Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education

As one of the most famous fermented drinks in the world, beer is an especially relatable topic for microbiology courses. Here, we describe a short and easily adaptable module based on the antibacterial properties of hops used in brewing. By the 15th century, beer recipes included hops (the flower of the Humulus lupulus plant) as a bittering agent and antimicrobial. By the 19th century, the highly-hopped Indian Pale Ale (IPA) became popular, and a modern myth has emerged that IPAs were invented to survive long ocean voyages such as from Britain to India. With that myth in mind, we designed a hypothesis-driven microbiology lab module that tests the plausibility of this brewing myth-- namely that highly-hopped beers possess enough antibacterial activity to prevent spoilage, while lowly-hopped beers do not. The overall design of the module is to test the antimicrobial properties of hops using petri plates containing varying concentrations of hop extract. The module includes hypothesis generation and testing related to bacterial physiology and morphology (hops are not equally effective against gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria), and to mechanisms of antimicrobial resistance (as beer spoilage bacteria have repeatedly evolved hop resistance). Pre and post assessment showed that students made significant gains in the learning objectives for the module, which encourages critical thinking and hypothesis testing by linking microbial physiology and antimicrobial resistance to an important and topical real-world application.

The Fly-CURE is a genetics-focused multi-institutional Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) that provides undergraduate students with hands-on research experiences within a course. Through the Fly-CURE, undergraduate students at diverse types of higher education institutions across the United States map and characterize novel mutants isolated from a genetic screen in Drosophila melanogaster. To evaluate the impact of the Fly-CURE experience on students, we developed and validated assessment tools to identify students perceived research self-efficacy, sense of belonging in science, and intent to pursue additional research opportunities. Our data show gains in these metrics after completion of the Fly-CURE across all student subgroups analyzed, including comparisons of gender, academic status, racial and ethnic groups, and parents educational background. Importantly, our data also show differential gains in the areas of self-efficacy and interest in seeking additional research opportunities between Fly-CURE students with and without prior research experience, illustrating the positive impact of research exposure (dosage) on student outcomes. Altogether, our data indicate that the Fly-CURE experience has a significant impact on students efficacy with research methods, sense of belonging to the scientific community, and interest in pursuing additional research experiences.

We developed and validated a new classroom observation protocol, Online COPUS (E-COPUS), to measure teaching and learning practices in the online learning environment. We collected COPUS and E-COPUS data from 40 STEM courses before, during the transition, and continuation of emergency remote teaching (ERT). Through weekly discussions among observers, we adjusted six of the original instructor COPUS code descriptions and six of the original student code descriptions to fit the online learning environment. We trained 23 observers to conduct E-COPUS utilizing both in-person and online lecture recordings. To validate E- COPUS, we consulted an expert panel of science educators and education researchers to provide feedback on our code descriptions and complete a matching activity with our E-COPUS code descriptions. We further examined E-COPUS by analyzing the teaching and learning practices of 6 instructors across in-person and online instruction and found that the online functions of breakout rooms, polling, and the chat were utilized to promote active learning activities in the online learning environment. As we prepare for teaching in the future, it is important to have formative assessment tools designed for all course formats to support assessment and improvement of teaching practices in college STEM classrooms.

Biology faculty have consensus-based guidelines based on Vision and Change principles about what to teach introductory biology majors. In contrast, faculty have not reached a consensus concerning the learning goals for introductory non-majors courses. Yet, more than 8 out of 10 undergraduates are not science majors. The goal of this study was to develop and evaluate learning objectives for non-majors introductory biology courses. We performed a modified-Delphi study of learning objectives (LOs) for non-majors biology. We engaged a total of 38 biology faculty experts from institutions across the US in three iterative rounds to identify, rate, discuss, and re-rate >300 LOs for non-majors biology courses. Faculty provided feedback to determine whether the LOs are critical for students to learn and if the LOs encompass what students need to learn about this issue, as well as if anything is missing. As a result of expert evaluation, 60.7% of LOs (164) were deemed critical. Experts also suggested 22 additional new LOs.

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) training can benefit STEM students. However, typical college settings often limit college students exposure to adult peers with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDDs), a historically marginalized group. To lower this barrier, we developed a continuing education program, Lifelong Learning with Friends (LLWF), aimed at adults with IDDs on a large university campus, which provides diversity training to college students. In this program, undergraduate and graduate students from scientific and education disciplines are recruited to volunteer as peers and helpers. LLWF has reached hundreds of students with and without IDDs each year and more than 1,500 over the past 12 years. In our program, college students gain DEI training through learning sophisticated academic topics, including sciences, alongside adults with IDDs. Almost half (42%) of surveyed LLWF college volunteers did not have prior exposure to people with IDDs. Following program participation, we found that, irrespective of prior exposure, nearly all (98%) of volunteers had elevated their expectations of people with IDDs and reported increased interest in IDDs-focused research, education, social interaction, and advocacy. Additionally, college volunteers reported that they improved their science communication by seeing how science could be taught to a broad audience that includes adults with IDDs. We therefore suggest that other universities may consider our LLWF model to enhance DEI training by expanding opportunities for neurotypical students to befriend and learn science alongside adults with IDDs.

The diversity of teaching professional development (PD) programs that occurred over the last few decades merits our collective attention to assess the impact of these programs over time. In general, the goal of PD programs is that participants continue to practice what they learn in the long term. However, we do not know the degree to which the outcomes of these programs were achieved and ultimately persist. We tracked postdoc participants from the Faculty Institutes for Reformed Science Teaching (FIRST) IV program into their current position as early-career faculty at institutions across the United States. We assessed their teaching approaches, practices, and student perceptions of the learning environment over 6-10 years. Additionally, the FIRST IV faculty were paired with colleagues of similar status in the same departments. We found that professional development outcomes from the FIRST IV program persisted over time and across a significant career transition, from postdoc to faculty. These participants not only maintained their student-centered practices, but were significantly more student-focused than their peers. Lastly, we found that faculty approaches to teaching were correlated with observed teaching practices in the classroom for both groups of faculty. These results provide compelling evidence for the success of the FIRST IV program and the long-term persistence of professional development outcomes.

The concept of biofilms and biofilm-based research is largely absent or minimally described in high school and undergraduate life science curriculum. While it is well-established that microbes, such as bacteria and fungi most often exist in multicellular biofilm communities, descriptions in standard biology textbooks continue to focus on the single-celled form of microbial life. We have developed an analogy-based instructional tool to introduce and explain biofilms to high school and undergraduate students. The module employs an analogy with beehives, given that biofilms and beehives are both superorganism states, to explain key biofilm features such as development and structure, chemical communication, division of labor and emergent properties. We delivered this analogy based learning tool to a cohort of 49 high school and undergraduate students, and based on participant feedback and learnings, present a formal evaluation of the instructional tool. Further, we outline prerequisites and learning approaches that can enable the delivery of this module in classroom and virtual learning settings, including suggestions for pre-lesson reading, student-centred interactive activities, and specific learning objectives. Taken together, this instructional analogy holds potential to serve as an educational tool to introduce biofilms in high school and undergraduate curricula in a relatable and comprehensible manner.

With a primary objective to engage students in the process of science online, we transformed a long-standing laboratory course for first-year science students into a more accessible, immersive experience of current biological research using a narrow and focused set of primary literature and the CREATE pedagogy. The efficacy of the CREATE approach has been demonstrated in a diversity of higher education settings and courses. It is, however, not yet known if CREATE can be successfully implemented online with a large, diverse team of faculty untrained in the CREATE pedagogy. Here, we present the transformation of a large-enrollment, multi-section, multi-instructor course for first-year students in which instructors follow different biological research questions but work together to reach shared goals and outcomes. We assessed students: (1) science self-efficacy and (2) epistemological beliefs about science throughout an academic year of instruction fully administered online as a result of ongoing threats posed by COVID-19. Our findings demonstrate that novice CREATE instructors with varying levels of teaching experience and ranks can achieve comparable outcomes and improvements in students science efficacy in the virtual classroom as a teaching team. This study extends the use of the CREATE strategy to large, team-taught, multi-section courses and shows its utility in the online teaching and learning environment.

The restructuring of an upper division biochemistry lab capstone course intended for biochemistry students with a range of laboratory experience was explored. A goal of the course was to give students practice with necessary skills in biochemical and biological techniques, especially for an entry level general position in biotechnology. The immediate impact of the online capstone course mandated by the COVID-19 pandemic limited students on learning essential hands-on research skills but evolved during the transition back to in-person instruction to include more elements of in-person practice. This article highlights the evolution of the capstone biochemistry lab to an in-person CURE capstone lab, with lessons learned and resources successfully used during the COVID-19 remote course. These include changes in the way information was disseminated, access to online resources, and modifications in student assessments. This article documents how course evolution resulted in a shift in pedagogical strategies leading to building a community of biochemistry learners that could be used to help college faculty in developing a CURE capstone lab.

Mentoring is a critical component of graduate education. However, conflicts can occur between faculty mentors and their graduate students, which can undermine the quality of these relationships. We leveraged attribution theory and relationship science to develop a novel professional development intervention that combines attribution retraining to enhance faculty beliefs that they can improve their mentoring relationships, and conflict management training to build faculty skills in having productive problem-solving conversations with their graduate students. We piloted and refined the intervention, then conducted a field test of the intervention with life science faculty (n = 71) from U.S. universities. Participants were randomly assigned to an asynchronous self-guided condition or to a self-guided + synchronous facilitated peer discussion condition. We measured faculty beliefs, perceived skills, and self-reported behaviors when encountering conflicts before and after participating in the intervention. Faculty in both conditions reported significant reductions in the frequency of conflicts with their students, the time and energy they spent addressing conflicts, and the extent to which conflicts disrupted their research productivity. Faculty also expressed increased confidence that they could manage conflicts. Our results suggest that the intervention has the potential to improve faculty capacity to effectively navigate conflicts with their graduate students. Highlight summaryA mentoring intervention for faculty combining attribution-retraining and conflict management skill-building strengthened faculty self-efficacy and motivational beliefs and reduced mentoring conflicts.

The development and use of virtual laboratories to augment traditional in-person skills training continues to grow. Virtual labs have been implemented in a number of diverse educational settings, which have many purported benefits including their adaptability, accessibility, and repeatability. However, few studies have evaluated the impact of virtual laboratories outside of academic achievement and skills competencies, especially in biotechnology. In this study, an interdisciplinary team of content experts, video game researchers, instructional designers, and assessment experts developed a 3D immersive simulation designed to teach novice scientists the technical skills necessary to perform sterile mammalian cell culture technique. Unique to the simulation development process is the recreation of an immersive experience through the capture of details in the real-world lab where participants have the freedom of choice in their actions, while receiving immediate feedback on their technical skills as well as procedural execution. However, unlike an in-person laboratory course, students are able to iterate and practice their skills outside of class time and learn from their mistakes. Using a mixed-methods study design, over the course of two semesters we evaluated student attitudes of the simulation and their science motivational beliefs including self-efficacy and science identity after engaging with the simulation prior to the physical laboratory. Our results show that students science identity remained unchanged while their science self-efficacy increased. Furthermore, students had positive perceptions of the benefits of the virtual simulation. These data suggest that the virtual cell culture simulation can be a useful pedagogical training tool to bolster students motivational beliefs that is both accessible and easy to implement.

Institutions across the world transitioned abruptly to remote learning in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This rapid transition to remote learning has generally been predicted to negatively affect students, particularly those marginalized due to their race, socioeconomic class, or gender identity. In this study, we examined the impact of this transition in the Spring 2020 semester on the grades of students enrolled in the in-person biology program at a large university in Southwestern United States as compared to the grades earned by students in the fully online biology program at the same institution. We also surveyed in-person instructors to understand changes in assessment practices as a result of the transition to remote learning during the pandemic. Finally, we surveyed students in the in-person program to learn about their perceptions of the impacts of this transition. We found that both online and in-person students received a similar small increase in grades in Spring 2020 compared to Spring 2018 and 2019. We also found no evidence of disproportionately negative impacts on grades received by students marginalized due to their race, socioeconomic class, or gender in either modality. Focusing on in-person courses, we documented that instructors made changes to their courses when they transitioned to remote learning, which may have offset some of the potential negative impacts on course grades. However, despite receiving higher grades, in-person students reported negative impacts on their learning, interactions with peers and instructors, feeling part of the campus community, and career preparation. Women reported a more negative impact on their learning and career preparation compared to men. This work provides insights into students perceptions of how they were disadvantaged as a result of the transition to remote instruction and illuminates potential actions that instructors can take to create more inclusive education moving forward.

Post-baccalaureate (post-bac) programs can be instrumental in strengthening science training and expanding STEM career opportunities for junior trainees. Many of these sponsored programs are designed to increase research exposure for underrepresented minorities, including African American, Hispanic, Native American, and first-generation college students, among others. Recruiting trainees to post-bac programs can be challenging for reasons including a lack of awareness about available programs. To address this gap, an Open House event was created with the goal of raising awareness and generating interest among potential students for future post-bac programs. Students were recruited from partnering Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) to attend a two-day event at a Primarily Undergraduate Institution (PUI) and a Research-Intensive (R1) institution. During the visit, students toured both campuses, learned about various post-bac programs and research opportunities, and interacted with faculty, current graduate students, and a former post-bac scholar. Transportation, lodging, and meals were provided. Participants completed voluntary pre- and post-surveys. Results indicated that attendees, the majority of whom were underrepresented minorities in STEM, left with a stronger understanding of post-bac programs and how these experiences could support their future careers in STEM and that students attendance at the event made it more likely they would apply to available post-bac programs. Mentor and MSI faculty survey responses highlighted their strong support for participating in future recruitment events. These findings demonstrate that in-person Open House events, built on collaborative partnerships across institutions, are an effective strategy for increasing awareness and encouraging participation in post-bac training programs-- particularly among underrepresented student populations.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programming and literature for historically underrepresented and marginalized students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics degree programs often focuses on illuminating the challenges they face. The repeated emphasis on negative experiences creates a deficit-focused thread of inquiry that may unintentionally reinscribe persistent disparities and inequities. In this practice brief, we describe the positive effect of adapting anti-deficit framework with social career cognitive theory in developing and evaluating an Initiative for Maximizing Student Development program at a biomedical sciences graduate school, as well as how other institutions can explore, implement, and evaluate transformative DEI practices. In identifying and emphasizing the enablers of success while facilitating structured opportunities for personal and professional identity development, students and program leadership align values and goals to increase academic and scientific development, as well as community and social support.

Summer research experiences expose undergraduate students to biomedical research in a laboratory or clinical setting, but often do not incorporate formal learning on scientific communication. Proper written and oral communication of science is essential to succeed in biomedical fields. This study examined whether participation in a science communication series (SCS) would increase gains in research and written communication abilities among students participated in the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine Department of Pediatrics Summer Research Internship Program. Surveys were administered at the beginning and end of the program to evaluate their summer undergraduate research experience (SURE). Positive personal and professional gains in research and communication skills were identified through participation in both SURE and SCS. Participation in the SCS also significantly improved the quality and presentation of research abstracts. Focused learning in science communication during SUREs would improve undergraduate students personal and professional abilities in biomedical research and medicine.

The value of science communication in engaging the public has been well established. While many new programs bridge the arts and sciences, conducting comprehensive examination of exiting art-science programs can produce more efficient training and program development guidance for improving visual communications in the sciences. Here, we recruited a variety of scientists and artists to collaborate in creating visual science communication products over three summers. Using survey data, we performed qualitative and quantitative analyses to define sources for negative and positive experiences and outcomes from the Vanderbilt Institute for Infection, Immunology, and Inflammation (VI4) Artist-in-Residence (AiR) program. Further, we analyze responses from participants, student-artists and faculty, to specify areas for improvement and areas successful in producing a positive experience and outcome in an AiR program. We found that time and virtual delivery of the program could be modified to improve the experience. Additionally, we found that student participants had more positive responses about "learning something new" from the program than faculty members. However, the most surprising aspect of our analysis suggests that for both "way of thinking" and "science communication to the public or general audience," there may be more significant beneficial gains for faculty compared to students. We conclude this analysis with suggestions to enhance the benefits and outcomes of an AiR program and ways to minimize the difficulties, such as communication and collaboration, faced by participants and program designers.

Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) are emerging as a means to engage large numbers of undergraduate students in meaningful inquiry-based research activities. We describe here a simple laboratory exercise as part of an undergraduate genetics course that illustrates the contributions of oncogenes and tumor suppressors to the formation of neoplasms in an invertebrate model system. In addition, students were challenged to investigate whether flies reared on a diet containing a variety of additives display a higher number of invasive tumors in the larval abdomen. The goal of the exercise was to (i) familiarize students with the multigenic origin of the cancer phenotype, to (ii) introduce some of the fundamental molecular cancer hallmarks, and to (iii) highlight the significance of invertebrate model systems in biomedical research. Furthermore, (iv) students learn to execute a molecular test for transgenic produce and (v) apply statistical tools to test a simple hypothesis. We evaluated student learning and changes in opinions and attitudes relating to environmental versus genetic causes of cancer and several common misconceptions using a questionnaire before and after completing the exercise. Overall, significant improvements in the rate of factually correct responses and reductions in uncertainty were demonstrated. Although resistance to change was apparent in regard to identifying some risk factors, there was clear learning and understanding of the core concepts of carcinogenesis and the utility of basic research with model organisms.

In the United States, STEM graduate programs and workforce do not represent the demographics of the population. Obstacles, including a lack of transparency, community, and accessible information in navigating academia, disproportionately affect students from underserved backgrounds. Peer mentoring networks can address these disparities. Here, we describe Cientifico Latino, Inc.s Graduate Student Engagement and Community (CL-GSEC) program, a nationwide, group-based peer mentorship program that has served first-year graduate students across the U.S., especially those from underserved backgrounds. Surveys indicate CL-GSEC positively impacts the first-year graduate experience. We highlight key program features, challenges, and insights, such as financial strains faced by first-year graduate students. We offer suggestions for how faculty and departments can better support students during this critical early stage of graduate training. We hope that reporting on CL-GSECs program structure, evaluations, and findings will guide educational leaders in expanding programming for junior graduate students.

The flexibility and precision of CRISPR-Cas9 and related technologies have made these genome editing tools increasingly popular in agriculture, medicine, and basic science research over the past decade. Genome editing will continue to be relevant and utilized across diverse scientific fields in the future. Given this, students should be introduced to genome editing technologies and encouraged to consider their ethical implications early on in pre-college biology curricula. Furthermore, instruction on this topic presents an opportunity to create partnerships between researchers and educators at the K-12 levels that can strengthen student engagement in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). To this end, we present a three-day student-centered learning program to introduce high school students to genome editing technologies through a hands-on base editing experiment in E. coli, accompanied by a relevant background lecture and facilitated ethics discussion. This unique partnership aims to educate students and provides a framework for research institutions to implement genome editing outreach programs at local high schools.

Teamwork is recognized as critical to solving complex societal challenges related to energy, health, and sustainability. With graduate education, students often gain teamwork experience through a problem-focused approach where they are brought into existing collaborations to pursue research that is focused on studying questions that have already been identified. Here, we describe an interdisciplinary educational program where graduate students were tasked with leading team formation, problem identification, and research formulation. This "team-first" training approach used a two-year curriculum to bring together students enrolled in diverse engineering and science graduate programs and provided students with a pedagogical understanding of interdisciplinarity, nurtured the development of student communication skills across disciplines, fostered student-led team formation and idea development, and empowered students to forge new connections between research groups. Assessment of three cohorts immediately following curriculum completion (n = 36) revealed significant gains in confidence in teamwork (p < 0.001) when compared to a control group of academic peers (n = 74). These gains varied across demographic groups, with women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics presenting the strongest gains. This finding illustrates the importance of exploring how interdisciplinary team curricula in graduate school could support overcoming the gender gap in confidence. SignificancePedagogical models for graduate education often neglect the importance of teamwork training. Here, we describe an interdisciplinary training program that was developed to bring together doctoral students from diverse science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines for a two-year curriculum that focused on teamwork training through student-led team formation, problem identification, and research formulation. Following program participation, we measured participant confidence in teamwork relative to a peer group. Our findings reveal gains with confidence in teamwork, with women presenting the strongest increases without negative effects on other groups. This pedagogical approach represents a strategy to close gender gaps in professional role confidence while complementing the benefits of traditional disciplinary training approaches.