By Mary Brasier
When Gary Peterson illustrates his biology lectures, he doesn't reach for a piece of chalk. This college professor gets along just fine without the traditional classroom blackboard.
Peterson, professor in the SDSU Biology / Microbiology Department, teaches in a smart classroom. At a push of a button on a console, he can fill a 20-ft-square screen with action, color, blowups of microscopic slides, class outlines, just about anything he can point a camera at.
"In education, we know that you work from the familiar to the unknown, so it's wise to use video and computers to teach new things.
I can project a slide up on the TV, move it around, and point out what I want the class to notice. Or I can pull an image off the internet and insert it into my lectures."
The big advantage is that students in the lab see the tissues under their own scopes and see the same tissues on the screen in the lab and in the lecture. That's repetition and reinforcement, which are solid teaching theory.
Students can call up those images from their dorm rooms, if their personal computers are hooked to the internet.
But if they can access the classroom computer from home, does that mean they don't need to show up in class?
Absolutely not, says Peterson. "They need the interactions and the hands-on spontaneous discoveries that happen in class. I don't put any class notes or illustrations up on the network before I give the lecture or lab."
All large classes in biology are conducted in smart classrooms in Ag Hall, the Northern Plains Biostress Lab (NPBL), and Dairy-Microbiology. Peterson teaches freshmen life sciences majors. Mel Duvall, H.L. Hutcheson, Chuck McMullen, and Nels Troelstrup teach general biology to students filling a science requirement in other disciplines.
Troelstrup's environmental management, Neil Reese's plant physiology, Tom Cheesbrough's cell biology, Susan Gibson's microbial physiology and metabolism classes, and John Haertel's anatomy are advanced classes in different stages of using multimedia presentations.
"This is working out the way it's supposed to," says Peterson. "We're starting at the beginning of the curriculum and moving up."
Students in advanced classes study many of the same videos and slide presentations they saw before. Now they begin to see relationships, Peterson says. "Cells don't live different lives in different biology classes. We teachers just focus on different aspects and try -- always -- to pull things together into a big picture."
The big screen may loom over the heads of professor and students, but it is not the only improvement in classroom/lab, Peterson says.
He points out equipment that "is more sophisticated than what I used in graduate school, let alone in freshman biology." Scanning spectrophotometers, top-loading balances, a refrigerated centrifuge, and electrophoresis equipment all fit on mobile carts. "The teacher just gets the right cart out of the storeroom, wheels it into the lab, and plugs it in.
"The machines are all rugged and equipped with special safety features," he says. "Student can't overload the centrifuge or unbalance the scales. Besides learning biology, they're also learning technology from the state-of-the-art equipment. That makes them more employable after graduation."
Computers and carts "don't come cheap," he admits. "We wouldn't be this far along without Title III funding." SDSU's Title III grant from the U.S. Department of Education is designated for improvement in instruction.
"We participated because we already were redesigning our curriculum," Peterson says. The selection of Bio/Micro was also logical, Peterson thinks, because the department serves the entire University. "We have many, many students from other sciences, liberal arts, education, nursing, and all the other areas taking first-year biology to fill their credits toward graduation. Title III funds used here benefit the widest possible number of students."
Multimedia in the classroom is new, Peterson emphasizes. "It's so new we haven't graduated students from a full 4-year program yet. But we are very carefully tracking their progress.
"Already we see that they are more confident and more knowledgeable. The advanced students already have the technological skills to conduct biological research. At graduation they will be able to step right in and run expensive imaging and multi-media machines and tools for their employers.
"It's a challenge to keep out in front of our students. And this modern technology is just as much fun for us teachers as it is for them," says Peterson.
--In the AgBio newsletter Spring 1997