A Novel Hands-On Approach to Teaching Undergraduate Immunology

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This project facilitates the development and implementation of an upper-division immunology course (Basic and Applied Immunology). This course fills several existing gaps in the biology curriculum and may help retain students in the Biology Department. By applying the newly acquired animal housing materials, biosafety cabinets, CO2 incubators, pipetting equipment, refrigerated tabletop centrifuge, X-irradiation cabinet, microplate washer, and data-acquisition software into the new teaching approach, students are able to learn traditional immunochemistry, in addition to contemporary humoral, cellular, and molecular immunology, through an innovative hands-on learning process. The new equipment is being used in conjunction with on-hand immunology laboratory equipment. After sufficient instruction and training, students use the equipment to design and perform experiments. During this process, they learn aseptic technique, gain familiarity with recent technologies, and apply statistical analyses to their data. This approach is an improvement to conventional, passive approaches that require students to perform only limited steps in predesigned experiments. Furthermore, the instructor for the laboratory functions as an educator rather than as a technician. This approach empowers students in the classroom, develops critical thinking and scientific writing skills, teaches students contemporary immunology techniques and equipment applications using a relevant disease model, fosters collaboration and interaction among students, promotes communication skills and dissemination of student work, and facilitates student networking with other immunologists. Equipment used in this project can also be used in undergraduate immunology research and by other courses in biology and chemistry.