Mutation-based learning to improve student autonomy and scientific inquiry skills in a large genetics laboratory course.

ABSTRACT: Laboratory education can play a vital role in developing a learner's autonomy and scientific inquiry skills. In an innovative, mutation-based learning (MBL) approach, students were instructed to redesign a teacher-designed standard experimental protocol by a "mutation" method in a molecular genetics laboratory course. Students could choose to delete, add, reverse, or replace certain steps of the standard protocol to explore questions of interest to them in a given experimental scenario. They wrote experimental proposals to address their rationales and hypotheses for the "mutations"; conducted experiments in parallel, according to both standard and mutated protocols; and then compared and analyzed results to write individual lab reports. Various autonomy-supportive measures were provided in

SUBMITTER: Wu J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3763013 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature