Developing Student Collaborations across Disciplines, Distances, and Institutions

Abstract

Because quantitative biology requires skills and concepts from a disparate collection of different disciplines, the scientists of the near future will increasingly need to rely on collaborations to produce results. Correspondingly, students in disciplines impacted by quantitative biology will need to be taught how to create and engage in such collaborations. In response to this important curricular need, East Tennessee State University and Georgia Technological University/Emory University cooperated in an unprecedented curricular experiment in which theoretically oriented students at East Tennessee State designed biophysical models that were implemented and tested experimentally by biomedical engineers at the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Technological University and Emory University. Implementing the collaborations between two institutions allowed an assessment of the student collaborations from before the groups of students had met for the first time until after they had finished their projects, thus providing insight about the formation and conduct of such collaborations that could not have been obtained otherwise.

Reimagining the Pipeline: Advancing STEM Diversity, Persistence, and Success

“…For members of minority-serving academic communities, they help promote and raise awareness regarding practices and career options available to students that might otherwise go unrecognized. For all faculty members, interinstitutional partnerships provide opportunities to share and exchange details about curricula, curricular content delivery, and pedagogy (Knisley and Behravesh 2010, Thompson and Campbell 2013). They can also be preemptive in helping identify gaps in undergraduate- student preparation before these students begin their graduate training.…”

Fostering Student to Student Collaboration Across Institutions in a Protein Centric CURE

“…The number of collaborative scientific papers between different institutions has grown substantially since the 1970s, often resulting in more impactful papers (3). To prepare students to join a workforce that expects cooperation, educators have been adding collaborative experiences to courses over the last few decades (4)(5)(6). Course Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) are a well-established approach to introducing research practices to undergraduates, emphasizing collaboration as a key pillar, along with discovery, iteration, relevant work, and the use of scientific practice (7).…”

External Collaboration Results in Student Learning Gains and Positive STEM Attitudes in CUREs

“…One aim of MCC was to determine whether the incorporation of structured external collaborations in CUREs enhances student learning outcomes. To date, only a few courses have adopted formal multi-institution collaborations ( Knisley and Behravesh, 2010 ) and their effect on student learning is not well understood. We hypothesized that collaboration with a faculty member from an external institution would result in higher student learning gains and engagement with the course materials.…”