Transforming Life Sciences Learning

University Communications Author

12/15/2015 Added

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A UNL team is devloping educational tools to help the next generation of biologists better understand complex biological systems.

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[00:00:00.012](piano music)
[00:00:03.425]Nature is beautiful
[00:00:05.206]but the biological systems underlying our world
[00:00:08.043]are complex.
[00:00:10.017]A new educational tool helps students make sense
[00:00:13.387]of the complicated network of relationships
[00:00:16.096]in a biological system.
[00:00:18.240]Otherwise you can get out your computer
[00:00:19.840]and just like last time
[00:00:20.981]Students in an Introductory Biology class
[00:00:23.371]use software developed at the University of Nebraska Lincoln
[00:00:26.922]with funding from the National Science Foundation.
[00:00:29.727]This software compliments lectures and labs.
[00:00:32.821]It's always a good thing to present the same information
[00:00:35.722]as many ways as possible because students learn in
[00:00:38.250]so many different ways.
[00:00:39.668]I'm a very visual learner so seeing how the
[00:00:43.266]charts and the graphs can move with changing the things
[00:00:46.008]really helps me see how different environmental
[00:00:49.886]effects have on the enzyme.
[00:00:52.500]The software is the result of a collaboration
[00:00:55.273]between Life Sciences Professor Joe Dauer
[00:00:57.982]and Biochemist Tomas Helikar.
[00:01:00.307]In this chart here we'll see the different dynamics.
[00:01:04.414]Computational models allow students
[00:01:07.070]to manipulate scenarios and see what happens.
[00:01:10.664]So when we teach students the traditional way
[00:01:13.245]using memorization they miss out on this complex
[00:01:17.512]and dynamic nature of biological systems and so
[00:01:20.558]with the computational models we're able to give them
[00:01:24.036]a little bit of this experience.
[00:01:27.225]Part of that process of becoming an expert in
[00:01:30.072]biology is putting all those pieces together, not just
[00:01:33.091]learning everything in it's own little compartment.
[00:01:35.747]I think this module just helps reinforce that idea
[00:01:39.597]that it is about the connections more than just knowing
[00:01:44.806]one concept at a time.
[00:01:46.981]The software has been piloted
[00:01:48.613]in selected classes.
[00:01:50.352]Student performance will be analyzed
[00:01:52.282]to determine the effectiveness of the tool.
[00:01:54.992]I've found that by actually doing these types of
[00:01:57.039]simulations I understand the concepts a lot more afterwards.
[00:02:00.794]A library of educational tools
[00:02:03.023]is being developed with plans to make them available
[00:02:05.839]nationwide.
[00:02:07.812](piano music)

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Transforming Life Sciences Learning

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