Department of Chemistry, Indiana University, 800 E. Kirkwood Ave. Bloomington, IN 47405. afeig@indiana.edu
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Biomolecules and Catabolism, C484, is the first semester of a 2-term sequence required for all biochemistry majors. Students enter the course having completed 2 semesters of General Chemistry, 2 semesters of Organic Chemistry, and at least 1 term of Biology. About 85% of the students in the class are Biochemistry majors and more than 75% of the class consider themselves to be Pre-Med. While everyone taking this course has passed the above prerequisites, the level of retention of that material varies dramatically. Deficiencies in student retention highlight some of the needs for curricular revision in the lower division courses at IU. Pre-tests in this course will hopefully help to document these problems and help to identify the appropriate changes. This fall, my starting enrollment was 74 students, although only 60 remained in the class past the drop date. From speaking with other faculty members who have taught this course, 20% attrition is historically typical for this course. The course is pretty intense and I expect a fair amount of effort from my students. I inform the students the first day of class that they should expect to spend an average of 5-10 hours per week outside of class on C484. Many of the students who drop the course clearly are either not willing or not able to put forth this level of commitment toward succeeding in this class.
I team-taught this class with another professor during the fall of 2000, so this is the second time that I have been involved in the instruction of C484. Last year’s curriculum had several significant problems that I have attempted to address through a rather dramatic reworking of the course. Students complained vociferously about how there was too much material in the course and that I hurried through very complex topics. One of the most significant changes was, therefore, the removal of catabolism from the first semester of biochemistry so that all of metabolism is now taught in the spring term. As a trade-off, nucleic acid structure was moved from the spring to the fall. The net change results in about 8 additional class sessions to allow a more thorough (i.e. less rushed) coverage of the material. The textbook used this semester (Garrett and Grisham’s Biochemistry, 2nd Edition) is also new to the course. Students last year felt that the former text (Voet and Voet, Biochemistry) was too detailed and difficult to read. The new text matches the realigned curriculum such that the text can be followed sequentially through both terms. This text also has a very substantial companion web site that supplements the course web page.
The Internet is used extensively in C484 and the course has an elaborate web page from which the students can access a wide range of educational resources (C484 Home Page). Some parts of the web site are simply ways to distribute materials to the students. For instance, students who miss class can download copies of any handouts or outlines of the discussion material. The course links page collects close to one hundred links to educational resources the students might wish to access during the course of the term. The links are organized based on the syllabus topics making it easy for the students to access additional information on any given topic. We collect statistics on the web page usage. The C484 web page was accessed approximately 60,000 times during the semester mostly from IP addresses originating within IU but also from several outside users. As we help implement at other colleges some of the curricular advances we have developed for use in C484, we expect the outside usage of our web site to increase. We will be using these statistics to track the spread of our bioinformatics exercises to other college and university biochemistry courses.
Overall Teaching Philosophy
Undergraduate education is not so much about learning facts as it is about providing the students with the tools they need to learn independently. In that way, we are teaching the students to think critically and to learn how to learn. Yes, the students acquire facts and skills along the way, but in my opinion, the big picture comes from changing how they approach the process of learning. Students who learn to take control of their own intellectual development become life-long achievers. The main task is to engage the students and vest them in the learning process. I strive to achieve this goal by providing challenging and thought provoking exercises for the students to think about in and outside of class. Students spend a lot of time looking at and analyzing biochemical data and participating in open-ended exercises as part of this curriculum.
Copyright, 2002 Andrew Feig.
For problems or questions regarding this web contact [afeig@indiana.edu].
Last updated: March 15, 2002