Insights from a Convocation: Integrating Discovery-Based Research into the Undergraduate Curriculum

Abstract

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine organized a convocation in 2015 to explore and elucidate opportunities, barriers, and realities of course-based undergraduate research experiences, known as CUREs, as a potentially integral component of undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education. This paper summarizes the convocation and resulting report.

Do We Need to Design Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences for Authenticity?

“…The greatest movement toward this ideal has arguably occurred within the last 5 years, with the rapid spread of course-based undergraduate research experiences, or CUREs (Auchincloss et al ., 2014; Brownell and Kloser, 2015; Linn et al ., 2015). Drawing from the success of the apprenticeship URE model, CUREs engage large numbers of undergraduates in real research in a core classroom environment along with peers (Auchincloss et al ., 2014; Elgin et al ., 2016). For many students, participation in one or more CUREs may be the only research exposure they encounter during their undergraduate educations.…”

Flexible Implementation of the BASIL CURE

“…Course‐based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) have been suggested as a way to introduce large numbers of undergraduate students to research and attain both short‐term learning objectives related to specific courses as well as long‐term goals of increasing retention of students in STEM careers, especially students from underrepresented groups . Many CUREs originated as local experiments when faculty members sought to liven up laboratory courses with their own research projects.…”

Teaching Animal Physiology: a 12-year experience transitioning from a classical to interactive approach with continual assessment and computer alternatives

“…As concluded by Vujovic (22), the role of the 21st century lecturer is not merely to transfer information, but rather to facilitate the development of students' ability to apply basic knowledge and gain higher levels of understanding. Given the extant evidence indicating that course-based undergraduate research experiences (CURE) can make scientific research more inclusive (1), and that high-enrollment CURE improves student conceptions of scientific thinking and ability to interpret data (4), we will aim to learn from the experience of others and incorporate the most effective strategies when making further changes to our curriculum and its mode of delivery and assessment (7,11). Through the development of the Animal Physiology course, and a number of complementary courses we teach (such as Comparative Animal Physiology, Molecular Cell Physiology, Mechanisms of Cell Communication, etc.…”

“…), we will strive to improve the educational process, as our ultimate goal is to better equip our students with the necessary knowledge, motivation, and sense of societal responsibility to participate actively in the innovation process. Clearly, it will take years to measure progress toward these ambitious goals, but we have enthusiasm and will make the best use of the Moodle platform established as an E-learning support system at our faculty (https://moodle.pmf.uns.ac.rs/) and ERASMUS student exchange programs at our university (http://www.uns.ac.rs/index.php/en/international-cooperation/ internationalization-of-uns/agreement-on-cooperation/ e-sporazumi), as well as all opportunities to learn from the experiences of others (1,4,7,11). We believe that these are powerful tools that, when used optimally, have the potential to shape new generations of young scientists/educators/ innovators and thus impact economic governance.…”