Laboratory Experiences in Sophomore Level Cell and Molecular Biology Laboratories: What works?

Abstract

Authentic laboratory experiences incorporated into the undergraduate curriculum effectively engage students in research, enhance STEM student retention, and improve student learning. In recent years, numerous course‐based undergraduate research experiences (CURES) have been incorporated into introductory courses to provide opportunities for students early in their college careers to experience the excitement of scientific discovery while also providing a better representation of the application of scientific practices and the role of collaboration. There has also been similar efforts to develop authentic laboratory experiences in upper division or senior level molecular biology, biochemistry and cell biology labs with great success. With the desire to offer authentic laboratory experiences across the curriculum, we are interested in identifying laboratory experiences that can provide similar opportunities in laboratories associated with sophomore level cell and molecular biology courses. This may be challenging as resources can be limited and changes may not be considered essential for supporting retention goals or providing the research productivity of an upper level course. Our goal is to identify common concepts and skillsets that are considered essential to a cell and molecular sophomore laboratory course and then expand the number of laboratory experiences that are related to these concepts. Finally, we feel that it is important to continue the conversations regarding the difficulties and benefits of implementing these various projects at the sophomore level. These issues include implementation of a research project with adjunct faculty or graduate assistants, and implementing short term or semester long projects.This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.