Using comics to bring tricky microbiology concepts to life

Typically, in-class distractions—like scrolling through comics—are something instructors tend to frown upon.

But for undergraduate students taking introductory microbiology courses at UBC this fall, comics are proving to be a powerful way to grab attention and illustrate complex concepts.

“This approach bridges scientific concepts to the real world and makes them more accessible for all students,” said Karen Smith, a lecturer emeritus in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology.

This June, Smith and colleagues unveiled a study in the Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education indicating that integrating course material into a narrative comic strip improves students’ ability to grasp complex microbiology concepts and increases their curiosity about the microbial world.

Overall, incorporating the comics with the textbook readings improved students’ ability to identify key takeaways. Students also reported that they found the comics to be more engaging and memorable than the readings.

“The comics did help make it more interesting and it provided some guidance or some hook to the chapter,” said Moses Law, who was in the first class that used the comics. “Of course, the comic isn't as detailed as a textbook would be. But it for sure helped with the attention.”

While she was teaching BIOL 112 (Biology of the Cell), Smith called on Craig Kornak, an artist and the undergraduate programs manager in Microbiology and Immunology, to create cartoonish microbe characters that she could embed throughout her lectures. Smith observed that students responded positively to the caricatures and wondered if she could implement the approach in another course she taught, MICB 211 (Foundations in Microbiology). Students in MICB 211 were completing the assigned readings before class, but many of them struggled to extract important take-home messages and apply them to case studies.

Over the past two years, MICB 211 has served over 1,000 students. To implement the approach, Smith assembled a team with an array of diverse perspectives: including Kornak, science education specialist Dr. Kirsty McIntyre, assistant professor of teaching Dr. Evelyn Sun, graduate teaching assistant Dr. Kabir Bhalla and undergraduate academic assistant Poppy Chaiboripan. The project was funded by UBC Science’s Skylight: Science Centre for Learning and Teaching and the Department of Microbiology and Immunology.

Comics can foster a firmer understanding of complex ideas as they require active engagement to interpret the images and text and draw connections between the different panels. The humorous, character-driven stories are also often easier to recall than a series of facts.

“During an exam, when I forgot something, maybe it would come back up in my head because it's more memorable that way,” said Law.

“This was an unexpected outcome,” said Dr. Bhalla, now a postdoctoral research fellow at the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences. “We didn’t think that students would look at the comic as review material, and so we were very happy to see that they were coming back and engaging with the comic over the course of the entire term.”

The team first asked students to indicate which concepts they still found confusing after completing reading assignments. They then collaborated to create three comics specifically to address these concepts, which focused on bacterial surfaces and structures and their role in antimicrobial resistance, bacterial metabolism, and biofilm formation. The team made these comics available to students alongside the corresponding textbook readings and conducted surveys in which students evaluated how helpful the comics were in supporting their learning.

“The comics changed a lot during the development process thanks to the students identifying specific aspects that we had missed,” Dr. Bhalla said. “Student feedback really made those comics more clear and useful for learning.”

“Our findings highlight the need to discover diverse approaches to educating students beyond traditional expository text,” adds Smith. “Comic narratives are just one of many innovative tools that instructors could use to present microbiological concepts.”

In addition to developing more comics in the future, the team is also exploring the broader effectiveness of comics as an educational tool in various scientific disciplines and course types. Dr. Bhalla is now working to expand the comic project in UBC Pharmaceutical Sciences.

“The plan is to bring it back to the faculties of science and medicine,” he said. “What we've realized is there's so much overlap in the courses in these different faculties is that there’s untapped potential to use those resources, so the comics that we’re currently working on are being built with this lens in mind.”

With files from Sarah Anderson, UBC Microbiology and Immunology.