Comment

Comment by Susan Baxter on September 24, 2012 at 2:59pm

I see Teri Balser (U Florida) is in this group as well! Perhaps she can share some of their strategies? Yes - this is a hand-off I hope!

Comment by James P. Prince on September 24, 2012 at 2:57pm

I did, indeed!  Thanks, Susan.

Comment by Susan Baxter on September 24, 2012 at 2:56pm

I see Jim set me up to respond here!  I think all of us are interested in how to involve all undergraduates in research/discovery as early in their academic careers as possible.  For large universities with 100s of biology majors (and others!), this is a massive undertaking - for logistical, scientific and cultural reasons!

Here are some of the large-scale programs I've seen lately (focusing on first or second year experiences but wandering a bit at the end):

UC Santa Barbara: http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/23431

University of Texas, Austin's Freshman Research Initiative (http://fri.cns.utexas.edu/). I heard Sarah Simmons present on at the PUI conference at CSU Fullerton.  See also http://cns.utexas.edu/deans-office/curriculum-programs/ohris  Sarah is part of pulsecommunity: http://www.pulsecommunity.org/profile/SarahLSimmons

I also heard about University of Florida's efforts (http://cur.aa.ufl.edu/; and http://www.biology.ufl.edu/Undergraduates/Research.aspx).  There aren't specific numbers presented on these websites but I think they achieve remarkable involvement by a large majority of biology undergrads and have assessment data on their efforts.  David Julian is on PULSE as well - perhaps he can help? http://www.pulsecommunity.org/profile/DavidJulian

Other communities, like the GEP program (http://www.hhmi.org/grants/professors/elgin.html) involve "massively parallel undergraduates" (Sarah Elgin's term) in real, large scale science that leads, potentially, to publications. I heard from Jim Youngblom at CSU Stanislaus last week that 80 of his students will be on a GEP publication.

These data-intensive experiences are promising and perhaps can be targeted/scaled to first and second year students as well.  A taskforce of CSU faculty aimed to develop modules around this idea last year - they are just going "into production" at several campuses (http://gep.wustl.edu/curriculum/course_materials_GEP_partners/csupe...).

Lastly, I heard Nirav Merchant (U.Arizona, iPlant project) - he's got some examples of how their Atmosphere cloud computing platform might be useful for large groups of students as well. http://www.iplantcollaborative.org/discover/atmosphere

There must be many other examples - I hope we can highlight them here!

Comment by Melanie Riedinger-Whitmore on September 23, 2012 at 3:26pm

Hi James,

We conducted two pilot courses this summer, one a study abroad course in Panama and Costa Rica (12 students, 2 faculty), and the second an on campus course on bird ecology (~ 7 students, 1 faculty member).  The study abroad course had students work in groups on campus to design field research projects that they could conduct in Panama and Costa Rica. While in the field, they collected data, and when they returned to campus, they analyzed and presented their data (written and oral forms). The bird ecology course was structured differently. The class chose a few research questions of interest, and then worked as a class to collect data.  Part of the course was devoted to getting the students to develop writing and critiquing skills, and the end result was a manuscript where all students contributed to the data analysis, writing and editing.  Both courses were learning experiences, for the students as well as the faculty.  The study abroad course experienced some frustrating days when equipment at field stations didn't work, when they couldn't collect the data they had intended, the lack of prior knowledge about what they would find in the field, and the faculty members who taught the course felt frustrated when they they couldn't answer student questions about a particular plant or animal.  Students had a great time, felt they learned alot, and some of the projects - in the end - did result in interesting data and analyses.  Not all projects worked out, though, and we realized that the diversity of the students and the topics they chose made it difficult to fully anticipate problems and questions before heading into the field.  They received a great introduction to the process of science, though we hope that when we do this with a larger group, we can spend more time on preparation and assessment of student skills prior to data collection, etc.  The bird ecology course ran into the problem of time because the collection of data required students to allocate time outside of the classroom.  Alot of thought went into experimental design - by the faculty member and the students - but it took longer to collect data than the students and the faculty member had anticipated, and some students were frustrated by the technical writing process.  Students had a fairly varied background in terms of writing skills, and we realized that we needed to really build more writing experiences into the lower level required courses, to hopefully better prepare them for these types of upper-level courses.

For the larger research courses, we are considering limiting the scope of the projects explored during the course, but still allowing students to pursue tangential questions.  We also realize we need to build in the data collection components into the hours that the class actually meets. So, we are considering offering the courses in shorter summer sessions.  Lastly, we'll be trying to link these course with an experimental design course that is required of all Biology students, and which is focused on students working with statistical analysis of data sets.  A main challenge of both summer courses was trying to figure out how to build meaningful projects and learning experiences for students with substantial variability in academic preparation. 

Comment by James P. Prince on September 23, 2012 at 2:29pm

Melanie, it would be great to know what your plans are for the 24-student research courses.  We have 800 biology majors and 18 faculty.   Our faculty have quite a few undergraduates working in their labs and field projects, but we miss providing research experiences to many and are exploring ways to increase research exposure.   I know that some other institutions have found ways to do undergraduate research on a large scale.  Susan Baxter, one of our group members, may be able to point us in the right direction.   She is a huge proponent of undergraduate research and has been to symposia recently where faculty members have talked about their successes in this area.

Kathy, thanks for telling people about the STEP program.  One of the faculty members in our College is applying to STEP this cycle.  

Comment by Melanie Riedinger-Whitmore on September 23, 2012 at 1:40pm

Hello all,

I'm looking forward to being part of this forum! I am chairperson of the Department of Biological Sciences at University of South Florida St. Petersburg, part of the USF system in central and western Florida.  We just started our Biology undergraduate program this August (2012), and now have over 450 majors, which far exceeded our expectations of 100 in 5 years. 
When we proposed the program we wanted to make research a core component of our degree, requiring all students to participate in a 3 credit hr independent study course.  We have too few full-time faculty at present to permit this, as well as limited research space.  We are piloting research based and field courses with caps set at 24, and research experiences as the central feature of the course curriculum. This is in addition to offering independent study.   I'm interested in how others have dealt with trying to make research a central part of the undergraduate biology curriculum while dealing with limited faculty, space, and financial support.  Many of our students work off-campus, most live off-campus, and since we are part of a large metropolitan area, commuting is an important factor for our students. 

Comment by KATHLEEN A MARRS on September 1, 2012 at 5:39pm

Hello all:  I am a faculty member at IUPUI (http://www.iupui.edu), a campus where a student can get a degree from both Purdue University (School of Science, School of Engineering & Technology) and/or a degree from Indiana University (all other schools on campus - -Liberal Arts, Education, Business, etc.) – at the same time.   We are a big urban campus of 30,000 mostly non-residential students, located blocks from the state capitol and basically located at a mid-point between our two ‘sister’ campuses – Purdue to the north and IU-Bloomington to the south.  I don't know if that makes us a ‘super-comprehensive’ university, but it sure does make for some interesting arrangements! 

One initiative that has really helped our two Purdue Schools (Science and E&T) is an NSF-STEP grant (http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2011/nsf11550/nsf11550.htm).  My colleague Jeff Watt is the PI, and I am one of the Co-PIs (http://step.iupui.edu/).  In the past year, the STEP grant has allowed us to fund many new programs, course transformations, and student opportunities on campus, such as

1. Genetics K322 Peer Recitation (Biology)
2. Chemistry C341 Organic Chemistry Workshop Series (Chemistry)
3. Calculus Course Redesign with Recitations (Mathematics)
4. Ivy Tech Community College 2+2 Degree Articulations (Math, Chemistry)
5. STEM Summer Residential Bridge (School of Science Women in Science House)
6. Mathematics Post-enrollment Initiatives  (Mathematics)
7. Career Development Services Office  (School of Science)
8. Physics Learning Space – PhyLS (Physics)
9. Career Development Services Internship Program (School of Science)
10. Honors Seminars (Honors College

This is already making a big impact on our student success and graduation rates!   If you have ever considered applying for one of these grants, I would highly recommend it! 

Kathy Marrs,  kmarrs@iupui.edu
Department of Biology
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs

Comment by Dave Brashinger on August 17, 2012 at 10:04pm

James, we are in a similar situation at American Public University/American Military University. We conduct a one-semester GE anatomy & physiology course for approximately 4000+ online students each year. I am very interested in PULSE for ideas on how to focus on scientific literacy while maintaining academic rigor. How do we assess competency at the GE level?

Comment by James P. Prince on August 8, 2012 at 1:14pm

At Fresno State, the Department of Biology has been working on course re-design for our large GE biology course (which serves over 2,000 students per year) with some financial help from APLU and the Gates Foundation.  Re-design efforts will start this coming year with our large anatomy and physiology service courses (each serving about 350 students per year).  Goals are for increased student success and satisfaction while at the same time maintaining rigor.  Many avenues for improvement will be explored, some of which we hope to learn about through PULSE and the Comprehensive University group members.

Comment by James P. Prince on July 30, 2012 at 12:42pm

Dear "Comprehensive University" PULSE group members:  

Welcome to our group!  Thanks for joining.  Please invite anyone to join who you think would benefit from the group, or vice-versa.  I know that some of our institutions have PULSE-related issues on their radar, already.   Let's wait a few days to let our group expand, and then perhaps we can start some posts about current efforts and what we would like to see happen in the future.

-Jim Prince