Continuous Renewal of Undergraduate Education Via an Interdisciplinary, Inquiry Based Laboratory

跨学科（99）组织工程的现代研究领域正在介绍给生物学和工程学的学生（在他们的学术生涯的不同阶段）通过连接本科实验室的经验。这是南卡罗来纳州大学（USC）、哥伦比亚大学（研究型大学）、南卡罗来纳州兰开斯特大学（社区学院）和本尼迪克特学院（四年制HBCU）之间的合作努力。南加州大学哥伦比亚分校的高年级学生正在通过基于探究的方法设计，开发，实施和优化生物反应器。 这些学生正在制定新的研究假设，测试他们的假设，然后使用这些经验来更新USC哥伦比亚（机械工程，生物医学工程和生物学），本尼迪克特学院（细胞生物学）和USC兰开斯特（生物学导论）的低水平课程的实验室实验。 这一建议的智力价值主要在于开发和评估一种新的教育策略，即由高年级学生设计的实验系统用于不断更新本科实验室实验。据推测，这种新的教育方法将使学生更有能力处理工业的技术要求，并拥有在一个依赖多元化劳动力的领域取得成功所需的沟通技能。这一提议的更广泛影响包括增加对后研究生机会在生物工程研究和工业的学生谁是武装与一个独特的技术和立即实用的技能集由于组织工程的跨学科性质。该项目正在影响广泛的学生，在基础机构，家庭部门（机械工程，生物医学工程，生物学）和学生的经验（通过老年人的校友）方面，并吸引了广泛的教师（从相对较新的助理教授到实验室教学，以具有多年实验室开发经验的全职教授）。人员和机构基础的广泛多样性有助于在替代学术环境中实施这一方法。在这个项目中实施的新的教育模式，即基于高级研究经验的本科实验室的不断更新，可以广泛应用于其他新兴的跨学科技术领域。

Interdisciplinary (99)The modern research area of tissue engineering is being introduced to biology and engineering students (at different stages of their academic careers ) through linked undergraduate laboratory experiences. This is a collaborative effort between the University of South Carolina (USC) Columbia (a research I university), USC Lancaster, (a community college) and Benedict College (a four year HBCU). Senior level students at USC Columbia are designing, developing, implementing, and optimizing bioreactors through an inquiry-based approach. These students are formulating novel research hypotheses, testing their hypotheses and then using these experiences to renew laboratory experiments in lower level courses at USC Columbia (mechanical engineering, biomedical engineering, and biology), at Benedict College (cell biology) and at USC Lancaster (introductory biology). The intellectual merit of this proposal lies primarily in developing and assessing a novel educational strategy whereby experimental systems designed by senior students are used to continuously renew undergraduate laboratory experiments. It is hypothesized that this novel approach to education will produce students more able to deal with the technical demands of industry, and who possess the communication skills required to succeed in a field that relies on a diverse workforce.The broader impacts of this proposal include increased interest in post-graduate opportunities in bioengineering research and industry by students who are armed with a unique technical and immediately practical skill set due to the interdisciplinary nature of tissue engineering. This project is impacting a broad set of students, in terms of base institution, home department (Mechanical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, Biology), and student experience (sophomores through seniors) and engaging a broad set of faculty (from assistant professors relatively new to laboratory teaching to full professors with many years of experience in laboratory development). This broad diversity in personnel and institutional base is helping to establish the ease with which this approach can be implemented in alternative academic environments. The novel educational model being implemented in this project, namely continuous renewal of undergraduate laboratories based on senior level research experiences, can be broadly applied to other emerging interdisciplinary technical areas.