The document summarizes the implementation of the Genomics Education Partnership (GEP) project in a Molecular Biology course at National University. Some key points: - The GEP was incorporated into the lab portion of an 8-week Molecular Biology course with 12 students. Students spent 20-25 hours annotating genomic contigs as part of their lab work. - While student engagement was high and they felt they were doing meaningful work, some complained that the instructions were confusing and the workload too high given the lack of a teaching assistant. - Suggestions for improving future implementations included providing earlier introduction to GEP, chunking materials, clearer formatting of tutorials, and having students work together on annotations.

1. Genomics Education
Partnership:
First implementation in a Molecular Biology Course
May-June 2014
Ana Maria Barral
National University, CA.

2. National University
• Private, non-profit university (1971)
• Comprehensive: Associate, Bachelors, & Masters Degrees
• 19 campuses in CA, administrative offices in San Diego
• Accelerated courses (4-8 weeks), one at a time.
• Mostly non-traditional students:
• Working students, often with families
• Returning students
• Veterans & active military
• Minorities

3. San Diego Spectrum campus

4. • Part of the BS Biology sequence, follows Genetics
• 8 week lecture + lab, GEP implemented for lab
• Total of 10 class meetings, 4.5 hours each (lab).
• Although 10-12 hours of annotation were planned, total
hours spent in-class were 20-25 hours, plus student
individual time.
• Lecture included a scaffolded written project on a Drosophila
gene to support the GEP project.
GEP in a Molecular Biology lab
course (BIO407A)

5. Course schedule
Week Lecture GEP Traditional Molecular Bio
1 Nucleic acids.
Genes
Dilutions, spectroph.
DNA quantification
2 Gene structure Examples using Drosophila Colony PCR
Sequencing, Blast analysis
3 Genes & clusters Examples using Drosophila. DNA isolation &
electrophoresis.
4 Gene evolution.
Chromosomes &
chromatin.
Intro to GEP.
Blast tutorial and exercise.
5 Replication,
recombination, &
repair.
Annotation exercises. Simple
annotation problem.
Claiming of contigs.
Blue-white cloning
6 Transcription Annotation
7 Translation Annotation
8 Gene regulation Project submission.

6. GEP material was
incorporated into final exam

7. The bad…
• No TA for a class of 12
• Student complaints:
• Instructions confusing
• Tutorials difficult and wordy
• Excessive workload
• Too much emphasis on annotation within the course material
• Interestingly, end-of-course survey scores were better for
lab (GEP) than for lecture!
• Student preparation and effort directly proportional to
annotation success (systematic issue w/non-traditional
students)

8. Ideas for improvement…
• TA/peer instructor invaluable.
• Start GEP content from the very beginning (teach
MolBio through GEP- great idea)
• Chunking of materials, short tutorials.
• Formatting of tutorials for easier overview (fonts,
bolding, headings, etc.), maybe have instructions
separate from in-deep analysis
• Have students work together on the same contig.

9. Additional observations
• “So are we working for free for Washington
University?” Lack of clarity about research and
project ownership.
• Desire for more visual aids and help videos
(youtube generation)
• GEP project abstract- it may be useful to put faces
to names (Welcome video by GEP group?)

10. The Good
• Student engagement was palpable.
• Student surveys scored high (>4) for critical
thinking, deeper knowledge of the material, apply
the knowledge to real life.
• “It was refreshing to have a professor give me the
opportunity to work on such a meaningful task like
the WU project. Even though it was extremely
challenging at times, it was nice to know that I was
working for something more than just a grade.”

11. Thank you all, especially Sally
and Wilson !