Essay ‘‘Shrink Wrapping’’ Lectures: Teaching Cell and Molecular Biology within the Context of Human Pathologies William H. Guilford Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22908 Submitted October 21, 2004; Accepted December 2, 2004 Monitoring Editor: Eric Chudler Students are most motivated and learn best when they are immersed in an environment that causes them to realize why they should learn. Perhaps nowhere is this truer than when teaching the biological sciences to engineers. Transitioning from a traditionally mathematics-based to a traditionally knowledge-based pedagogical style can challenge student learning and engagement. To address this, human pathologies were used as a problem-based context for teaching knowledge- based cell biological mechanisms. Lectures were divided into four modules. First, a disease was presented from clinical, economic, and etiological standpoints. Second, fundamental concepts of cell and molecular biology were taught that were directly relevant to that disease. Finally, we discussed the cellular and molecular basis of the disease based on these fundamental concepts, together with current clinical approaches to the disease. The basic science is thus presented within a ‘‘shrink wrap’’ of disease application. Evaluation of this contextual technique suggests that it is very useful in improving undergraduate student focus and motivation, and offers many advantages to the instructor as well. Keywords: undergraduate, modular, contextualization, pathology, problem-based, knowledge-based, pedagogy INTRODUCTION Among the fundamental assumptions about learning is that students are most motivated and learn best when they are immersed in an environment that causes them to realize why they should learn (Fischer and Scharff, 1998; Webb and Romberg, 1992). That is, concepts and knowledge are best introduced when students see their application and their relationship to other concepts (Bransford et al., 1999). Perhaps nowhere is this assumption better highlighted than when teaching physiology and molecular biology to engineers—an endeavor that is growing more common as biomedical engineering programs flourish. Students transi- tioning from engineering to biology courses face many challenges, including diverse educational backgrounds, and a comparative lack of quantitative theories and mathematical expressions in molecular biology. One must also consider what is meant by teaching in a ‘‘style’’ familiar and engaging to engineering students. Aside from quantitative measures of learning styles, this is often equated with presenting the material within the context of mathematics. However, more familiar and engaging to engineers is application of knowledge to solving real-world problems and not mathematics per se. Thus, seeing the application of the material, as described above, is of critical importance in engineering education. This is supported by an Index of Learning Styles study of biomedical engineering undergraduates that showed them to be both sensory and global learners (Dee et al., 2002). Each of these measures may be interpreted as learning best within a broader context of application. To this end, we present a knowledge-centered curriculum for teaching cell and molecular biology to engineering undergraduates in a traditional lecture setting, with the goal of motivating learning, and providing an application- oriented bridge to learning. To accomplish this, human pathologies were used as a problem-based context for teaching basic biological mechanisms. The curriculum was very successful in improving student focus and motivation through contextualized and highly modularized lectures. A proposal to teach in this manner has been published elsewhere (Guilford, 2001). DOI: 10.1187/cbe.04-10-0054 Address correspondence to: William H. Guilford (guilford@ virginia.edu). Cell Biology Education Vol. 4, 138–142, Summer 2005 138 Ó 2005 by The American Society for Cell Biology by guest on January 5, 2016 http://www.lifescied.org/ Downloaded from