Abstract
Numerous American national committees have recommended the replacement of traditional labs with a more engaging curriculum that inspires inquiry and enhances scientific skills (examples include the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST)’s Engage to Excel program and American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Vision and Change, among others), due to a large body of evidence that shows significant enhancements in student learning and affective outcomes. The implementation of Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) is a creative way to scale up the deployment of authentic research experiences to students. Another highly regarded high-impact practice in postsecondary education is the addition of learning communities. The integration of a three-course learning community and authentic research experiences to laboratory courses adds both a community of scholarship and a development of scientific communication and process skills. This study describes a course that blends these two high-impact practices in higher education in order to promote greater post-course gains in essential elements of a CURE curriculum. This collaborative course shows large post-course gains in essential elements, such as scientific communication and working collaboratively.
Highlights
There is a common need for institutions of higher education to adapt from common modalities of instruction to high-impact pedagogical practices in order to enhance the engagement of college students in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines [1]
The Classroom Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) survey was administered as a pre-survey before the class had begun and a post-survey, which was held on the last day of class [35,36,37]
In the second year of the study, the CURE survey was administered through Qualtrics
Summary
There is a common need for institutions of higher education to adapt from common modalities of instruction to high-impact pedagogical practices in order to enhance the engagement of college students in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines [1]. Embedded authentic research experiences early in post-secondary education and learning communities are key interventions that have shown increased retention of students in STEM disciplines This concept relies on the observation that motivation is an important criterion for self-efficacy, which is imperative for enhancing engagement in a field of study. Promote and support the discovery of new knowledge; Ensure broad relevance to the scientific community; Incorporate a team-based approach that cultivates scientific collaboration in the laboratory; Include iterative advances, leading to new questions of discovery, where the answers are not apparent to either the instructor or student These elements are similar to those of traditional research experiments, but a course-based approach to authentic research adds the benefit of having a built-in peer group of classmates from the learning community throughout the three courses [5]. The enhancement of these courses by these curricular modifications has led to increased learning and affective gains among the essential elements of a research experience
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