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Teaching students how to think like scientists is a critical but challenging goal in biochemistry education. The Biochemistry Authentic Scientific Inquiry Lab (BASIL) initiative was conceived by Dr Paul Craig from the Rochester Institute of Technology and is led by colleagues across multiple institutions. They have developed an innovative curriculum that transforms traditional cookbook-style laboratory courses into authentic research experiences, also known as a Course-based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE). By investigating real proteins with unknown functions, students learn essential scientific skills while expanding our knowledge of protein biochemistry.
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The Best of Both Worlds: Discovery-Driven Learning through a Lab-Seminar Approach
ABSTRACT Microbiology courses are often designed as either a lecture class with a laboratory component or a seminar-style class. Each type of course provides students with unique learning opportunities. Lab courses allow students to perform simple experiments that relate to fundamental concepts taught in the corresponding lectures, while seminar courses challenge students to read and discuss primary literature. Microbiology courses offering a combination of seminar-style discussions and laboratory procedures are rare. Our goal in the “Microbial Diversity and Pathogenesis” undergraduate course is to integrate experiences of a seminar class with those of a discovery-driven lab course, thereby strengthening students’ learning experiences through diversified didactic approaches. In the first half of the course, students read and discuss published peer-reviewed articles that cover major topics in both basic and applied microbiology, including antibiotic resistance, pathogenesis, and biotechnology applications. Complementing this primary literature, students perform microbiology experiments related to the topics covered in the readings. The assigned readings, discussions, and experiments provide a foundation in the second half of the course for inquiry-based exploratory research using student-designed transposon screens and selections. The course culminates in each student drafting a hypothesis-driven research proposal based on their literature review, their learned experimental techniques, and the preliminary data generated as a class. Through such first-hand experimental experience, students gain fundamental lab skills that are applicable beyond the realm of microbiology, such as sterile technique and learning how to support conclusions with scientific evidence. We observed a tremendous synergy between the seminar and lab aspects of our course. This unique didactic experience allows students to understand and connect primary literature to their experiments, while the discovery-driven aspect of this approach fosters active engagement of students with scientific research.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1817518
- PAR ID:
- 10382301
- Editor(s):
- Yeong, Foong May
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education
- ISSN:
- 1935-7877
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1128/jmbe.00031-22
