Through meetings with my project group leader and faculty mentor, I have learned of key strategies to employ in my teaching. For example, in the Lesson Plan Authentic Artifact, I note that the class is broken up by two sets of Canvas Questions, which are practice questions for students. Inspired by shadowing my faculty mentor’s genetics class, the questions have two purposes: to facilitate active learning, and to break up the monotony of the class. This helps students to stay engaged throughout the class. From my project group leader, I learned how to effectively use the minute paper, a short assignment that asks students to reflect on what they learned. During my teaching, I found a second benefit of assigning a minute paper - for students who may not want to ask questions aloud in class, the minute paper provided an opportunity to ask me directly. Research has shown that anxiety around “looking dumb” in class can prevent students from asking questions, so it is good to have another avenue where students can get clarification on class content.
Course Title: BIOL_SCI_150, Human Genetics
Lesson Title: Gene Expression
Class Length: 50 minutes
Class Size: 25
Lesson Topic and Context
The topic of this particular lesson is gene expression. Specifically, I will cover the processes of transcription and translation, which generate mRNA from DNA (transcription) and proteins from mRNA (translation). This topic is the beginning of the second unit of the course which deals with inheritance of atypical and disease phenotypes. In order for students to understand content for this unit, such as what causes disease and how they are inherited, they must have an understanding about gene expression and how changes in the DNA code can have effects downstream, such as in protein folding. Following lectures will include how mutations occur in the genome, how gene phenotypes can change over time, and how changes in gene expression can lead to disease phenotypes.
Learning Objectives
Lesson Objectives
Describe the expression of genes by discussing transcription and translation
Examine the scientists awarded the 1968 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine and their contributions to the topic
Related Course Objectives
Examine how genetics contributes to human variation and the role of genetics in human disease.
Investigate the origins of scientific knowledge by studying the contributions of individual scientists and the methodology used to collect data
Lesson Timeline
The duration of the course is 50 minutes, beginning at 4:00 PM:
4:00-4:15 PM - Lecture format describing the processes of transcription and translation. The topic of RNA codons is introduced using a typical codon table.
4:15-4:25 PM - Students work on a series of practice questions in Canvas as formative assessments to supplement learning. These questions are to be completed in pairs/small groups. Once the class has completed the questions, we go over them as a class. If there are questions that a majority of the class is unclear about, we will go back over that part of the lecture.
4:25-4:35 PM - The second part of the lecture discusses the three scientists who won the Nobel Prize for their work in the discovery of codons. The contributions of each of the three are discussed, as well as the contexts in which these individuals worked.
4:35-4:40 PM - Students work on the second set of Canvas questions regarding the contributions of the Nobel Laureates. The answers are reviewed as a class
4:40-4:50 PM - Students are asked to complete a minute paper reflection assignment, in which they will reflect on the day’s lesson. This is an opportunity to summarize what they have learned, and also to ask me questions directly that may not have been asked in class.
Assessment
Canvas Questions will be used in order to help students learn the material through practice. These questions have the secondary purpose of being useful for exam preparation. The questions are used as a scaffold towards the types of questions they will see on the Unit 2 examination.
Example Questions:
What percentage of the genome codes for proteins?
50%
2%
8%
20%
Describe the difference between the template strand and the coding strand in transcription
Translate the following codon sequence into the corresponding amino acids (can use the three letter abbreviations you see in the codon table):
CAU-GAA-UAU-UGU-CUC-GCU-UCU-UCC
Which of the following ends translation?
Binding of Methionine-tRNA to codon AUG
Binding of tRNA to the A site
Binding of release factors to the A site of the ribosome
A repeat sequence of CG base pairs at the end of the transcript
Match the Nobel Laureate to their contribution to the 1968 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Marshall Warren Nirenberg = Discovered that combinations of three nucleotides corresponds to one amino acid
Har Gobind Khorana = Matched specific codons to specific amino acids
Robert William Holley = Determining the composition of tRNA molecules
Reflection
I chose this particular lesson because it is foundational knowledge for future topics. In order to understand changes in populations over time, as well as disease phenotypes, one must first understand the basics of gene expression. Since these are the topics covered in Unit 2, this lecture is a good starting point. Along with lecturing, the canvas questions are meant to help students be active participants in their learning, and work in groups to solidify information. They also serve a second purpose - to divide the lecturing so that students are not inundated with content. This lesson also fits into two learning objectives. The first objective is learning about human variation and disease phenotypes. Gene expression is directly related to these. The second objective is investigating the origins of scientific knowledge. This objective is present in all lectures by highlighting the scientists involved in discoveries. In this specific lecture, I discuss the Laureates of the 1968 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The examination of their contributions serves as another example of the aforementioned learning objective. To conclude the class, I assign a Minute paper. From a practical standpoint, this helps me to assess student learning in real-time, and allows me to respond to any confusing/unclear content immediately. In my experience, there is a second advantage to using the minute paper - students will ask questions that are not shared aloud in class. When lecturing and asking if there are any questions, the room is often silent. In the minute papers, however, students ask more questions. Some of these are to clarify content, but others are questions that expand beyond the scope of the lecture.