A Novel Hands-On Approach to Teaching Undergraduate Immunology

本项目促进高年级免疫学课程（基础与应用免疫学）的发展和实施。本课程填补了生物课程的一些现有空白，并可能有助于将学生留在生物系。通过将新获得的动物笼材料、生物安全柜、CO2培养箱、移液设备、冷藏台式离心机、x射线照射柜、微孔板清洗机和数据采集软件应用到新的教学方法中，学生可以通过创新的动手学习过程，学习传统的免疫化学，以及当代的体液、细胞和分子免疫学。新设备正在与现有的免疫学实验室设备一起使用。经过充分的指导和训练，学生可以使用设备设计和进行实验。在此过程中，他们学习无菌技术，熟悉最新技术，并对数据进行统计分析。这种方法是对传统被动方法的改进，传统被动方法只要求学生在预先设计的实验中执行有限的步骤。此外，实验室讲师的职能是教育工作者而不是技术人员。这种方法增强了学生在课堂上的能力，培养了批判性思维和科学写作技能，教授学生使用相关疾病模型的当代免疫学技术和设备应用，促进了学生之间的协作和互动，提高了沟通技巧和学生工作的传播，并促进了学生与其他免疫学家的联系。本项目中使用的设备也可用于本科免疫学研究以及生物和化学的其他课程。

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.