Leveraging Near-Peer and Collaborative Learning for a Graduate Student-Led Cell Culture Workshop

Hands-on laboratory courses seldom appear in biomedical engineering (BME) graduate programs, thus limiting graduate students’ ability to acquire wet laboratory skills like cell culturing. At large, BME graduate programs rely on ad hoc training provided by senior graduate students; however, this method cannot be extended to new or non-BME laboratories, which generally lack senior personnel adequately trained in cell culture techniques. This paper describes a graduate student-led, five-session workshop that introduces cell culture fundamentals to interested students with little to no prior experience. The workshop employs novel teaching techniques, such as near-peer and collaborative learning, to enhance students’ understanding and knowledge retention. To demonstrate the effectiveness of this initiative, students assessed their confidence levels with concepts and skills related to cell culture via pre- and post-workshop surveys, where significant improvements in cell culture-related concepts and skills were reported upon completing the workshop. Finally, this paper presents some challenges and reflects on insight gained from this initiative, thus providing a template for implementation at other institutions interested in enriching their graduate student education.