Genomics Education Partnership

Abstract

The Genomics Education Partnership offers an inclusive model for undergraduate research experiences incorporated into the academic year science curriculum, with students pooling their work to contribute to international data bases.

Development and Evaluation of the Tigriopus Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience: Impacts on Students’ Content Knowledge, Attitudes, and Motivation in a Majors Introductory Biology Course

“…It is important to note that such shifts were witnessed across a multitude of factors, including self-determination, career interest, and problem-solving strategies, suggesting that the CURE had a wide-reaching impact as compared with the traditional laboratory experience. These data are in accordance with previous reports, which have demonstrated that student engagement in authentic research opportunities results in increases in self-efficacy and intrinsic motivation in the sciences, including increases in students’ perceived ability to prepare for and conduct studies (Drew and Triplett, 2008), greater clarification of students’ academic and/or career paths (Lopatto et al , 2008; Shaffer et al , 2014), and a deeper understanding of how scientists engage in real-world problem solving (Shaffer et al , 2014). …”

“…Despite the significance of these findings, the majority of empirical studies to date have used student self-reported metrics to assess participants’ attitudinal, motivational, and skills-based outcomes as a result of participation in CUREs (e.g., CURE survey; see Lopatto et al , 2008; described also in Corwin et al , 2015), and few, if any, have provided a comparative account of traditional versus CURE student outcomes within nonvolunteer laboratory courses at the introductory level (Spell et al , 2014; Makarevitch et al , 2015). Consequently, recent research indicates that these practices, which likewise include the use of unpublished or nonvalidated instruments within reported studies (Beck et al , 2014), recruitment bias (Brownell et al , 2013; Corwin et al , 2015), and overestimation of learning and aptitude within student self-reported data sets (Boud and Falchikov, 1989; Falchikov and Boud, 1989), make it difficult to discern the true extent to which CUREs impact cognitive and noncognitive student attributes.…”

Using yeast to determine the functional consequences of mutations in the human p53 tumor suppressor gene: An introductory course‐based undergraduate research experience in molecular and cell biology

“…For example, it is important to consider what resources (personnel, reagents, space) can be devoted to a CURE, how the research project can be organized into discrete units of time, how potentially hundreds of students can work on a project that offers both enough similarities to provide a common curriculum and differences to give students a sense of project ownership, and how instructional guidance can ensure that students are thinking and learning, rather than simply “going through the motions.” Doing this at scale is particularly challenging. Yet, despite these challenges, studies indicate that both types of experiences improve students′ ability to engage in scientific practices and their desire to pursue additional research opportunities (e.g., 9, 10, 11, 12, 13). These findings have prompted national calls for implementation of CUREs at the introductory level 2.…”

Using experimental evolution and next-generation sequencing to teach bench and bioinformatic skills

“…However, the two skill sets are still typically taught separately, though there are increasing efforts to integrate 40 them (Furge et al 2009;Lopatto et al 2008;Robertson & Phillips 2008;Temple et al 2010;Weisman 2010). Lack of bioinformatic skills by laboratory scientists can lead to poor experimental design, for example as a result of inadequate replication (Lynn et al 2003).…”