Using Research in a First Year Biology Class to Promote Critical Thinking

Abstract

In their first semester students interested in majoring in the life sciences take an "Introduction to Biological Thinking" class to expose them to critical thinking and research questions and skills as well as some basic chemistry and biology. In the early part of the semester students are also introduced to the primary literature. Using National Science Foundation funded research on Malate Dehydrogenase, students learn how to analyze clustal results, develop a hypothesis and design a mutant to test the hypothesis. The students write a proposal and conduct the research before giving a presentation of the outcomes of the work. In the early part of the course and at the end of the course students are assessed for their understanding of what it takes to develop a hypothesis and design appropriate experiments to test the hypothesis and on their ability to use the primary literature. Significant gains in these skills are found. A number of the students go on to start independent research projects with faculty, and over 90% of the students indicate that they have a much better appreciation for what it takes to do science.This research is supported by a Grant from the National Science Foundation: MCB 0448905 to EB