Cumulative Experiments in the Advanced Laboratory

A Positron Emission Tomograph based on LSO-APD modules with a sampling ADC read-out system for a students’ advanced laboratory course

The total synthesis of racemic Rosiglitazone, also known as the anti-diabetes drug Avandia, in six steps is the basis for an advanced undergraduate organic chemistry laboratory course. Several techniques and concepts learned in an introductory organic chemistry laboratory course are reinforced, and include TLC analysis, recrystallization, and reaction work-up. Additional techniques introduced into the organic chemistry laboratory course include phase-transfer catalysis, flash column chromatography, pressurized hydrogenation reactions, and multi-step total synthesis. Students are challenged at several levels, but mostly by an expectation of independent, in-depth spectral analysis of each product and providing bi-weekly experimental reports with journal-style spectral analysis. An advanced undergraduate organic laboratory course centered on the total synthesis of a medicinally important compound provides an overall focus for the semester, as well as greater interest and motivation for students.

This paper describes ongoing developments to an advanced laboratory course at Kettering University, which is targeted to students in engineering and engineering physics and emphasizes theoretical, computational, and experimental components in the context of airborne acoustics and modal testing [cf. D. A. Russell and D. O. Ludwigsen, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 131, 2515-2524 (2012)]. These developments have included a transition to electronic laboratory notebooks and cloud-based computing resources, incorporation of updated hardware and software, and creation and testing of a multiple-choice assessment instrument for the course. When Kettering University suddenly shifted to exclusively remote teaching in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many of these changes proved to be essential for enabling rapid adaptation to a situation in which a laboratory was not available for the course. Laboratory activities were rewritten by crowdsourcing archived data, videos were incorporated to illustrate dynamic phenomena, and computer simulations were used to retain student interactivity. The comparison of multiple measures, including the assessment instrument, team-based grades on project papers, and individual grades on final exams, indicates that most students were successful at learning the course material and adapting to work on team-based projects in the midst of challenging remote learning conditions.

The rapid transition to remote teaching in the spring of 2020 posed particular challenges for laboratory courses, which often involve students working hands-on with equipment in collaborative environments. Replicating in-person experiments was especially challenging for advanced lab courses that utilize specialized apparatus, which could not be accessed by students at home. However, physics lab instructors employed a variety of creative strategies to overcome these barriers and provide students access to lab-like learning in a remote setting. We report on one advanced lab course that used the transition to remote teaching to completely redefine the course goals and transition from traditional prescriptive labs to more open-ended projects. We conduct a case study analysis, triangulating among several data sources-survey responses and interviews from both instructor and students-to construct an in-depth understanding of the remote course and how students experienced it. Although we cannot necessarily generalize the results of this analysis to the entire student experience in the course due to the student response rate, the feedback that the course did receive from both students and the instructor was overwhelmingly positive, and the instructors are planning to retain the open-ended projects when the course returns to an in-person format. We find that the new open-ended projects afforded students opportunities to make decisions and think deeply about their experiments, which students report as contributing to their enjoyment and satisfaction with the course. Students had mixed group work experiences, with some describing positive and meaningful interactions and others describing group work as a source of frustration and stress. Additionally, some students missed being able to work hands-on with equipment, and some reported a high workload that made the course stressful. We discuss these student experiences and provide implications for both in-person and remote lab courses.

In this experiment, undergraduate students of an advanced laboratory course are introduced to dynamic nuclear magnetic resonance spectrocopy (NMR). The students used pulsed-field gradient methods (PFG-NMR) to measure the diffusion coefficient (D) of components of micelle solutions containing solubilizates (alcohols) with varying alkyl chain length. From the data obtained, the partition coefficient (P) of the alcohols between the aqueous and micelle phases was calculated and the effect of alkyl chain length on P is elucidated. Students used the diffusion coefficients of the micelles to calculate radii and compared the PFG-NMR results with those obtained from dynamic light scattering (DLS) experiments.

The unique bio-analytical properties of the amino acid tyrosine (Tyr) are the focus of this experiment from the research oriented biochemistry laboratory course at our university. In the present study pK(a(1)), pK(a(2)), and pK(a(3)) values for free Tyr were estimated to be 2.30, 9.40, and 9.97, respectively, when free Tyr was titrated with 1mM NaOH and 1mM HCl using a pH meter. Spectrophotometric analysis of the phenolic side chain pK(a(3)) revealed a value of 10.14, which was consistent with the pK(a)s estimated from the pH meter. The results from this experiment will allow students to compare the free Tyr properties with those present in a protein.

This laboratory project is one component of a semester-long advanced biochemistry laboratory course that uses several complementary techniques to study tRNAPhe conformational chvanges induced by ligand binding. In this article we describe a set of experiments in which the thermal unfolding of tRNAPhe is studied with UV–vis spectrophotometry. Over the course of two laboratory periods, students examine the effects of magnesium and small molecule ligands on tRNAPhe conformational stability. The data collected in this laboratory are fit to saturation binding curves, the ligand-binding equilibrium constants are determined, and conclusions are drawn about tRNAPhe ligand binding modes and the impact of various types of ligands on tRNA structure.

The physics departments of a consortium of higher education in Western Massachusetts, the Five Colleges Incorporated, are developing an advanced undergraduate laboratory course. The participating institutions are Amherst College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, and the University of Massachusetts. The course is designed to expose students to a variety of state-of-the-art equipment that would normally exceed reasonable financial commitments and faculty expertise of a single institution. The course is divided into experimental modules, one of which is the cosmic ray muon decay module developed at Smith College. The module is designed to investigate the dependence of the muon lifetime as a function of the medium in which it decays. Useful background information and a description of the module is given in this article.

Course-based undergraduate research experiences offer students the opportunity to engage in a research project in a course setting. This efficient model has gained attention as a means to improve the relevance of science training at the undergraduate level. However, while many curricular resources exist, few pedagogical tools are available to support students’ development of how their own research fits into that of the scientific community. Adding to these challenges, recent increases in remote instruction demand resources for online learning environments suitable for advanced research-based laboratory courses. Concept mapping is a method of graphically representing relationships, such as the complex molecular interactions that are studied in many CUREs offered in the biological sciences. Incorporating a concept mapping exercise using an online platform in an upper division molecular biology CURE improved students’ senses of collaboration and understanding of their research project and increased the availability of productive collaborative research efforts in a remote format. Quantitative assessment of student's manuscript-style research reports revealed improvements in students’ scientific writing with respect to recognition of the biological complexity of the overarching project to which students’ data contribute. Two different levels of implementation with different degrees of interaction with the concept map yielded similar outcomes, suggesting that basic interactions with a concept map make a valuable contribution to help students enrolled in CUREs view their data as part of a larger body of work.

ADVERTISEMENT RETURN TO ISSUEPREVArticleNEXTMetal-Catalyzed Cleavage of tRNAPheSarah R. Kirk , Todd P. Silverstein , and Karen L. McFarlane Holman View Author Information Department of Chemistry, Willamette University, Salem, OR 97301Cite this: J. Chem. Educ. 2008, 85, 5, 676Publication Date (Web):May 1, 2008Publication History Received3 August 2009Published online1 May 2008Published inissue 1 May 2008https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ed085p676https://doi.org/10.1021/ed085p676research-articleACS PublicationsRequest reuse permissionsArticle Views293Altmetric-Citations2LEARN ABOUT THESE METRICSArticle Views are the COUNTER-compliant sum of full text article downloads since November 2008 (both PDF and HTML) across all institutions and individuals. These metrics are regularly updated to reflect usage leading up to the last few days.Citations are the number of other articles citing this article, calculated by Crossref and updated daily. Find more information about Crossref citation counts.The Altmetric Attention Score is a quantitative measure of the attention that a research article has received online. Clicking on the donut icon will load a page at altmetric.com with additional details about the score and the social media presence for the given article. Find more information on the Altmetric Attention Score and how the score is calculated. Share Add toView InAdd Full Text with ReferenceAdd Description ExportRISCitationCitation and abstractCitation and referencesMore Options Share onFacebookTwitterWechatLinked InRedditEmail Other access optionsGet e-Alertsclose SUBJECTS:Crystal cleavage,Ligands,Metals,Small molecules,Students Get e-Alerts

The Research in Organic Chemistry Kindling Excellence in Tuskegee Scientists (ROCKETS) is an intensive introduction into organic chemistry for twelve students selected from various science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines. The eight week summer curriculum involves an organic lecture course, an advanced organic laboratory course, a course which introduces them to the methods and ethical concerns of conducting research, and a community service component whereby ROCKETS students actively promote scientific understanding to K-8 students through interactive chemistry experiments. ROCKETS demonstrates faculty can create an engaging experience for women and underrepresented minorities (STEM) in organic chemistry using the diversified approach of integrating teaching, research, and community service.

Developing experimental design and troubleshooting skills in an advanced biochemistry lab

A thoughtful approach to designing and improving labs, particularly at the advanced level, is critical for the effective preparation of physics majors for professional work in industry or graduate school. With that in mind, physics education researchers in partnership with the physics faculty at the University of Colorado Boulder have overhauled the senior-level Advanced Physics Lab course. The transformation followed a three part process of establishing learning goals, designing curricula that align with the goals, and assessment. Similar efforts have been carried out in physics lecture courses at the University of Colorado Boulder, but this is the first systematic research-based revision of one of our laboratory courses. The outcomes of this effort include a set of learning goals, a suite of new lab-skill activities and transformed optics labs, and a set of assessments specifically tailored for a laboratory environment. While the particular selection of advanced lab experiments varies widely between institutions, the overall transformation process, the learning goals, and the assessments are broadly applicable to the instructional lab community.

We describe the experimental design and procedures for a word recall task in combination with positive (i.e. pleasant) or negative (i.e. unpleasant) valance images and salivary cortisol response. The word recall task was a component of a 200-level psychological statistics and methods course. Two groups of student subjects were presented with one of two sets of 25 word-image pairs: identical words with images of positive or negative emotional valence. Salivary cortisol was collected prior to word-image pair presentation and following word recall. Cortisol was then analyzed in a 400-level advanced behavioral neuroscience laboratory course, and by student researchers (independent studies). These students learned the basic procedures of an enzyme immunoassay including aspects of quality control. Data collected across four semesters demonstrated word recall was significantly greater in subjects who viewed the positive valence word-image pairs. Salivary cortisol was not different between the groups. This paradigm generated a novel shared data set across classes appropriate for exploration and statistical analysis in each class. Conceptually, this approach provided a gateway for the discussion of the neuroendocrinology of cortisol and memory. It produced greater student investment in the experiment and outcome. Assessment data revealed significantly improved performance on a pre- versus post-quiz of central concepts in the 200-level course and to a lesser degree in the 400-level course. This approach resulted in a greater breadth and depth of topics that otherwise could not be accomplished within a single class. Here, we present guidelines for executing this experiment in the classroom with possibilities for novel variations

Recent developments in the logic design courses in the Computer Systems Laboratory at Stanford University are described. The courses include an introductory undergraduate lecture and laboratory course, an advanced undergraduate laboratory, and a graduate lecture and CAE (computer-aided engineering) laboratory course. >