Enhancing Learning, Teamwork, and Communication: Crime Scene Investigation Murder Board Integrated into Lab Activities

Moving from the sage on the stage while lecturing to active learning has been a common pedagogical shift for many years. Yet laboratory sections which are co-requisite courses with the lecture often remain unchanged. The laboratory experiment follows a standard design, often called the cookbook method, of creating a hypothesis, running the experiment, analyzing data, and drawing conclusions. Yet this design has little student exchange of ideas or active discussion. In our study, we revised a three-week crime scene investigation (CSI) laboratory module by adding a murder board. The murder board, a large bulletin board, served as the landing place for victim and suspect biographies. Students added each of the four suspects’ motives, means, opportunity, and alibis. Each week students performed laboratory experiments, blood typing, ELISA for HIV, DNA fingerprinting, to gather evidence to identify the murderer. The weekly data was added to their murder boards followed by robust, enthusiastic, and energetic discussion as students eliminated suspects and recreated hypotheses. To assess student learning, teamwork, and engagement, a survey was given after the laboratory module was completed, and a mixed-method analysis was performed. Our results demonstrate that the addition of the murder board enhanced learning, teamwork, and communication skills.