E Cartier – NISE-RET

Thoughts of Tech Tools: 

Slow Down your moving to fast!!! So much information on all the cool stuff out there. I keep thinking how can I use this stuff! The blogging is interesting I was thinking of having the students develop team blogs to use to document information as they work through a lab.  I see some use for the Google Docs. This way they can all access the information when they are at home! The students can create a team document for labs but how do you regulate or determine who did the work. Questions to ponder!

However, how do I solve the problem that about 60% of my students DO NOT have Internet access at home!

Today we got into the lab and got to work We made up our first batch of FITC 4000. We had to use a digital scale and a pH probe. I haven’t done that in a looong while. I was really fun using this equipment again. The digital scale was use to measure out the solid FITC so we could desolve it in water. We had to bring the pH up to 7.0 from 6.4 by adding NaOH. Gels were read with the Bio-Rad and the Nanodrop. We will have to come to conclusion as to which machine will serve us best!!

I’m coming back after being out for 2 day! I feel like one of my students…. What did I miss?? OH WELL just jump back in!

Nancy and Julia worked out the equations for the make up of the Dextran and the discovered that the 2.0 mg gels have a good consitancy for moving them around. They explained to me that the increase in the concenration of the dye was causing problems with the Bio-Rad ability to read the gels and that they had learned how to read the spectrophotometer or the nanodrop. This machine will read the concentration of the dye in the buffer solution as the FITC diffuses out of the gel. We will be dancing between the two machines to see if me can get some usable data. 

Well with a shorten research time off to Tech Tools and blogging …..

Today we had the first success at creating gels, removing them from the wells, using the Bio-Rad machine and analyzing the data! We have learned several important things from our effort:

1.       proper pipette techniques,

2.       the density of the collagen in the gel for the removal of the gel,

3.       ice,

4.       our roles as a team member,

5.       being patient with the solidification process,

6.       When to leave our Grad Assistant alone!

Let me clarify our success: these results are for the rat tail collagen only. We have not met the goals that we established on Monday.

Today we met with Dr. Sullivan to review where we stood in a research. We discussed with her the difficulty we were having with reading the articles she provided us about wound repair and the extra cellular matrix. She made several suggestions that should assist our exploration on the topic. One is to concentrate on articles that are review articles that digest the primary research articles.

Dr. Sullivan also helped us narrow the scope of understand of ours goals in the research effort. We develop narrow questions to guide our laboratory experience:

1.       How does the molecular weight of a “species” affect the rate of diffusion (time vs. concentration)?

2.       How does the density of collagen matrix affect the rate of diffusion (time vs.  density)?

3.       How does the composition of the matrix (architecture) affect the rate of diffusion (fibrin vs. collagen)?

Lab:   We have developed a lab 2 day schedule for work for the next several days.

6/30       1.  Make a standard gel at 0.75mg/ml collagen to compare with last week’s work.

                2. Try buffer solution (diffusion).

7/1         1.  Develop standard curve for 40 MW of dextrin

                2.  Develop  standard buffer for 40 MW of dextrin

                3.  Develop curve for other molecular weight

                4.  Develop standard curve for buffer other molecular weight

At the end of the day we experience some difficulties with the removing the gels from their respective wells due the collagen not gelling complete. We believe this occurred because the set time was not long enough. Therefore, we will repeat this process and allow for more set time.

For the past fifteen years I have been teaching in a classroom environment.  Eleven of those years have been devoted to the teaching of science education, which allows me to incorporate all  subject areas and increase overall student learning.  My experiences have taught me that each student is an individual learner and that it is the teacher’s responsibility to meet the needs of each student and help the student to develop their own unique method of learning.  This can be achieved by incorporating innovative, creative and progressive teaching methods.  A trusting, supportive, learning relationship must be fostered with each student as an individual.  This learning relationship should be seen as a mentoring or coaching relationship.  As a teacher it is my responsibility to provide learning opportunities for every type of learner.  This includes utilizing all learning styles from the visual to the kinesthetic learner.  By providing these opportunities, students are made aware of their own learning styles and can become life-long independent learners; which should be the overall goal of the modern day educator.

I believe it is the responsibility of the teacher to provide “real world” application for for the content area. I am participating NISE-RET project to gain new experiences that I can bring to the classroom to make these connections with my students.

The Teacher will:

• develop and up date personal laboratory skills to better teach the students skills.
• create lessons with more connections to the “real world” topics and science.
• establish collaboration and cooperative groups with colleagues in all levels and disciplines in education.
• update technology skills and knowledge of “modern” communication to supplement the classroom.

All these goals will provided the teacher updated and new skills to enhance student’s learning.

Today we had the opportunity to get dirty in the lab. This is the main reason I signed up for the program. I has been way to long since I have been in a real world lab setting seeing “real science”. I was very curious, nervous and extremely excited!

Here we go!