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通过相关的本科实验室经验被介绍给生物和工程专业的学生(处于他们学术生涯的不同阶段)。这是南卡罗来纳大学哥伦比亚分校(一所研究型大学)、南加州大学兰开斯特分校(一所社区学院)和本尼迪克特学院(四年制HBCU)共同努力的结果。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，然后利用这些经验在南加州大学哥伦比亚分校(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)和南加州大学兰开斯特(生物学导论)较低级别的课程中更新实验室实验。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生的实验室实验。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需求，并拥有在依赖于不同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，由于组织工程的跨学科性质，拥有独特技术和立即实用技能的学生对生物工程研究和工业的研究生机会更感兴趣。该项目在基础机构、家庭系(机械工程、生物医学工程、生物学)和学生经验(从二年级到四年级)和聘用广泛的教员(从相对较新的助理教授到实验室教学的全职教授，以及在实验室开发方面有多年经验的全职教授)方面影响着广泛的学生。这种人员和机构基础的广泛多样性有助于建立在替代学术环境中轻松实施这一方法的条件。该项目正在实施的新的教育模式，即根据高级研究经验不断更新本科实验室，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.