Renovating Cell Biology Class with Principle-Oriented Resources in Pedagogically Structured Learning Environment
Mido Chang, Ph.D; Lou W. Kim, Ph.D; Sunha Kim, PhD

Abstract
This article presents a renovation effort to improve the structure and pedagogy of instruction of upper-division cell biology education at a minority-serving urban university with five thousand undergraduate students majoring in biology. In the reforming of structure, we revamped major cell biology contents into Principle Oriented Resources (POR) by explicitly connecting those topics with an overarching principle of protein regulation. While trying to provide a pedagogically conducive learning environment, we adopted the practices of inquiry-based learning, project-based learning, and collaborative learning. After taking in a pedagogically structured environment (PSE) for a summer and a fall semester courses, we compared the outcomes of POR-PSE with the same outcomes of a traditional summer and a traditional fall course. We found significant positive results of POR-PSE from both summer and fall courses, providing policy implication to renovate STEM education as well as biology education.

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