Cultivating career ready skills: Weaving experiential learning opportunities throughout the curriculum

Situating student learning in “real world” environments provides unique learning opportunities that cannot be replicated in a classroom setting. It offers a meaningful experience that allows students to apply their knowledge, adapt to constantly changing environments, and gain valuable insights. In this session I will present a scaffolded experiential learning approach that entails sequential progression in extent and intensity, gradually preparing the students to apply academic learning in a professional setting. Experiential learning opportunities are introduced early on, and are woven throughout the program. Beyond cultivating career-ready professional skills, the experiential learning is designed to bring awareness to “why should we care” with the goal of eliciting motivation and inspiration. Participants will be invited to share alternative strategies to prompt student motivation and shift focus from grades to the value of learning

Integrating learning spaces: Engaging students in-person and online

This session features the implementation of an active learning cycle, integrating in-class and out of class learning spaces. To facilitate out of class interactions and collaborative engagement with the material, I used a social annotation platform Perusall, where students analyzed scientific publications collaboratively in preparation for a discussion-based seminar session. The asynchronous group interaction prompted active reading and peer-to-peer learning, created a sense of community and facilitated social interactions both in and outside of class. Students were engaged in conversation across learning spaces and actively participated in a meaningful way. In-class discussions were tailored to address the gaps, solidify the concepts, and make meaningful connections. The active learning cycle inspired motivation and engagement, and greatly enhanced student’s ability to apply knowledge and get a firm grasp of complex concepts. The insights gleaned from “peering into the minds” of my students, helped “tailor” the knowledge transfer to suit that cohort of students. Furthermore, it informed my teaching in the 2nd and 3rd year courses leading to this course. The impact goes beyond “backwards course design” and in fact enables “backwards curricular design”. Participants will have an opportunity to try the platform out and explore it as a potential resource. To participate please bring a laptop, so you can access the platform and demo the simulation

Cultivating a questioning mind: Student-led question composition in large courses

Asking a good question is not a trivial task. It requires deep comprehension and concept integration. To facilitate critical thinking and mastering of foundational concepts in a large Genetics course (~1200 students) at the second-year undergraduate level, we decided to actively engage students in question creation. We used “Quizzical”, an online platform developed by Prof. Dan Riggs (Riggs et al., 2020, https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.19-09-0189). Via this platform, students are tasked with the creation of multiple-choice questions. For each of the suggested answer choices, students are required to provide a comprehensive justification. This includes justification for the correct answer as well as for each of the distractors. An added advantage of the platform is the generation of student-authored quiz banks that can be used for practice and participation marks. Since the questions are created by multiple authors, they included diverse point of views, which we learned the students greatly appreciated. To foster metacognition and encourage a shift from perceiving learning as memorization of information, students were encouraged to create application-based questions. Higher grades were granted to questions that creatively integrated multiple concepts or required knowledge application. In order to inform our teaching practices, pilot studies were conducted in Fall 2021 and Summer 2022, where students were asked to complete an anonymous survey regarding their experiences with Quizzical, and the feedback that we received was positive overall. We will discuss the learning outcomes achieved by engaging the students in question creation, and will share quantitative and formative feedback received from our students. This research was approved by our institutional research ethics board

Proposal Assignment

Course Code, Name, Level and Enrollment: HMB201H1 2021, Introduction to Fundamental Genetics, and its Applications, graduate, 45-99 students.Learning outcomes: develop an appreciation of innovative approaches in the biotech industry; summarize and interpret scientific data; develop the skills needed to compose a solid compelling proposal; and improve your ability to write clearly and concisely.In this assignment, students are to develop a convincing proposal for the professor and TA to invest in a biotech company. The assignment is broken down into three parts: (1) proposal; (2) peer review & self-assessment; and (3) feedback reflection & final draft. This proposal assignment is designed to help students compose a compelling proposal, as well as improve the students' ability to write clearly and concisely

Netrins and Wnts Function Redundantly to Regulate Antero-Posterior and Dorso-Ventral Guidance in <i>C. elegans</i>

<div><p>Guided migrations of cells and developing axons along the dorso-ventral (D/V) and antero-posterior (A/P) body axes govern tissue patterning and neuronal connections. In <i>C. elegans</i>, as in vertebrates, D/V and A/P graded distributions of UNC-6/Netrin and Wnts, respectively, provide instructive polarity information to guide cells and axons migrating along these axes. By means of a comprehensive genetic analysis, we found that simultaneous loss of Wnt and Netrin signaling components reveals previously unknown and unexpected redundant roles for Wnt and Netrin signaling pathways in both D/V and A/P guidance of migrating cells and axons in <i>C. elegans</i>, as well as in processes essential for organ function and viability. Thus, in addition to providing polarity information for migration along the axis of their gradation, Wnts and Netrin are each able to guide migrations orthogonal to the axis of their gradation. Netrin signaling not only functions redundantly with some Wnts, but also counterbalances the effects of others to guide A/P migrations, while the involvement of Wnt signaling in D/V guidance identifies Wnt signaling as one of the long sought mechanisms that functions in parallel to Netrin signaling to promote D/V guidance of cells and axons. These findings provide new avenues for deciphering how A/P and D/V guidance signals are integrated within the cell to establish polarity in multiple biological processes, and implicate broader roles for Netrin and Wnt signaling - roles that are currently masked due to prevalent redundancy.</p></div

LIN-17 is expressed in the hermaphrodite DTCs throughout development.

<p>Fluorescence micrographs of KS411 hermaphrodites bearing <i>lin-17::gfp </i><a href="http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pgen.1004381#pgen.1004381-Wu1" target="_blank">[58]</a>. Dorsal is up and anterior is left. Arrows mark the DTC. Developmental stage is indicated on the right. L2–L4 represent the three larval stages preceding the adult stage.</p

Wnt and Netrin signaling components function redundantly to regulate D/V axon guidance of AVM and PVM neurons.

<p>(A) <i>In egl-20(n585)</i> mutants, the AVM neuron sends an axon (arrow) ventrally as in the wild type. (B) <i>unc-5(e53) egl-20(n585)</i> double mutants frequently fail to execute the normal D/V axon migration and the AVM axon migrates longitudinally instead. (C) Quantification of the AVM or PVM axon defects in <i>egl-20</i> and <i>unc-5</i> single mutant compared to <i>unc-5 egl-20</i> double mutant animals or the <i>unc-5 egl-20</i> compared to two independent lines of this double mutant carrying the <i>mec-7::unc-5</i> transgene. Bars represent the percentage of longitudinal axons (red) or partially longitudinal axons (grey). A/P polarity defects including axon reversals (black) and bipolar axons (yellow) were also observed. (D) Quantification of the AVM (black) or PVM (grey) axon defects in <i>mig-14/wntless</i> or <i>unc-6</i> single mutants compared to <i>mig-14; unc-6</i> double mutants. The corresponding raw data are presented in <a href="http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pgen.1004381#pgen.1004381.s012" target="_blank">Table S7</a>. Error bars indicate standard error of the sample proportion. Comparisons were made to the corresponding single mutant controls. ***P<0.00001; *P<0.05; ns = not significant.</p

Netrin and Wnt signaling components function redundantly to regulate A/P axon guidance of the CAN neuron.

<p>Fluorescence micrographs of the indicated mutant strains bearing <i>gly-18::gfp</i> to visualize the CAN neuron. Dorsal is up and anterior is left. Arrows mark the CAN axon trajectories. Asterisk marks the CAN cell body. (A) <i>egl-20(n585)</i> and (B) <i>unc-5(ev489)</i> both display bipolar axon extensions along the A/P axis as in the wild-type. (C) <i>unc-5(e53) egl-20(n585)</i> as well as (D) <i>unc-5(ev489) egl-20(n585)</i> display axon polarity reversals, as well as axon branching and premature terminations (E,F) All of these defects occur predominantly on the posterior side. (G) Quantification of the CAN axon defects in <i>egl-20</i>, <i>unc-5</i>, <i>mig-14/wntless</i> and <i>unc-6</i> single mutants compared to <i>unc-5 egl-20</i> or <i>mig-14; unc-6</i> double mutants, respectively. <i>egl-20(n585)</i> is reportedly temperature sensitive <a href="http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pgen.1004381#pgen.1004381-Whangbo2" target="_blank">[33]</a> hence the analysis was carried out at both 20°C and 25°C. Bars represent the percentage of CAN axon reversals (red), branching (grey), and premature terminations (yellow). The corresponding raw data are presented in <a href="http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pgen.1004381#pgen.1004381.s011" target="_blank">Table S6</a>. Error bars indicate standard error of the sample proportion. Comparisons were made to the corresponding single mutant controls. ***P<0.00001 **P<0.001.</p