In the Classroom
Does Active Learning through an Antisense Jigsaw
Make Sense?
Mahadevan Seetharaman*,
Department of Medicinal Chemistry, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455-0421; *maha@[Link]
Karin Musier-Forsyth
Department of Chemistry, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455-0421
As a graduate student participating in the Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) program (1) at the University of Minnesota, one of us (M. S.) was expected to teach (2) several classes
for a faculty mentor (K. M. -F.). In partial fulfillment of this
requirement, two lectures on antisenseantigene technology
were prepared as part of a nucleic acids chemistry course taken
by first-year graduate and advanced-undergraduate students
(3). Inspired by an active learning strategy discussed in the
PFF course, we chose to implement a jigsaw into one of
the two classes. Prior to this experience, none of the students
in the class knew what a jigsaw was and had not participated
in one before.
A jigsaw, by definition a puzzle of reassembling, is a cooperative learning strategy (4) in which students read different articles that are complementary to each other and then
discuss their articles in small groups (Figure 1). Briefly, the
students discuss their article first with others in the class who
have read the same article, defined as the home group. Generally, the class is divided into as many home groups as the
number of articles you require the students to read. Typically three to five articles work well, with the number depending somewhat on the class size and the time available
for the exercise. Following the home group discussions, each
student contributes the knowledge gleaned from their article
to a discussion with class members who did not read the same
article. The idea is for each student to contribute a piece of
the whole concept or puzzle. These away groups are
formed by reassembling into as many groups as there are
members present in the smallest home group. Finally, the information is tied together during a classwide discussion, with
a key point being that the students have actively participated
in the entire process.
Antisense Jigsaw
The antisense jigsaw assignment was preceded by an
hour-long lecture on the basic concepts in nucleic acid antisenseantigene technology, including RNase H cleavage, triplex formation, and ribozymes. Technical hurdles including
nuclease cleavage, delivery to target, and specificity were also
covered. For the jigsaw exercise itself, which was carried out
on day two, three articles were selected for discussion. Each
article reviewed different antisense oligonucleotide modification strategies that were designed to overcome common
problems with this approach. The articles were freely available online and students were given links to the Web sites
and two days to read their assigned paper.
Current address: Department of Chemistry, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455-0421
1404
Students assigned an
article on antisense
modification
Meet in HOME GROUP
(discuss article for 5 min with
students who read the same article)
Meet in AWAY GROUP
(teach article to others in
group - 5 min each)
Discuss all 3 articles
with entire class (15 min)
Figure 1. Schematic of the antisense jigsaw.
Each of the papers begins with a basic introduction of
the antisense concept, including the authors perspectives on
the pros and cons of the therapy and the rationale behind
the specific nucleic acid modification being reviewed in the
article. The articles chosen for this exercise complemented
each other in that they covered three different types of antisense modification strategies, including phosphorothioates
(5), 2 sugar modifications (6), and backbone phosphoramidate analogs (7). Mixed backbone strategies were also discussed in the articles.
On the day of the jigsaw discussion, the 12 students in
the class formed three groups, one for each article, and spent
five minutes in these home group discussions. A list of topics was handed out to guide this initial discussion of the main
points of each article (List 1). Next, the students reassembled
into four groups of three members each, wherein no group
member had read the same article. During these away group
discussions, each student was given approximately five minutes to teach their article to the others in their group. After
Journal of Chemical Education Vol. 80 No. 12 December 2003 [Link]
In the Classroom
List 1. Key Points for Discussion of Articles
on Antisense Modifications
Antisense or antigene therapy
Nuclease resistance
Ability to cross cell membranes and pharmacokinetics
Binding affinity and specificity
RNase H activity, triplex formation, nonspecific binding
Sugar conformationsC2 endo, C3 endo
3 or 5 End modifications
Advantages and disadvantages of the respective modifications
You are a graduate student synthesizing small molecules as
anticancer agents and frustrated with your research, which is
not going particularly well. One day you discover that the
gene sequence of the protein that you are targeting has two
20-nucleotide stretches that are unique and not present in any
other human genes. The two 20-mer sequences are (Note: only
one strand of the gene sequence is given):
Target 1: 5'-C G C G C G T A T A T A T A C G C G C G-3'
Target 2: 5'-G A G A G A G G G G A G A G A A A A G A-3'
Recently, you have been to a lecture on antisenseantigene
therapeutics and you are inspired to apply this approach in
your research.
Question 1
a. Design an antisense oligonucleotide for one target and
an antigene oligo for the other. Provide the sequence
and explain if the drug will be RNA- or DNA-based.
15 minutes, an additional five minutes was allotted for groups
to wrap up their discussion and talk about the topic as a whole
and the connection between all three articles. Finally all articles were discussed with the entire class for 15 minutes. For
actively participating in this jigsaw, the students received 50%
credit towards a problem set, which constituted 5% of their
final grade. At the end of the discussion, a problem set was
distributed to the class (Figure 2). The problem set was designed to test the students understanding of the concepts and
the readings, and served as a measure of how successful we
were in our jigsaw exercise.
Results
On the day of the jigsaw, we noted that conversation
among the students about the journal articles had started even
before the class had officially begun. When the students were
asked to form their home groups, they were initially a little
hesitant to start the discussion. However, once we initiated
the discussion along certain lines the students caught on very
well, with the level of comfort increasing further as they
switched into their away groups. The home and away group
discussions took more time than the planned 5 and 20 minutes, respectively. Most of the students actively participated
in the classwide, post-jigsaw discussion, which lasted for about
20 minutes.
A problem set designed to test the students level of understanding of the reading materials was distributed at the
end of the class period (Figure 2). Based on Blooms taxonomy
(8), our problem set required the students to understand the
fundamentals of antisense therapeutic strategies, to synthesize the three jigsaw readings, apply their knowledge in the
design of an antisense drug, and to analyze the reasoning behind their design. Interestingly, rather than basing their answers on the paper they were assigned to read, almost all of
the students suggested phosphoramidate modification as the
most promising approach. All of the students appeared to
understand the concepts that were presented and the main
points of all three readings, irrespective of the particular article they were initially assigned to read and present. Based
on the problem set evaluations, we were satisfied that the jigsaw exercise was a success.
b. Explain the general strategy you will use (e.g., triplex/
RNase H/ribozyme) and why you chose the particular
strategy for each target.
c. What modifications will you use to optimize the drugs
activity and improve the likelihood that your strategy
will work in vivo? Explain any additional considerations that went into your design.
Question 2
Which of the two targets or strategies described in
Question 1 do you think has the greatest chance for
success as a drug? Why? In your answer, include the
advantages and disadvantages of each that helped
you reach your decision.
Figure 2. Problem set on antisenseantigene therapy.
Discussion
Although it is not essential, we felt that giving students
some credit for their participation in the jigsaw likely helped
to increase the quality of the discussion. It was clear from
the away group discussions that the students carefully read
their assigned articles. Encouraging students to teach each
other in small groups can also be an effective way to help
shy students get comfortable with the class and feel less intimidated than, for example, requiring them to give an oral
presentation in front of the entire class. The jigsaw can even
act as a warm-up exercise for a more formal class presentation. Doing a jigsaw or other active learning exercise early in
a course is also advantageous in helping students feel comfortable participating in the class; the enthusiasm continues
the entire semester.
Another important advantage of a jigsaw is that, in a
period of 4550 minutes, multiple articles can be taught effectively. Thus, one can cover a lot of material with the students actively participating in the process of learning. One
of the caveats of doing a jigsaw exercise is that the instructor
must read all of the assigned articles beforehand and take the
[Link] Vol. 80 No. 12 December 2003 Journal of Chemical Education
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In the Classroom
time to prepare relevant and interesting questions to guide
the discussion.
Monitoring the student discussions is one of the most
challenging aspects of a jigsaw. Although there were four
groups in our exercise, two instructors were present, making
it easier to circulate and observe the discussion of all the
groups. We found it was less intimidating for the students if
we actually sat down with each group to listen and contribute to the discussion rather than hovering over the groups. A
larger group of students requires more planning on the part
of the instructor and might necessitate the inclusion of a teaching assistant for comonitoring. Handing out key points for
discussion (List 1) provides a valuable means of guiding the
discussion along the desired lines. In our initial antisense jigsaw, we handed out the discussion topics on the day of the
exercise. An alternative strategy is to distribute the points for
discussion beforehand so that the students can prepare notes
ahead of time. In later exercises we used this approach and
found that it did appear to further facilitate the discussion.
Jigsaws afford a great deal of flexibility in defining student roles, and instructors may ask participants to do more
than just read and discuss articles. A specialized form of a
jigsaw involves writing specific tasks on a piece of paper and
handing it out to every student in a group. In this manner,
each student is assigned specific responsibilities. For example,
one task may be to ask group members to identify the biggest advantage of the method or the technique presented in
their respective articles. Another person could be asked to
record minutes for the entire group. These minutes could be
handed in at the end of class to help ensure that students
take the exercise seriously. Someone else could be asked to
report the salient points evolving from their discussion to the
entire class.
Despite the fact that literature articles and other scientific readings are very commonly assigned to students as an
integral part of graduate-level courses in chemistry and biochemistry, to our knowledge, jigsaws have not been extensively used as a pedagogical tool at this level. Essentially any
topic can be taught using a jigsaw, and based on our experience in a graduate-level nucleic acids course, it is an excellent way to get students to critically read the literature, while
at the same time learning a new topic and enhancing communication skills. According to the learning pyramid (9), students learn the maximum quantity of content when they
teach others or when they immediately apply their learning.
The intrinsic nature of a jigsaw is such that it combines both
the lecture and discussion component into one active learning exercise. It requires the students not only to read articles,
but to talk about them in small groups, teach each other what
they have learned, and eventually participate in a discussion
with the entire class. Such assignments not only encourage
students to critically read the scientific literature, but also give
them a chance to hone their communication and presentation skills.
Two traditional measures of the success of a teaching
strategy are student exam performance and course evaluations.
On the final exam for the course, several questions were directly related to the topics covered in the jigsaw exercises.
The students generally performed better in answering these
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questions than they did on questions covering topics taught
using a more standard lecture format. Student comments
from the final course evaluations also indicated that they uniformly enjoyed the jigsaw exercises and felt they were beneficial. The following are quotes taken directly from the
student evaluations: Jigsaw exercises were valuable, I
thought the jigsaw exercises were really helpful for helping
people to think about the material, I liked the jigsaws and
the oral presentations with class discussions, I thought the
jigsaws and problem sets were helpful in learning and understanding the material, Jigsaw articles were also good;
helped analyze scientific papers, I got a lot out of the jigsaw exercises.
Additional Jigsaws
Jigsaws can be very effective pedagogical tools, and based
on our experience, 35 jigsaw exercises is probably an appropriate number to incorporate into a 15-week semester
course. In addition to the antisense jigsaw described above,
two additional topics were taught using the jigsaw method
during the nucleic acids course. A second jigsaw covered hammerhead ribozymes (10), and a third exercise covered zinc
finger DNA-binding motifs (11). In brief, the second jigsaw
included three recent studies aimed at understanding functional aspects of the hammerhead ribozyme, while the third
jigsaw focused on DNA recognition by zinc finger binding
proteins. Since all articles are not read by all students prior
to discussion, one important consideration in designing a jigsaw exercise is to choose related articles containing similar
background or introductory material. In two cases (antisense
and hammerhead), we selected papers that discussed different approaches to the same problem, and in one case (zinc
fingers) we chose three articles from the same lab that built
on one another. We found that the latter two topics were as
equally well suited to the jigsaw format as the antisense topic.
Conclusions
An antisense jigsaw was successfully implemented in a
graduate-level nucleic acids chemistry course. In the jigsaw,
every student was responsible for reading and teaching one
of three complementary articles on antisense modification in
a small-group format. Based on several evaluation methods,
including observation of class participation, a problem set
distributed immediately after the jigsaw exercise, a final exam,
and course evaluations, we found that the jigsaw was an extremely effective pedagogical tool at the graduate and advanced-undergraduate level. The students seemed to gain and,
importantly, retain an understanding of the essential concepts,
and to enjoy and benefit from the exercise. Designing a jigsaw for inclusion at the beginning of the semester can help
shy students feel more comfortable and is likely to more generally help increase student participation and enthusiasm for
the class. In conclusion, a jigsaw is an effective teaching strategy that caters to diversity in learning styles, can be used to
foster active learning, and should be easily adaptable to a wide
variety of topics covered in graduate-level chemistry and biochemistry courses.
Journal of Chemical Education Vol. 80 No. 12 December 2003 [Link]
In the Classroom
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Archana Purushotham and
Deborah A. Wingert for useful suggestions and stimulating
discussions.
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