Tips & Tools
JOURNAL OF MICROBIOLOGY & BIOLOGY EDUCATION, May 2015, p. 77-78 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/jmbe.v16i1.830
The HeLa Documentary Film: An Engaging Writing and Culturally Relevant Assignment on Cell Division and Ethics for Nonscience Majors † Diann Jordan* and Timetria Bonds Department of Biological Sciences, Alabama State University, Montgomery, AL 36101 INTRODUCTION
PROCEDURE
General biology is a core course that most science and nonscience majors must take in order to fulfill graduation requirements at Alabama State University (ASU). An historically black university with an enrollment between 5,100 and 5,400 students, 92% of the total student body self-identify as African American. Regardless of an institution’s racial makeup, students’ understanding of scientific concepts improves with the use of culturally relevant assignments (2). With so many diverse majors represented in any single classroom, the biology instructor must not only develop culturally relevant assignments but ones that will engage a wide range of majors. The HeLa documentary is about the life of Henrietta Lacks, an African American woman, who died in 1951 of cervical cancer, and the use of her cells by various scientists and institutions around the world (3). Before the 2010 publication of “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot (3), many people outside the scientific community did not know about her life story or the worldwide use of the HeLa cells. The cells were extracted from Lacks’s cervix after her death and continue to divide (“live”) in culture even today. According to the Vision and Change Report (1), faculty should seek to provide a more student-centered approach in biology classrooms. An early survey found that 94% of the authors’ former students felt that the use of a video/ DVD was an effective teaching method (Fig. 1). With this overwhelmingly positive response, we decided to use the HeLa documentary film from www.topdocumentaryfilms. com to enhance the students’ understanding of the cell cycle and how cancer cells work as well as to engage them in a writing activity that promoted reflection and critical analysis. The major objectives were 1) to introduce students to a culturally relevant assignment related to biological content being discussed in class; 2) to provide an engaging writing assignment that incorporated medical ethics and history.
The HeLa documentary was watched in the classroom and the students were asked to take notes on the film. The film was also linked on Blackboard for students who either missed class or wanted to watch the movie again. Eleven questions were provided for students to answer after viewing the film (Appendix 1). These questions can be modified to fit any instructor’s particular emphasis in their classroom. The questions were posted on Blackboard immediately after the film and the students could download them and submit their responses either in hard copy or via email. The first author preferred hard copy for grading and the second author preferred emailed copies. The documentary film was shown to nine classes (n = 320 students) over three semesters. Students were given one to two weeks to complete the assignment. The questions were graded by the instructors as an activity grade or a take-home assignment.
RESULTS and DISCUSSION Over 90% of the students agreed that the assignment was effective because they learned about the life story of an African American and the ethical implications of how her cells were used (Appendix 1). The film was shown to supplement the cell cycle/division and cancer lectures so the students felt the film directly related to the content of
60.00%
56.60%
50.00% 37.74%
40.00% 30.00% 20.00% 10.00% 1.89%
*Corresponding author. Mailing address: 915 South Jackson St., Dept. of Biological Sciences, Alabama State University, Montgomery, AL 36101. Fax: 334-229-1007. E-mail: [email protected]. †Supplemental materials available at http://jmbe.asm.org
1.89%
1.89%
0.00% Strongly disagree
Disagree
Agree
Strongly agree
Not applicable
FIGURE 1. The use of videos/DVDs as effective teaching tools (survey responses classes). Figure 1. The from use ofprevious videos orgeneral DVDs isbiology an effective teaching tool (survey respons from previous general biology classes).
©2015 Author(s). Published by the American Society for Microbiology. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ and https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode), which grants the public the nonexclusive right to copy, distribute, or display the published work.
Volume 16, Number 1
Biology Education Journal of Microbiology &
77
JORDAN and BONDS: HELA FILM FOR CELL DIVISION AND ETHICS
the course and class discussion. In question 10, the students were also introduced to ethics and research by describing the similarities between the Henrietta Lacks story and USPHS Study of the Untreated Negro Male in Macon County better known as the Tuskegee Syphilis Study (TSS). They were instructed to research both stories in depth and to write about at least two ethical concerns that transformed guidelines and procedures of studies involving human subjects. This provided the research component of the project and it encouraged students to think about ethical implications of scientific research. Students’ comments about the project can be found in Appendix 2. Grading Most students (70–75%) who completed the assignment on time received a grade of C or better. At least 60% of those students received a minimum of 25/30 or 83% on the assignment. Students who chose not to complete the assignment or who were very late in submitting the assignment gained very little benefit toward improving their grade (Appendix 1). Limitations One major limitation would be the grading time for most instructors. Other ways of grading the work would be utilizing teaching assistants or peer grading. The assignment could also be used as a group exercise in which the questions would be pre-posted on Blackboard and students could debate or discuss the film and questions and submit the assignment as a group. This could reduce grading time and possibly achieve the same results. Most students indicated that they appreciated having time to do this writing assignment outside of the classroom. Although plagiarism cannot be completely prevented, requiring students to submit their work on Safe-Assign or a similar checking mechanisms tends to lessen plagiarism and other forms of cheating.
CONCLUSION When informally surveyed, many students anecdotally reported that they found studying the differences between
78
the Henrietta Lacks story and the TSS particularly interesting. Although the research component represented a relatively small portion of the assignment, the students expressed a considerable amount of appreciation for this advanced method of learning as part of a first-semester general biology survey class. Using culturally-relevant documentary films as a supplement to the traditional lecture can enhance students’ writing and critical thinking skills in any institution interested in vision and change in their curriculum.
SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIALS Appendix 1: Questions prepared by the authors for the documentary film Appendix 2: Students’ responses to selected questions and other suggested topics
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The authors are grateful to the 320 students who participated in this class exercise. The authors thank Dr. Shirley Marie Jordan for editing the manuscript. The former students of the first author who participated in an earlier survey on technology in the classroom did so under the campus IRB guidelines for human subjects with approval #2011UC001. The authors thank all anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions. No funding was received to develop this classroom exercise. The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.
REFERENCES 1. American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). 2011. Vision and change in undergraduate education: a call to action. [Online.] visionandchange.org/ finalreport/. 2. Ladson-Billings, G. 1995. The dreamkeepers: successful teachers of african american children. Jossey Bass, San Francisco, CA. 3. Skloot, R. 2010. The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks. Crown Publishing, New York, NY.
Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education
Volume 16, Number 1
JOURNAL OF MICROBIOLOGY & BIOLOGY EDUCATION, May 2015, p. 77-78 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/jmbe.v16i1.830
The HeLa Documentary Film: An Engaging Writing and Culturally Relevant Assignment on Cell Division and Ethics for Nonscience Majors † Diann Jordan* and Timetria Bonds Department of Biological Sciences, Alabama State University, Montgomery, AL 36101 INTRODUCTION
PROCEDURE
General biology is a core course that most science and nonscience majors must take in order to fulfill graduation requirements at Alabama State University (ASU). An historically black university with an enrollment between 5,100 and 5,400 students, 92% of the total student body self-identify as African American. Regardless of an institution’s racial makeup, students’ understanding of scientific concepts improves with the use of culturally relevant assignments (2). With so many diverse majors represented in any single classroom, the biology instructor must not only develop culturally relevant assignments but ones that will engage a wide range of majors. The HeLa documentary is about the life of Henrietta Lacks, an African American woman, who died in 1951 of cervical cancer, and the use of her cells by various scientists and institutions around the world (3). Before the 2010 publication of “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot (3), many people outside the scientific community did not know about her life story or the worldwide use of the HeLa cells. The cells were extracted from Lacks’s cervix after her death and continue to divide (“live”) in culture even today. According to the Vision and Change Report (1), faculty should seek to provide a more student-centered approach in biology classrooms. An early survey found that 94% of the authors’ former students felt that the use of a video/ DVD was an effective teaching method (Fig. 1). With this overwhelmingly positive response, we decided to use the HeLa documentary film from www.topdocumentaryfilms. com to enhance the students’ understanding of the cell cycle and how cancer cells work as well as to engage them in a writing activity that promoted reflection and critical analysis. The major objectives were 1) to introduce students to a culturally relevant assignment related to biological content being discussed in class; 2) to provide an engaging writing assignment that incorporated medical ethics and history.
The HeLa documentary was watched in the classroom and the students were asked to take notes on the film. The film was also linked on Blackboard for students who either missed class or wanted to watch the movie again. Eleven questions were provided for students to answer after viewing the film (Appendix 1). These questions can be modified to fit any instructor’s particular emphasis in their classroom. The questions were posted on Blackboard immediately after the film and the students could download them and submit their responses either in hard copy or via email. The first author preferred hard copy for grading and the second author preferred emailed copies. The documentary film was shown to nine classes (n = 320 students) over three semesters. Students were given one to two weeks to complete the assignment. The questions were graded by the instructors as an activity grade or a take-home assignment.
RESULTS and DISCUSSION Over 90% of the students agreed that the assignment was effective because they learned about the life story of an African American and the ethical implications of how her cells were used (Appendix 1). The film was shown to supplement the cell cycle/division and cancer lectures so the students felt the film directly related to the content of
60.00%
56.60%
50.00% 37.74%
40.00% 30.00% 20.00% 10.00% 1.89%
*Corresponding author. Mailing address: 915 South Jackson St., Dept. of Biological Sciences, Alabama State University, Montgomery, AL 36101. Fax: 334-229-1007. E-mail: [email protected]. †Supplemental materials available at http://jmbe.asm.org
1.89%
1.89%
0.00% Strongly disagree
Disagree
Agree
Strongly agree
Not applicable
FIGURE 1. The use of videos/DVDs as effective teaching tools (survey responses classes). Figure 1. The from use ofprevious videos orgeneral DVDs isbiology an effective teaching tool (survey respons from previous general biology classes).
©2015 Author(s). Published by the American Society for Microbiology. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ and https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode), which grants the public the nonexclusive right to copy, distribute, or display the published work.
Volume 16, Number 1
Biology Education Journal of Microbiology &
77
JORDAN and BONDS: HELA FILM FOR CELL DIVISION AND ETHICS
the course and class discussion. In question 10, the students were also introduced to ethics and research by describing the similarities between the Henrietta Lacks story and USPHS Study of the Untreated Negro Male in Macon County better known as the Tuskegee Syphilis Study (TSS). They were instructed to research both stories in depth and to write about at least two ethical concerns that transformed guidelines and procedures of studies involving human subjects. This provided the research component of the project and it encouraged students to think about ethical implications of scientific research. Students’ comments about the project can be found in Appendix 2. Grading Most students (70–75%) who completed the assignment on time received a grade of C or better. At least 60% of those students received a minimum of 25/30 or 83% on the assignment. Students who chose not to complete the assignment or who were very late in submitting the assignment gained very little benefit toward improving their grade (Appendix 1). Limitations One major limitation would be the grading time for most instructors. Other ways of grading the work would be utilizing teaching assistants or peer grading. The assignment could also be used as a group exercise in which the questions would be pre-posted on Blackboard and students could debate or discuss the film and questions and submit the assignment as a group. This could reduce grading time and possibly achieve the same results. Most students indicated that they appreciated having time to do this writing assignment outside of the classroom. Although plagiarism cannot be completely prevented, requiring students to submit their work on Safe-Assign or a similar checking mechanisms tends to lessen plagiarism and other forms of cheating.
CONCLUSION When informally surveyed, many students anecdotally reported that they found studying the differences between
78
the Henrietta Lacks story and the TSS particularly interesting. Although the research component represented a relatively small portion of the assignment, the students expressed a considerable amount of appreciation for this advanced method of learning as part of a first-semester general biology survey class. Using culturally-relevant documentary films as a supplement to the traditional lecture can enhance students’ writing and critical thinking skills in any institution interested in vision and change in their curriculum.
SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIALS Appendix 1: Questions prepared by the authors for the documentary film Appendix 2: Students’ responses to selected questions and other suggested topics
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The authors are grateful to the 320 students who participated in this class exercise. The authors thank Dr. Shirley Marie Jordan for editing the manuscript. The former students of the first author who participated in an earlier survey on technology in the classroom did so under the campus IRB guidelines for human subjects with approval #2011UC001. The authors thank all anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions. No funding was received to develop this classroom exercise. The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.
REFERENCES 1. American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). 2011. Vision and change in undergraduate education: a call to action. [Online.] visionandchange.org/ finalreport/. 2. Ladson-Billings, G. 1995. The dreamkeepers: successful teachers of african american children. Jossey Bass, San Francisco, CA. 3. Skloot, R. 2010. The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks. Crown Publishing, New York, NY.
Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education
Volume 16, Number 1
