Darling Louise E O, Pociask Sarah, Goss John W, Roden Julie A
Department of Biological Sciences, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts, USA.
Biochemistry Program, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts, USA.
J Microbiol Biol Educ. 2025 Aug 21;26(2):e0019024. doi: 10.1128/jmbe.00190-24. Epub 2025 Apr 30.
Recent trends in undergraduate biology education include incorporating more inquiry/research-focused experiments into laboratory courses as a way to engage students and promote persistence in science. However, many faculty members face constraints in redesigning curricula, including a lack of time for course development. In addition, some undergraduate students find it difficult or intimidating to identify a first independent research position. We describe our experience working with student curricular interns to redesign a cell biology laboratory to be more inquiry-based. Students enrolled in the redesigned course felt that their course research experience was authentic and self-reported improvement in many fundamental scientific skills. Moreover, participating in the redesign project had positive effects on our curricular interns' experiences by exposing them to independent research, pedagogical design, and near-peer teaching. Thus, we believe that developing ways to introduce inquiry-based learning into curricula as a collaborative effort with undergraduate curricular interns has benefits for enrolled students, curricular interns, and faculty. We encourage other undergraduate science faculty to consider this model as they revise their courses.
本科生物学教育的近期趋势包括在实验课程中纳入更多以探究/研究为重点的实验，以此来吸引学生并促进他们在科学领域的坚持。然而，许多教师在重新设计课程时面临限制，包括缺乏课程开发的时间。此外，一些本科生发现很难找到或害怕找到第一个独立的研究岗位。我们描述了与学生课程实习生合作重新设计细胞生物学实验室以使其更具探究性的经历。参加重新设计课程的学生认为他们的课程研究经历是真实的，并自我报告在许多基本科学技能方面有所提高。此外，参与重新设计项目对我们的课程实习生的经历产生了积极影响，让他们接触到独立研究、教学设计和近龄同伴教学。因此，我们认为，通过与本科课程实习生合作，开发将探究式学习引入课程的方法，对注册学生、课程实习生和教师都有好处。我们鼓励其他本科理科教师在修订课程时考虑这种模式。
