Maureen Whitehurst, 2013 Assessment Residency
Measuring Student Learning Institute
A Week (or More) in the Life of Your Class
The Process
The course is BIO 225, an undergraduate microbiology lecture and laboratory course. This course is a
pre-requisite course for: Nursing Division students, and two groups of Allied Health Division students:
Respiratory Therapy students, and Dental Hygiene students. The Nursing Division and the Allied Health
‘customer departments’ of Trident Technical Community College require BIO 225 to ensure that students
are prepared for their clinical coursework.
I have chosen the BIO 225 course chapter on Antibiotics. I have chosen these two specific learning
objectives:
1. List the five antibiotic targets:
 the cell wall
 the plasma membrane
 the ribosome
 nucleic acids
 inhibition of metabolic pathways
2. Name two antibiotics for each mechanism of action.
To illustrate the Antibiotic Week during BIO 225, here is a table that summarizes relevant products
mapping to the objective: 1) ‘Antibiotic Mechanisms of Action’ and 2) ‘naming drug examples for these
mechanisms of action.’
Chapter 19 Antibiotics
Detailed Chapter 19 Objectives
In-class-Instructor plan
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see below for all of the chapter objectives.
Present a Lecture emphasizing antibacterial Mechanisms of Action as
indicated on a diagram published in course textbook. A PowerPointbased lecture presentation is developed3. ASM MicrobeLibrary
animations such as:
Macrolide Animated GIF - Kaiser Microbe Library
And the FDA.gov “Get Smart About Antibiotics” video
Food and Drug Administrative Antibiotic Resistance Video
will be shown.
Formative In-class assessments:
Jeopardy game – developed and file is uploaded to the 2013 Team
Cohort wiki
Summative In-Class
Assessments:
Students are preparing for end-of-lecture 5-point quizzes, and also a
lecture exam questions which concerning the antibiotic chapter and
two additional chapters. An example of a relevant lecture exam
question in true/false format, multiple choice format and fill-in-blank
format is given in note2 below.
These choices create a more learner-centered environment for your students because students have access
to materials in addition to their textbook via the College’s course management D2L platform. The content
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Maureen Whitehurst, 2013 Assessment Residency
section for BIO 225 includes lecture notes and links to relevant animations. Students have access to the
textbook website E-tutor http://microsite.garlandscience.com/textbooks/0815365144/site/index.html
which includes practice multiple-choice questions and answers, which are generally Bloom’s level
I and II items, and many Blooms higher order ‘critical thinking’ and ‘clinical correlations’ questions and
answers. These questions are quite valuable to students as they prepare for the high-point value lecture
exam and eventually the course final examination. The formative Jeopardy Game assessment tool allows
for students to cooperate as team members and engage in a fun group exercise. Students are aware of the
end-of-lecture quiz question and have time to prepare their response. Students experience success and
validation when they submit a good short essay answer and receive favorable feedback. All of these
graded exercises map the featured lecture objective.
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Lecture Objectives Chapters 19
1. State that there have been no new discoveries of natural antibiotics in decades.
2. State that microorganisms produce toxic chemicals as part of their natural defense.
3. Differentiate broad or narrow spectrum antibiotics.
4. Identify the phases of the microbial growth curve
5. Identify which phase of the microbial growth curve penicillin functions against bacterial growth.
6. State that chemical modification of natural antibiotics can broaden their spectrum.
7. Give function of the bacterial enzymes penicillinase and beta lactamase - inhibits the reactivity
of penicillin.
8. State that antibiotics must be selectively toxic.
9. State that most antibiotics will have side effects.
10. List the five antibiotic targets
o
the cell wall
o
the plasma membrane
o
the ribosome
o
nucleic acids
o
the inhibition of metabolic synthesis pathways.
Name examples of antibiotics for each mechanism of action.
11. Identify the drug combination used to treat tuberculosis.
12. Name an early chemotherapeutic drug for malarial infection.
13. Viruses present problems for antibiotic treatment because they are obligate intracellular parasites.
14. Anti fungal drugs have serious side effects because fungi are eukaryotic cells.
15. Drugs against parasitic protozoans and helminths have been slow to be developed because these
infections occur mostly in underdeveloped countries.
16. Development of new drugs is an expensive and time consuming process.
17. State why antibiotics are incorporated into animal feed.
18. Name an antiviral drug used to treat Herpes viral infection.
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Maureen Whitehurst, 2013 Assessment Residency
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An exam question to assess this learning objective is:
True or False: Tetracycline disrupts cell wall synthesis in Gram Positive Organisms (false)
Fill-in-blank: Write the name of an antibiotic, which interrupts cell wall synthesis (Penicillin)
Multiple choice question: Penicillin’s mechanism of action is:
a) damages the bacterial plasma membrane
b) interrupts peptidoglycan crosslinking (correct)
c) acts as an antimetabolite
d) interrupts transcription
Instructor’s Podium Lecture notes, PowerPoint format for chapter 19, antibiotics. This file includes
many text slides which are not show to students, but are available for students to download via the
College’s D2L course management website; file uploaded to the 2013 Cohort wiki
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