Course Context

: This course is required for Bachelor of Sciences, Life Sciences students. They must take one of three fourth-year lab courses to complete their degree.

I last taught this course in the Spring of 2012 and am scheduled to teach it again in the Spring of 2025. I have a much closer relationship with the content of this laboratory course. My postdoctoral supervisor wrote and developed the lab course, and I provided many of the experimental details and reagents that went into it. It aligns more with my disciplinary expertise than HSCI 440 - Cell Pathophysiology Laboratory.

This is a well-supported course that follows a lab manual that was developed by Masahiro Niikura and Mark Lechner. Support was provided by an experienced TA and an organized lab technician (Lingling Zhang). In planning the course, I made changes based on the observations of the TA and regular instructor. This included: adding clear guidelines to writing lab reports (based on Labwrite website), and adding graded homework so students would come prepared to lab.

I really like this lab course. It provides unique experimental experiences for students such as growing and harvesting influenza virus in embryonated chicken eggs. It scaffolds very well with how I teach the theory of techniques in virology in HSCI 338 - Animal Virology. Its a fantastic culminating experience for students taking a life sciences degree. 

Novel Assignment—Your First Day in a Research Lab

 For the first lab session, I prepared students to work in a real research lab and acquire information on a project. They received a small overview of projects and a list of references. They were given questions to guide their reading, the responses to which would later be expected in their lab reports. The worksheet for this activity is posted below. I do this to model the experience of independence and expectation to self-educate that is common in a research lab setting. 

Course Feedback 

I no longer have access to the course feedback because it was so long ago. We've switched learning management systems since then, from WebCT to Canvas. I plan to use a lot of the feedback and lessons I learned in HSCI 440 over the last few years to enhance the course and will continue to use the refinements I made in the first round of instruction.