A Broadly Implementable Research Course in Phage Discovery and Genomics for First-Year Undergraduate Students
By Tuajuanda C. Jordan, S. Burnett, S. Carson, Steven M. Caruso, Kari L. Clase, R. DeJong, J. Dennehy, D. Denver, David A. Dunbar, Sarah C. R. Elgin and 30 more. 2014
470 citations recorded by the source corpus.
ABSTRACT Engaging large numbers of undergraduates in authentic scientific discovery is desirable but difficult to achieve. We have developed a general model in which faculty and teaching assistants from diverse academic institutions are trained to teach a research course for first-year undergraduate students focused on bacteriophage discovery and genomics. The course is situated within a broader scientific context aimed at understanding viral diversity, such that faculty and students are collaborators with established researchers in the field. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Science Education Alliance Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science (SEA-PHAGES) course has been widely implemented and has been taken by over 4,800 students at 73 institutions. We show here that this alliance-sourced model not only substantially advances the field of phage genomics but also stimulates students’ interest in science, positively influences academic achievement, and enhances persistence in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. Broad application of this model by integrating other research areas with large numbers of early-career undergraduate students has the potential to be transformative in science education and research training. IMPORTANCE Engagement of undergraduate students in scientific research at early stages in their careers presents an opportunity to excite students about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines and promote continued interests in these areas. Many excellent course-based undergraduate research experiences have been developed, but scaling these to a broader impact with larger numbers of students is challenging. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Science Education Alliance Phage Hunting Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science (SEA-PHAGES) program takes advantage of the huge size and diversity of the bacteriophage population to engage students in discovery of new viruses, genome annotation, and comparative genomics, with strong impacts on bacteriophage research, increased persistence in STEM fields, and student self-identification with learning gains, motivation, attitude, and career aspirations. Engagement of undergraduate students in scientific research at early stages in their careers presents an opportunity to excite students about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines and promote continued interests in these areas. Many excellent course-based undergraduate research experiences have been developed, but scaling these to a broader impact with larger numbers of students is challenging. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Science Education Alliance Phage Hunting Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science (SEA-PHAGES) program takes advantage of the huge size and diversity of the bacteriophage population to engage students in discovery of new viruses, genome annotation, and comparative genomics, with strong impacts on bacteriophage research, increased persistence in STEM fields, and student self-identification with learning gains, motivation, attitude, and career aspirations.
Subfields: Ecology, Molecular Biology, Safety Research
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Citations in the corpus
- Improving Underrepresented Minority Student Persistence in STEM (2016, background): “These types of curricular changes have been shown to impact knowledge acquisition and psychosocial outcomes and persistence for students, (Shear and Simmons, 2011; Brownell et al., 2012; Alkaher and Dolan, 2014; Bangera and Brownell, 2014; Jordan et al., 2014).”
- PhagesDB: the actinobacteriophage database (2017, methodology): “Second, PhagesDB links students from across the world who are performing authentic research via the SEA-PHAGES program (Jordan et al. , 2014), and demonstrates that their discoveries are indeed meaningful and relevant to the research community at large.”