Workshop on Biochemistry Education:
Assessment Strategies in Protein Structure

Program:

Reception desk and delivery of documentation will be in the hall of the "Aulario Averroes" building (see details under the "Venue & travel" section). The workshop sessions will be held in computer room "Aula A2", in the same building. Lunch will be at the cafeteria (same building) and dinner at "Taberna La Cazuela", downtown (see map).

Despite the programming, development of the workshop should be dynamic and open to discussion and focus on topics that prove interesting to the attendants.

Session 1: Defining learning outcomes on protein structure

• What should students learn? (joint presentation lead by Angel Herráez)
• Define what we believe students should take out of courses in terms of content and abilities about protein structure
• Preliminary list of learning topics
• How can molecular models help in that? (joint presentation lead by Angel Herráez)
• A brief overview, without specific details
• A comparison grid with the different software tools
• Small group discussion: work on the preliminary list of items: discuss, expand, suggest, improve

Session 2: How teaching can lead there

• Examples and tools (these talks will be distributed along the workshop)
• Talk: Strategies for teaching macromolecular structure-function relationships with interactive 3D visualization and assessment tools (Eric Martz)
• Talk: Proteopedia: Teaching the role of structures on biological functions (Jaime Prilusky)
• Talk: Showing molecules with style: effective ways of presenting structure and assessing molecular visualizations: Tools in the Molecular Workbench (Frieda Reichsman)

Session 3: Designing the assessment

• General talk: Methods and practices in assessment (Manuel Costa)
• Some examples of good assessment items
• Work in small groups: design assessment pieces for some of the learning outcomes
• Discussion: detect and discuss difficulties found in assessing outcomes related to protein structure
• A topic for discussion: Can the teaching/learning visualization tools be also used in assessment?

Session 4: Conclusions

• Talk: Aligning the assessment with the syllabus on protein structure: knowledge, competences, consequences (joint presentation lead by Manuel Costa)
• Keep the boost: plans to build a collaborative bank of assessment items (SEBBM website)

Results:

Participants filled in a rating form evaluating their experience in the workshop. These are the results:

Bars: average; lines: standard deviation.

Justification:

There is an increasing concern among University instructors in relation to the shifts in teaching practice brought by the adaptation of degrees to the European Space for Higher Education. A similar interest exists in other countries outside Europe where the value of active learning is also acknowledged and such changes sought. Among the major worries is the issue of how to assess the student learning outcomes, particularly so for out-of-class work and student-driven activities.

Aims:

This workshop proposes to offer expert guidance, as well as to foster discussion among the attendants, about how to construct assessment materials that evaluate the student assimilation of the subject. This exchange will crystallise in the collaborative elaboration, discussion and improvement of a question set during the meeting, in the topics of protein structure and protein function.

Leading lines of the workshop will be:

• The design of questions and activities that focus on integrated knowledge and higher-order understanding, rather than plain memorisation of facts.
• The use of molecular visualisation tools to support both the questions presented and the seeking of the answer by the student.

Setup:

There will be a few lectures by experts in the fields of assessment, instructional design and the use of molecular visualisation in teaching.

Following that, the attendants will assemble into working groups in order to elaborate question sets. Depending on the personal interests, parallel groups will focus on the use of molecular visualisation (specifically Jmol-based software tools) to support the questions, or alternatively on the design of questions of a more generic or classic format.

The groups will work under the guidance of both the speakers and other tutors with experience in either assessment techniques or implementation of molecular visualisation. Their first task will be to establish a blueprint, or definition of what needs to be assessed. For example, topics in peptide bonds, secondary and tertiary structure, protein folding (and misfolding), ligand binding, protein-protein interactions, pathological alterations, etc. Then they will construct the questions to cover that blueprint. Following, the draft question sets will be presented in a joint session with all groups, and discussed in order to do a final revision of the material later on.

Expected outcomes:

The participants (mostly University instructors, both current and prospective) will learn and practice approaches for a profitable and reliable assessment of the students. In addition, they will enrich their knowledge about molecular visualisation tools and particularly how to use them pedagogically both to support teaching, to improve learning efficiency and to complement or facilitate meaningful assessment.

The material elaborated during the workshop will be a useful “take-home” resource for the attendants’ own use in their teaching, and may also be the start of a repository for shared use by the community of Biochemistry instructors.

Topics:

Lectures:

• The new ways of teaching.
  How to teach with less lectures. Methods to motivate and involve the students. Fostering student learning in off-campus activities and blended courses.
• Assessment in Bologna.
  Bad and good practices in assessment. How to mark student’s work out of the classroom.
• Molecular visualisation as a learning tool.
  How to enlighten the materials and improve comprehension of structure and molecular interaction by using virtual molecular models.
• Making the most of Jmol.
  Features in this software that are useful for instructional materials.

Practice sessions:

• Generic question sets in structure and function of proteins.
  What needs to be assessed. How to pose meaningful questions.
• Question sets in structure and function of proteins, supported with molecular visualisation.
  How to use Jmol to present interactive molecular models as part of questions or student activities.

Speakers:

	Manuel J. Costa Lecturer and Coordinator of the Medical Education Unit, Univ. do Minho, Portugal. Member of the Education Committee of the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Expert in education quality monitorisation and pedagogical training of instructors.
	Eric Martz Professor Emeritus of Cell Biology and Immunology, Univ. of Massachusetts, USA. World leader in macromolecular visualization. Lead developer of Chime applications, Protein Explorer, First Glance, and First Glance in Jmol. Developer of Proteopedia. Expert Jmol author.
	Jaime Prilusky Head of the Bioinformatics Unit, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. Lead developer of OCA, Proteopedia, 3DBase and 3D Browser. Expert Jmol author.
	Frieda Reichsman Molecules in Motion, USA, and The Concord Consortium, USA. Lead Teacher/Teacher Professional Developer. Multimedia designer and illustrator for several scientific journals and textbooks. Expert Jmol author.
	Angel Herráez Lecturer, Universidad de Alcalá, Spain. Current coordinator of the Education Group of the Spanish Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Experienced author of multimedia web-based educational materials. Expert Jmol author and contributor to development.

Venue & travel:

The Workshop will be held at the same venue as the XXXIII Congress of the Spanish Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology: University of Córdoba, south of Spain.

Custom map with all markers for the Workshop.

The University campus (Campus de Rabanales, Universidad de Córdoba) is located 3 km out of town and can be accessed either by car or by train. [campus location in the map]
Address: N-IV motorway, km 396. Postal code: 14014
Coordinates: 37° 54' 48.64" N, 4° 43' 17.68" W or 37.914471,-4.71925

The Workshop will take place in computer room "Aula A2" in the "Aulario Averroes" building. [Detailed campus map; building map]

Traveling inside Córdoba: from town centre to campus

On the morning of Tuesday 14th, transport will be provided to all participants from Córdoba downtown to the campus; the bus will leave from "Hotel Córdoba Center" at 8.15 am (the hotel is close to the train station, see map).

For other trips, train is the recommended way of traveling between Córdoba downtown (Córdoba Central, Renfe AVE station) and the campus (Campus Rabanales station). Aprox. a 5-minute trip. Tickets will be provided with the workshop documentation. See schedule on the right:
(on Tuesday 14th, only the trains in bold will travel; on Wed. 15th, all of them)

Bus: line "E", see stops or map; fare: 1.25€, 2€ round trip

Traveling to Córdoba

Madrid airport (code: MAD). You can then connect: travel to Madrid downtown (see details below) and pick an "AVE" train to Córdoba (400 km).

Sevilla airport (code: SVQ). You can travel from there to Córdoba by train or bus (144 km).

Other candidate airports: Málaga (AGP) · "Federico García Lorca" Granada-Jaén (GRX) · ...

Airport information.

Fast train ("AVE") takes about 2 h from Madrid and about 45 min from Sevilla (other choices are available). Train information (timetables, fares, online purchase).

Summary of trains:

The economy ticket ("Turista") for most trains costs 67.40€ one way, 107.84€ round trip (slightly cheaper if you book online). "Altaria" and "Alvia" trains have a different cost, see the hyperlink above. There is also a first class ticket ("Preferente").

Traveling inside Madrid: from airport to train station

The airport in Madrid ("Madrid-Barajas") has 4 terminals. There is a free shuttle bus ("Bus lanzadera") connecting all of them.

High speed trains ("AVE") to Córdoba depart from "Madrid Puerta de Atocha" station. You can go there by taxi, bus or underground.

Airport to train station via underground:

Madrid underground trains ("Metro") operate from 6 am to 2 am. Website in English. Lines and timetables.

• Take underground line 8 (pink) at either Airport Terminal 4 or Airport Terminal 2 (terminals 1 and 3 are close to 2, you can just walk between them).
• Go up to "Nuevos Ministerios" station (end of line).
• Change to line 10 (dark blue), direction "Gregorio Marañón" ... "Puerta del Sur".
• Go up to "Tribunal" station (3rd stop).
• Change to line 1 (light blue), direction "Gran Vía" ... "Valdecarros".
• Go up to "Atocha Renfe" station (6th stop, do not confuse with "Atocha" station).
  Get out of the underground station into the train station (don't exit to street) and follow signs to station "Puerta de Atocha" and AVE fast train.

Estimated total time: 51 min.
Price: 2 €, single ticket ("Billete Sencillo") + airport supplement.
Valid for any trip, including train changes. There are automatic ticket machines in the stations.

Airport to train station via bus + underground:

• From terminal 4 (ground floor, arrivals): take bus nr. 204 destination "Avenida de América"
• From terminals 1 and 2 (arrivals, ground floor, in front of baggage claim nr.2 in T1, baggage claim nr.5 in T2): take bus nr. 200 destination "Avenida de América"
• Once you reach the bus terminal, connect with the underground (without going out to the street, go one level down).
• Take the underground line 6 (grey), platform 2, direction "Diego de León".
• Go up to "Pacífico" station (6th stop).
• Change to line 1 (light blue), direction "Menéndez Pelayo" ... "Pinar de Chamartín".
• Go up to "Atocha Renfe" station (2nd stop, do not confuse with "Atocha" station).
  Get out of the underground station into the train station (don't exit to street) and follow signs to station "Puerta de Atocha" and AVE fast train.

Estimated time in bus: depends heavily on traffic, but should be around 30 min.
Price: 2 €, single ticket + airport supplement. Probably sold in the bus.

Estimated time in underground: 23 min.
Price: 1 €, single ticket ("Billete Sencillo")
Valid for any trip, including train changes. There are automatic ticket machines in the stations.

Organisation:

The coordinator of the Workshop is Dr. Angel Herráez, Dep. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Alcalá, Spain, who is also the current Coordinator of the Education Group of the Spanish Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.