Problem-based Learning Modules for Systems Biology

开发促进跨学科整合的教育材料的任务对本科学院来说尤其具有挑战性，因为教学负荷如此之高，以至于教师发现很难跟上自己领域的新发展，更不用说在新的学科跨越领域，如综合系统生物学。该项目的目标是创建全面的教育材料，帮助全国的教师进入综合系统生物学领域，教育学生，并使他们参与跨学科的基于系统的生物学研究。通过开发这些材料，该项目将为培养包括博士后和青年科学家在内的现任和未来的教师奠定基础。这一策略预计将产生巨大的乘数效应，并将赋予那些可能无法从事综合系统生物学跨学科领域的教师权力。在综合系统生物学的新领域，迫切需要教材，特别是在本科学院，教师几乎没有时间开发需要几个不同学科知识的新课程。要开发的材料包括讲座幻灯片，项目，练习，家庭作业问题，解决方案，背景材料，不同语言的计算机代码，以及为来自不同STEM教育领域的教师简化综合系统生物学课程开发的其他材料。提议的材料将在佐治亚理工学院进行开发和测试。随后的beta测试将在斯佩尔曼学院（Spelman College）进行，该学院历来被认为是一所少数族裔大学，主要招收来自弱势群体的女学生。随后，教学模块将在其他学院进行进一步测试。

The task of developing educational materials that foster interdisciplinary integration is especially challenging for undergraduate colleges where the teaching load is so high that faculty find it difficult to keep up with new developments in their own fields, let alone in new discipline-spanning fields such as integrative systems biology. The goal of this project is to create fully comprehensive educational materials that will help faculty nationwide enter the field of integrative systems biology, educate students, and engage them in interdisciplinary systems-based biological research. By developing the proposed materials, the project will lay the foundation for educating current and future teachers, including postdoctoral fellows and young scientists. This strategy is anticipated to have an enormous multiplier effect and will empower instructors who might otherwise not be able to engage in the transdisciplinary field of integrative systems biology.There is a pressing need for educational materials in the new field of integrative systems biology, in particular at undergraduate colleges where faculty have little time to develop new courses that require knowledge of several distinct parent disciplines. The materials to be developed consist of lecture slides, projects, exercises, homework problems, solutions, background materials, computer code in different languages, and other materials that simplify the development of integrative systems biology courses for faculty that come from different fields of STEM education. The proposed materials will be developed and alpha-tested at Georgia Institute of Technology. Subsequent beta-testing will occur at Spelman College, historically known as a minority institution that primarily caters to female students from underrepresented groups. Subsequently the teaching modules will be further tested at other colleges.