Discovery & Autonomy

The Concept

Thinking back to my childhood (and, really, my adulthood), I know that the lessons I learned from making a mistake and then having to correct have been longer-lasting, at least in my conscious memory! As states one of my favorite quotes, defining "Experience" as "what you get after you needed it."

So, the teaching philosophy that I developed includes providing a safe and supportive space for students to try new things, which is a great way to stimulate intellectual growth. Providing time for Iteration partly supports this pedagogical thrust.

A CURE is a great place to promote Autonomy and Discovery. In short, support students in developing their own experiments (Autonomy) that do not already have known outcomes (Discovery).

Why would Autonomy and Discovery be critical tenets for any undergraduate course, let alone a CURE? In many situations, allowing students to develop and test their own hypothesis will be novel - something they haven't experienced in prior classes. This could benefit them in at least a couple of ways. Students who have designed their own experiment might feel more invested in the process of conducting the experiment. They might take more ownership and thus be more motivated to undertake the efforts to carefully conduct their project.

Likewise, it seems likely that students could have better focus and thus develop a greater understanding of the scientific method, including techniques and data analysis approaches, when they test a hypothesis that has no prior support. In other words, won't it be more interesting for students to work on a project where they are in charge of definitively testing a new hypothesis and are at the forefront of Discovery? And, after all, this is how "real" science works - so why wouldn't we provide this sort of experience to our students?

What's in it for me?

Why would the instructor want to take the time to develop a CURE that supports Discovery and Autonomy? Stay tuned for future posts addressing this question, but for now: I can personally attest that supporting novice scientists with the latitude to ask their own questions can be stimulating and engaging for the instructor, and it can also lead to the development of new research ideas and data that the instructor might use for research publications and grant proposals (with some caveats about intellectual property that I'll write about in future).

Details

I hasten to add that there are always real limitations on the types of projects that students can devise. Several relevant factors involve time, resources/budget, and safety (we might collectively call these "Feasibility.") Separately, the instructor will probably have an internal or external edict to constrain research projects to particular topics and techniques that align with the Student Learning Objectives for the course.

For example, in my Genetics and Cell Biology lab CURE, some groups hypothesized that the worms we use as an experimental system would experience reduced fertility at increasing temperatures. This is a testable hypothesis, and it was a technically feasible experiment. But, I provided some feedback to the group to suggest that they think of other types of experiments. While this intervention did slightly and at that moment reduce their Autonomy, it was justified for two reasons. First, as a subject matter expert, I knew that such experiments had already been published - thus the proposed experimental design lacked Discovery. Second, testing the effects of environmental variables on the biology of an organism is more of an ecology research project than a genetics or cell biology experiment. So, there are certainly times when the instructor will need to moderate the balance of course goals and CURE tenets.

Example

In my CURE, student groups present short oral presentations on specific manuscripts and topics at the start of the term. This helps them begin to learn about what types of questions and experiments have already been conducted and published. Then, I provide feedback on the feasibility of their hypotheses and methods, and whether they appropriate align with the course Student Learning Objectives, by assigning draft and final experimental design papers that include peer and instructor evaluation in between.

Summary

Best practices for designing a CURE that facilities Discovery and Autonomy include:

• integrate reading primary literature that is contemporaneous and relevant, so that students can develop a sense for past research related to their topic of interest
• during the project development phase, give regular feedback to steer students toward hypotheses and designs that are feasible
• build time into the course schedule for iteration: experiment, revise the design and/or hypothesis, and repeat

Thus, an effective CURE can balance the absence of a "right answer" to an experiment (Discovery) and allowing students to explore the discipline relevant to the class (Autonomy). In the next post, I'll provide a specific structure for a great way to design a CURE that meets all of the CURE tenets thus far: Iteration, Discovery, and Autonomy. Most importantly, I'll share how incredibly easy it can be to do all of this for very little work on the instructor's part!