“免疫学”翻转课堂课前教学进行评价的实践

翻转课堂是近年来兴起的一种以学生为主体的教学模式。此前我们以QQ群为平台对"免疫学"教学进行翻转课堂实践,取得了良好效果。但受QQ平台技术的限制,难以对学生的自主学习情况进行有效监督与考核。因此,在原有基础上,以"玩课网"为平台,设计了以学生完成课前自学任务获得积分作为翻转课堂的课前教学评价。实践证明不仅促进了学生高质量完成课前自学任务,也使任课教师及时了解学生对课前自主学习内容的掌握情况,使课堂教学更具有针对性,提高了翻转课堂的教学效果。     

微课和翻转课堂在生理学实验教学中的应用

目的:探讨微课(Microlecture)结合翻转课堂(Flipped Classroom)在生理学实验教学中的应用及效果。方法:以第四军医大学2010级临床医学专业五年制学员作为研究对象,随机分为对照组(A班,42人)和试验组(B班,42人),A班(7组,6人/组)接受传统方式的授课,B班(7组,6人/组)接受微课和翻转课堂模式的授课。课程结束后,以试卷考试,统计分析考试分数,同时用问卷调查评价教学效果。结果:试验组的总成绩明显高于对照组(P0.05)。学员对微课和翻转课堂教学法的效果评价明显优于传统的授课方式,微课结合翻转课堂在生理学实验教学中的应用明显提高了学员的实验兴趣、独立思考能力、动手能力、团队协作能力及自主学习能力。结论:微课结合翻转课堂在实验教学中的应用不但可以加深理论知识的理解,提高学员的各种技能,而且可推广应用到其他实验课程。     

中学生物学教学中微课导课模式的研究

课堂教学是一门艺术,而课堂导语更是艺术中的艺术,"良好的开端是成功的一半",每节课的导入直接影响课堂的教学效果。在传统导课模式的基础上,提出了"微课导课模式",并通过对比实验总结了此导课模式的优、缺点,为中学生物学教师的导课提供参考,进而提高教师的课堂设计能力。     

基于“全国高校生命科学类微课教学比赛”分析微课在生命科学类课程的应用

随着信息技术的发展和教育改革的深入,创新型教学改革方案不断推出。借助信息技术,创新式的翻转课堂也越来越受关注。文中围绕翻转课堂这种新型的教学模式,融合信息化手段,为教学发展提供新思路。微课作为创新翻转课堂的一种重要形式,短小精悍、趣味性高,有助于提高学生的学习兴趣和自主学习能力。设计与制作微课将成为高校教师必备的技能。文中基于对全国高校生命科学类微课教学比赛参赛作品的分析,从微课的主要特点、主题导入方式、呈现方式、教学设计等角度进行分析,探讨微课在生命科学类课程教学中的应用,为一线高校教师了解和设计微课提供参考,从而提高大学生的学习兴趣和效率。     

基于网络微平台教学的微生物学实验精细化及个性化教学改革

为更好地适应信息化时代的微生物学实验教学特点,全面落实培养学生创新能力的全新微生物学实验教学手段体系的目标,在本次教改过程中,我们根据学生性格特点、学习成绩、爱好取向等多方面因素,对实验课程进行了精细化、个性化的分组,同时针对性地选取现代化网络微平台开展实验教学(课堂派、微助教、雨课堂、UMU、班级优化大师等),并进行了为期一年的试点改革。改革结果发现,基于网络微平台的精细化及个性化的混合交互式教学,促进了教学由"定性分析"向"精准定量分析"转变。学生深感多层次微生物学实验教学体系配合精细化教学手段和工具,能更加有助于个性化实践学习,极大激发了学习兴趣,提高了学习效果,全面提升了学生的综合创新能力。     

基于微课的翻转课堂实践在“食品微生物学实验”教学中的应用

微课是一种为在线学习而生的,以学习者为中心设计的可视化学习资源。微课的应用往往离不开翻转课堂。为了解决"食品微生物学实验"课程中存在的"教"与"学"的问题,本文构建了基于微课视频的翻转课堂实验教学模式,总结出了"一视、二台、三看、四仿、五评"的实验课教学策略。该教学模式实现了"以教为主"向"以学为主"的转变,以及"知识传授为主"向"能力培养为主"的转变,提高了学生的自主学习能力和学习兴趣,对提高教学效果具有明显的促进作用。     

基于微课的混合教学模式在《胚胎学总论》教学中的应用

如何将线上教学与线下课堂授课有机结合,创建高效有序的混合教学模式是当前高校教学改革的重点。人体胚胎学内容抽象,学习难度较大。为了提高胚胎学的教学质量,本团队以《胚胎学总论》这一章作为试点课程,通过线上线下结合,课内课外互补的方式,开展以微课为基础的混合式教学。结果表明,将微课教学与课堂面授相结合有利于激发学生学习热情,培养其自主学习能力。在胚胎学教学中,应用这种基于微课的混合教学模式可取得较理想的教学效果。     

辅助微课教学法在高职实习生血液净化护理技术教学中的应用

目的探讨辅助微课教学法对高职实习生血液净化护理技术教学效果的影响。方法选取2017年7月~2018年6月在我院血液净化部实习的40名高职护理学实习生为研究对象,随机分为干预组和对照组各20名。干预组采用LBL教学法和辅助微课教学法,对照组采用LBL教学法,观察比较两组教学效果和实习生对授课方式的评价。结果干预组理论知识和实践操作考核成绩均显著高于对照组,授课方式满意度高于对照组,差异均有统计学意义(P0.05)。结论采用微信作为辅助LBL的教学手段,可获得良好效果,能较好地弥补当前微课的不足,同时也充分发挥了微课的优势。     

疫情下“基因工程”课程线上跨学科教学模式设计与实践

"新冠"疫情暴发凸显基因工程技术对社会经济的重大影响,基因工程离我们的生活越来越近。"新冠"疫情下,为了让学生更好地完成"基因工程"课程的居家学习,我们采用了基础知识微课自学(Small Private Online Course,SPOC)+案例应用课堂剖析(Tencent Instant Messenger,QQ)+管理拓展课后互助(QQ群)+疑难问题实时解答(QQ群)的跨学科教学模式开展在线教学,通过问题引入、真实情景剖析、跨学科拓展完成了课程基本原理和主要方法的教学,使学生掌握了基因研究的基本方法、基因表达流程、基因技术应用及安全管理相关的知识。通过思考新型冠状病毒肆虐情境下如何防控,帮助学生明晰了学习目的,提高了跨学科学习的兴趣;通过新型冠状病毒核酸检测的真实情景问题和组织实施由目标设计过程、确定方法、学习课程知识,进而掌握不同学科知识应用技能的跨学科教学活动,提高了学生将基因操作技能与专业技能融合解决实际问题的能力。教学实践证明,基础自学+案例剖析+互助拓展+实时答疑的跨学科在线教学模式,可以顺利完成课程教学任务并获得与传统课堂教学等同的效果;分析案例识别问题→设计方案解析...     

慕课在生物化学课程教学中的作用——华南农业大学《生物化学》“MOOC+线上见面课”课程教学实践

生物化学不仅是生物类专业的基础课,也是发展最快的前沿课程之一。传统的线下教学模式面对生物化学的繁杂体系暴露出许多问题,通常教学效果不佳。随着互联网技术的发展,“互联网+”教育得到快速发展。慕课与微课等线上课程为许多高校提供了丰富的学习资源,钉钉课堂、腾迅课堂、雨课堂、微信交流平台等线上课程直播,也让学生足不出户就能实现同步学习。线上教学在新冠疫情期间成为全国大中小学院校的主要教学模式,但经过几年的推广,单纯的线上教学在教学效果方面也暴露出诸多问题。为充分发挥线上、线下教学的各自优势,混合式教学成为发展方向。华南农业大学在2019年初开始与智慧树平台合作,建立生物化学的教学慕课,在2020年新冠疫情期间,我校生物化学课程教学采用了“MOOC+线上见面课”的线上混合教学模式。教学反馈结果显示,学生单纯依靠MOOC并不能很好地完成生物化学的学习,但“MOOC+线上见面课”则获得了学生的普遍认可。该教学模式不仅能提高学生的学习兴趣和学习主动性,在一定程度上也能提升教学质量和学习效果,为今后“MOOC+线下课”的应用提供了参考。     

Providing interactive and field laboratories while teaching university marine biology classes in an era of COVID‐19

An entirely online upper‐division university marine invertebrates course modeled after a field experience‐intensive course that also provided interaction with live animals and research experience was offered at Rosario Beach Marine Laboratory in the summer of 2020. We describe online methods we used for providing field experiences to students participating online, as well as a workstation and interactive method for identification and detailed anatomical examination of live macroinvertebrates with students. Students were also involved as active participants in a field research project. Nearly all of the equipment involved is inexpensive or readily available in most university biology laboratories or classrooms.     

基于QQ平台开展微生物学项目学习的探索

将QQ平台与项目学习整合引入微生物学教学中,开展基于QQ平台的教学探索。教师首先通过QQ群文件夹发布项目学习选题,然后根据项目活动的进程利用QQ群文件夹、QQ一对一文件传输功能给学生传送项目活动相关的文档或发布学习资料,并通过QQ聊天功能解答学生的疑难问题、督促学生开展项目学习活动。问卷调查结果表明:基于QQ平台的微生物学项目学习有利于发挥学生学习的主体性,能够加强师生之间的交流,提高学生的学习兴趣、信息素养及协作学习能力。     

Social influence in televised election debates: a potential distortion of democracy

A recent innovation in televised election debates is a continuous response measure (commonly referred to as the "worm") that allows viewers to track the response of a sample of undecided voters in real-time. A potential danger of presenting such data is that it may prevent people from making independent evaluations. We report an experiment with 150 participants in which we manipulated the worm and superimposed it on a live broadcast of a UK election debate. The majority of viewers were unaware that the worm had been manipulated, and yet we were able to influence their perception of who won the debate, their choice of preferred prime minister, and their voting intentions. We argue that there is an urgent need to reconsider the simultaneous broadcast of average response data with televised election debates.     

Implementing team‐based learning in the life sciences: A case study in an online introductory level evolution and biodiversity course

Team‐Based Learning (TBL) is a pedagogical tool that has great potential to develop student engagement, accountability, and equity in the online classroom. TBL is rooted in evidence‐based educational theories and practices that underlie many active learning approaches such as self‐testing, team discussion, and application of knowledge. The use of these approaches is associated with better student performance, retention, and sense of belonging in the classroom, aspects that are often reported to be especially lacking in online courses. Here, we describe how we implemented TBL in a face‐to‐face and an online introductory level evolution and biodiversity course. We implemented TBL in the face‐to‐face course (~200 students) starting in 2018 and in the online course (~30 students) starting in the summer of 2019. We used several online applications to facilitate the transition to an online platform such as Simbio, Slack, VoiceThread, Articulate 360, and Teammates. Our experiences using TBL approaches in the online course have been rewarding, and students are engaged and accountable for their learning and performed well in the course. Our goal is to provide an example of how we designed a life science course using TBL approaches and transitioned the course to an online environment. With the current switch to remote instruction and online learning, we recommend the use of TBL as a course design approach that can improve the students’ online learning experience.     

After 2 years of a pandemic,students are struggling to find strong reference letters

Writing and receiving reference letters in the time of COVID. Subject Categories: Careers

“People influence people. Nothing influences people more than a recommendation from a trusted friend. A trusted referral influences people more than the best broadcast message.” —Mark Zuckerberg.

I regularly teach undergraduate courses in genetics and genomics. Sure enough, at the end of each semester, after the final marks have been submitted, my inbox is bombarded with reference letter requests. “Dear Dr. Smith, I was a student in your Advanced Genetics course this past term and would be forever grateful if you would write me a reference for medical school…” I understand how hard it can be to find references, but I have a general rule that I will only write letters of support for individuals that I have interacted with face‐to‐face on at least a few occasions. This could include, for example, research volunteers in my laboratory, honors thesis students that I have supervised, and students who have gone out of their way to attend office hours and/or been regularly engaged in class discussions. I am selective about who I will write references for, not because I am unkind or lazy, but because I know from experience that a strong letter should include concrete examples of my professional interactions with the individual and should speak to their character and their academic abilities. In today''s highly competitive educational system, a letter that merely states that a student did well on the midterm and final exams will not suffice to get into medical or graduate school.However, over the past 2 years many, if not most, students have been attending university remotely with little opportunity to foster meaningful relationships with their instructors, peers, and mentors, especially for those in programs with large enrollments. Indeed, during the peak of Covid‐19, I stopped taking on undergraduate volunteers and greatly reduced the number of honors students in my laboratory. Similarly, my undergraduate lectures have been predominantly delivered online via Zoom, meaning I did not see or speak with most of the students in my courses. It did not help that nearly all of them kept their cameras and microphones turned off and rarely attended online office hours. Consequently, students are desperately struggling to identify individuals who can write them strong letters of reference. In fact, this past spring, I have had more requests for reference letters than ever before, and the same is true for many of my colleagues. Some of the emails I have received have been heartfelt and underscore how taxing the pandemic has been on young adults. With permission, I have included an excerpt from a message I received in early May:Hi Dr. Smith. You may not remember me, but I was in Genome Evolution this year. I enjoyed the class despite being absent for most of your live Zoom lectures because of the poor internet connection where I live. Believe it or not, my mark from your course was the highest of all my classes this term! Last summer, I moved back home to rural Northern Ontario to be closer to my family. My mom is a frontline worker and so I''ve been helping care for my elderly grandmother who has dementia as well as working part‐time as a tutor at the local high school to help pay tuition. All of this means that I''ve not paid as much attention to my studies as I should have. I''m hoping to go to graduate school this coming fall, but I have yet to find a professor who will write a reference for me. Would you please, please consider writing me a letter?I am sympathetic to the challenges students faced and continue to face during Covid‐19 and, therefore, I have gone out of my way to provide as many as I can with letters of support. But, it is no easy feat writing a good reference for someone you only know via an empty Zoom box and a few online assignments. My strategy has been to focus on their scholarly achievements in my courses, providing clear, tangible examples from examinations and essays, and to highlight the notable aspects of their CVs. I also make a point to stress how hard online learning can be for students (and instructors), reiterating some of the themes touched upon above. This may sound unethical to some readers but, in certain circumstances, I have allowed students to draft their own reference letters, which I can then vet, edit, and rewrite as I see fit.But it is not just undergraduates. After months and months of lockdowns and social distancing, many graduate students, postdocs, and professors are also struggling to find suitable references. In April, I submitted my application for promotion to Full Professor, which included the names of 20 potential reviewers. Normally, I would have selected at least some of these names from individuals I met at recent conferences and invited to university seminars, except I have not been to a conference in over 30 months. Moreover, all my recent invited talks have been on Zoom and did not include any one‐on‐one meetings with faculty or students. Thus, I had to include the names of scientists that I met over 3 years ago, hoping that my research made a lasting impression on them. I have heard similar anecdotes from many of my peers both at home and at other universities. Given all of this, I would encourage academics to be more forthcoming than they may have traditionally been when students or colleagues approach them for letters of support. Moreover, I think we could all be a little more forgiving and understanding when assessing our students and peers, be it for admissions into graduate school, promotion, or grant evaluations.Although it seems like life on university campuses is returning to a certain degree of normality, many scholars are still learning and working remotely, and who knows what the future may hold with regard to lockdowns. With this uncertainty, we need to do all we can to engage with and have constructive and enduring relationships with our university communities. For undergraduate and graduate students, this could mean regularly attending online office hours, even if it is only to introduce yourself, as well as actively participating in class discussions, whether they are in‐person, over Zoom, or on digital message boards. Also, do not disregard the potential and possibilities of remote volunteer research positions, especially those related to bioinformatics. Nearly, every laboratory in my department has some aspect of their research that can be carried out from a laptop computer with an Internet connection. Although not necessarily as enticing as working at the bench or in the field, computer‐based projects can be rewarding and an excellent path to a reference letter.If you are actively soliciting references, try and make it as easy as possible on your potential letter writers. Clearly and succinctly outline why you want this person to be a reference, what the letter writing/application process entails, and the deadline. Think months ahead, giving your references ample time to complete the letter, and do not be shy about sending gentle reminders. It is great to attach a CV, but also briefly highlight your most significant achievements in bullet points in your email (e.g., Dean''s Honours List 2021–22). This will save time for your references as they will not have to sift through many pages of a CV. No matter the eventual result of the application or award, be sure to follow up with your letter writers. There is nothing worse than spending time crafting a quality support letter and never learning the ultimate outcome of that effort. And, do not be embarrassed if you are unsuccessful and need to reach out again for another round of references—as Winston Churchill said, “Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”     

Patents on quorum quenching: interfering with bacterial communication as a strategy to fight infections

Numerous bacterial functions, such as virulence and biofilm formation, are controlled by a cell densitydependent communication mechanism known as Quorum Sensing (QS), in which small diffusible molecules are released, allowing bacteria to coordinate their behavior once a minimal effective quorum has been reached. The interference with these signaling systems, also known as Quorum Quenching (QQ), represents a promising strategy to tackle bacterial infections. The growing interest in this approach is reflected by the increasing number of patents within the field (45 up to now), especially in the last few years, as shown by patent applications published since 2009. The fact that biofilm formation is also controlled by QS systems expands the application of QQ to clinically-relevant biofilms such as those responsible for periodontal disease. Moreover, since biofilms increase bacterial resistance to antimicrobials, QQ could represent a new way to fight some of the most recurrent human pathogens, such as nosocomial multiresistant strains, and this deserves further exploration, especially through more proofs of concept. In this article we review the best known QS and QQ systems to date and we describe recent patents on the interference with this type of bacterial communication.     

No role of DT-diaphorase (NQO1) in the protection against oxidized quercetin

Quercetin is one of the most studied alimentary antioxidants. During its antioxidant activity, quercetin becomes oxidized into its ortho-quinone/quinone methide, denoted as QQ. QQ is toxic since it is highly reactive towards thiols. DT-diaphorase (NQO1) might protect against QQ toxicity by reducing QQ to quercetin. However, conflicting data have been reported. The aim of the present study is to elucidate the role of DT-diaphorase in the protection against QQ-mediated thiol reactivity. It was found that QQ is indeed a substrate for DT-diaphorase. However, QQ reacted much faster with glutathione or protein thiols than with DT-diaphorase in experiments with isolated compounds as well as with human liver cytosol or blood plasma. This indicates that DT-diaphorase has no role in the protection against QQ.     

Using online lectures to make time for active learning

To make time in class for group activities devoted to critical thinking, we integrated a series of short online lectures into the homework assignments of a large, introductory biology course at a research university. The majority of students viewed the online lectures before coming to class and reported that the online lectures helped them to complete the in-class activity and did not increase the amount of time they devoted to the course. In addition, students who viewed the online lecture performed better on clicker questions designed to test lower-order cognitive skills. The in-class activities then gave the students practice analyzing the information in groups and provided the instructor with feedback about the students' understanding of the material. On the basis of the results of this study, we support creating hybrid course models that allow students to learn the fundamental information outside of class time, thereby creating time during the class period to be dedicated toward the conceptual understanding of the material.