Marintcheva Boriana
Department of Biological Sciences, Bridgewater State University, 131 Summer Street, Bridgewater, MA 02325, USA.
FEMS Microbiol Lett. 2017 May 1;364(10). doi: 10.1093/femsle/fnx097.
Virtual virus is a semester-long interdisciplinary project offered as part of upper level elective course in virology. Students are challenged to apply key concepts from multiple biological sub-disciplines to 'synthesize' a plausible virtual virus. The project is executed as a scaffolded series of hands-on sessions and mini-projects that are integrated into continuous story leading to mock conference presentation and comprehensive report modeling article publication. It complements classroom instruction helping students to meet overarching learning targets traditionally associated undergraduate virology courses such as viral structure and function, mode of viral propagation and flow of genetic information and virus/host interactions on the cellular and organismal level. Formal instructor and informal peer feedback were used as tools to prompt reflection and guide revisions of the final report. Student learning gains and attitudes toward the approach were studied by evaluating project work product and end of the semester survey. Outcome analysis demonstrated that students exit the course with elaborated conceptual understanding of viruses and ownership of their work. The project can be viewed as an approach to model the process of scientific discovery in fast-forward mode by combining active learning, creativity and problem solving to assemble and communicate a virtual virus story.
虚拟病毒是一个为期一学期的跨学科项目，作为病毒学高级选修课程的一部分提供。学生们面临挑战，要应用多个生物学子学科的关键概念来“合成”一种看似合理的虚拟病毒。该项目以一系列循序渐进的实践课程和小型项目的形式开展，这些课程和项目被整合到一个连贯的故事中，最终以模拟会议展示和综合报告的形式呈现，模拟学术文章发表。它对课堂教学起到补充作用，帮助学生实现传统本科病毒学课程通常涉及的总体学习目标，如病毒的结构和功能、病毒传播模式、遗传信息流动以及细胞和机体层面的病毒/宿主相互作用。正式的教师反馈和非正式的同伴反馈被用作促使学生反思并指导最终报告修订的工具。通过评估项目作业成果和学期末调查，研究了学生的学习收获以及对该方法的态度。结果分析表明，学生在课程结束时对病毒有了详尽的概念理解，并对自己的作品有了主人翁意识。该项目可被视为一种通过结合主动学习、创造力和问题解决能力来快速模拟科学发现过程的方法，以构建并传达一个虚拟病毒的故事。
