The following series of posts is designed to
- catalog that quick process
- reflect on the outcomes
- inspire the more purposeful redesign of CUREs as virtual CUREs
Original Course Design
With the help mainly of three others (two instructors: Shadi Adineh and Sosse Kenyan, and an instructional support technician, Mark Schreiber), BIOL 104 (Cell Biology and Genetics Lab) has been redesigned over the past few years into a CURE. At present, I supervise the instructors, who have been non-tenure-track part-time instructors. In other words, I have been designing the course, with emphasis on my own research interests, and helping mentor the instructors on learning the project-specific details, so that they in turn can mentor the students.This course is an upper-division CURE required for all biology majors. Some of the learning goals include those expected in a CURE: performing fundamental lab techniques, creating a hypothesis, designing an experiment that includes multiple methods for addressing the hypothesis, troubleshooting complications, collecting and interpreting data, and communicating results. After reading background literature, student groups design their own experiments related to crossing genetically diverse populations of a worm species and then performing genetic and phenotypic analyses of hybrid offspring.
This past spring, I felt like we had finally hit our stride, in terms of having led a CURE enough times that we were mainly at the fine-tuning point. As luck would have it, COVID-19 struck at the point in the semester when students had just finished all of the work that would have easily been accomplished virtually. You know, all of the things that happen before research productivity ramps up: background reading, practicing techniques, developing a hypothesis, and finishing up pilot studies. It was the most devastating time to shutter the lab: all of the student groups were in the middle of data collection, and many of the groups were already iterating: revising their experimental designs and repeating experiments. None of the groups had collected sufficient data to proceed to analysis and presentation.
A few virtual CURE options
In a brainstorming session, Mark, Sosse and I discussed how to proceed. It seemed that the ideal Virtual CURE would involve analysis of existing datasets, since the students would not be able to produce their own. I still think that this is a great way for CUREs to proceed virtually, especially if the instructor can figure out how to support students in many of the essential characteristics of CUREs, particularly Discovery and Relevance.We also considered the possibility of the instructors performing the hands-on work for the students, to continue their original experimental designs - but it was clear that we did not have enough time to accomplish this.
Our approach
Given the intellectual framework the students had already developed at the beginning of the semester, it didn't make sense for us to change to entirely new projects with about a month left in the semester. However, there were no existing datasets (either from published studies, or from prior semesters of the course) relevant to the novel experiments that the students had designed. Ultimately, we asked students to invent data that would support their hypothesis and to use those data in subsequent analyses and presentations.This rapid virtual redesign maintained many of the recognized CURE components. Students were involved in multiple scientific practices, discovery was at the core of the course design, research was collaborative, and iteration was involved. Student groups had developed hypotheses autonomously, and they were assessed as practicing research scientists through their communication.
Drawbacks
The main negative impact on the CURE design, as perceived by the instructors, was that the purposeful invention of data eliminated the external importance of student efforts. However, student feedback from IRB-approved human subjects research surveys did not reveal any perception of this drawback.I hasten to add that we did very carefully counsel the students about data falsification and research misconduct: that these are not acceptable scientific practices and were only being used for the purpose of training in data analysis and interpretation.
Benefits
Student feedback indicated some benefits to virtual delivery, including the elimination of resource bottlenecks (e.g. microscope station availability) and reduction in the amount of time outside of class that students had previously needed to invest to complete their projects. At the end of the semester, despite the hasty redesign, students even indicated they would recommend the course to friends (75% agree, 20% neutral), that a CURE should be offered earlier in the curriculum (78% agree, 11% neutral), and that the course made a positive impact on their interest in science (80% positive, 15% neutral).What's next?
The same course will be held entirely online this fall semester. I am still the coordinator; Sosse is still the instructor. Over the summer, we've been discussing how to proceed. In future posts, I'm excited to share what we have planned. Over the next three weeks before instruction begins, I'll detail our course design and our rationale. Here's a teaser: we are envisioning the main changes to be- having students involved in project decision-making, but to a limited extent, so that the instructor can efficiently conduct experiments to generate primary data for student use
- incorporating more focus on experimental design and on computational analysis that leverages the virtual environment
Most (if not all) of my colleagues agree that virtual labs are not the best way to teach the scientific method, especially when manual techniques are involved. However, I believe that the necessity of teaching labs virtually can help us develop useful resources and approaches that will enhance instruction of face-to-face CUREs if/when they are allowed to resume.
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