Sarah C. R. Elgin

Changing the Culture of Science Education at Research Universities

Universities must better recognize, reward, and support the efforts of researchers who are also excellent and dedicated teachers. Professors have two primary charges: generate new knowledge and educate students. The reward systems at research universities heavily weight efforts of many professors toward research at the expense of teaching, particularly in disciplines supported extensively by extramural funding (1). Although education and lifelong learning skills are of utmost importance in our rapidly changing, technologically dependent world (2), teaching responsibilities in many STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) disciplines have long had the derogatory label “teaching load” (3, 4). Some institutions even award professors “teaching release” as an acknowledgment of their research accomplishments and success at raising outside research funds.

The Genomics Education Partnership: Successful Integration of Research into Laboratory Classes at a Diverse Group of Undergraduate Institutions

Genomics is not only essential for students to understand biology but also provides unprecedented opportunities for undergraduate research. The goal of the Genomics Education Partnership (GEP), a collaboration between a growing number of colleges and universities around the country and the Department of Biology and Genome Center of Washington University in St. Louis, is to provide such research opportunities. Using a versatile curriculum that has been adapted to many different class settings, GEP undergraduates undertake projects to bring draft-quality genomic sequence up to high quality and/or participate in the annotation of these sequences. GEP undergraduates have improved more than 2 million bases of draft genomic sequence from several species of Drosophila and have produced hundreds of gene models using evidence-based manual annotation. Students appreciate their ability to make a contribution to ongoing research, and report increased independence and a more active learning approach after participation in GEP projects. They show knowledge gains on pre- and postcourse quizzes about genes and genomes and in bioinformatic analysis. Participating faculty also report professional gains, increased access to genomics-related technology, and an overall positive experience. We have found that using a genomics research project as the core of a laboratory course is rewarding for both faculty and students.

Genomics Education Partnership

The Genomics Education Partnership offers an inclusive model for undergraduate research experiences, with students pooling their work to contribute to international databases.

A Course-Based Research Experience: How Benefits Change with Increased Investment in Instructional Time

While course-based research in genomics can generate both knowledge gains and a greater appreciation for how science is done, a significant investment of course time is required to enable students to show gains commensurate to a summer research experience. Nonetheless, this is a very cost-effective way to reach larger numbers of students.

A Central Support System Can Facilitate Implementation and Sustainability of a Classroom-Based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) in Genomics

There have been numerous calls to engage students in science as science is done. A survey of 90-plus faculty members explores barriers and incentives when developing a research-based genomics course. The results indicate that a central core supporting a national experiment can help overcome local obstacles.

Insights from a Convocation: Integrating Discovery-Based Research into the Undergraduate Curriculum

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine organized a convocation in 2015 to explore and elucidate opportunities, barriers, and realities of course-based undergraduate research experiences, known as CUREs, as a potentially integral component of undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education. This paper summarizes the convocation and resulting report.

Response to the Letter to the Editor by Dunning Hotopp and Klasson

In [Leung et al. (2017)][1], we provide evidence that Drosophila transposons have been major contributors to the expansion of the Drosophila ananassae fourth chromosome (Muller F element) arms. Dunning Hotopp and Klasson agree with this finding, but they take exception to our second conclusion, that