A Collaborative Recombinant DNA Technology Course with Laboratory

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Both the classroom and laboratory portions of this course in recombinant DNA technology are designed to promote contextual, collaborative, inquiry-based learning of science. Students teach one another and have a sense of ownership of their education. In class, emphasis is on group presentations and critical reading and discussion of scientific articles that use recombinant DNA technology to address questions in both basic and applied research. In the laboratory, investigative projects are designed to help students pose and answer two questions: 1) How do you clone a gene? and 2) And so then what do you do with it? The two projects are random DNA cloning, and in vitro expression and site-directed mutagenesis of cholinesterase; the latter project integrates the research and teaching of the principal investigator. Students present the results of their two laboratory projects in a poster and in a paper with the format of a scientific article. It adapts principals found in Project Kaleidoscope (1991, What works: building natural science communities Volume one) and the PEW Higher Education Collaborative (1998, Policy perspectives sponsored by the PEW science program in undergraduate education. University of Pennsylvania, Phila. PA), and the work of Brian Coppola (1997, J. Chem Ed. 74, 74-83 and 84-94) and the Council on Undergraduate Research (1995, CUR Quarterly 16, 109-114).