Cottrell Scholars 2018 Lou Charkoudian, Haverford College, and 2021 Daniela Fera, Swarthmore College, recently hosted a cross-campus Course-based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) symposium where students presented their research to each other as part of their classes.
The December 4 symposium, held at Swarthmore’s Science Center, involved 28 students (14 from each college) who worked in small teams of two to four to prepare and present research carried out as part of their course work.
“What moved us both the most was seeing many of our students see themselves as scientists for the first time not just as they presented their data but as they asked probing questions about other biochemical research projects,” said Charkoudian.
“It was amazing to see how engaged students were in one another’s work,” added Fera.
CURE is a pedagogical model where students engage in original, collaborative research, becoming active participants in the process of science rather than passive recipients of knowledge. Including authentic research opportunities in the undergraduate curriculum has become a best practice in education, known for enhancing student learning and encouraging more students at earlier points of their academic careers to envision a future in STEM.
RCSA has long supported awardees’ efforts to adopt innovative pedagogical approaches, and advances in teaching and mentoring approaches are frequent topics at Cottrell Scholar conferences.
In 2018, RCSA published a Cottrell Scholars Collaborative book, Expanding the CURE Model: Course-based Undergraduate Research Experience, written by a group of Cottrell Scholars. Download RCSA publications here.
“This is exactly the educational impact we wish to have — undergraduates working in authentic research and immersed in a collaborative environment,” said RCSA Senior Director Silvia Ronco, who leads the Cottrell Scholar program.
The students in Fera’s Advanced Experimental Biochemistry course have been focused on determining three-dimensional models of a kinase or kinase complex, a project stemming directly from her Cottrell Scholar Award. Half of the class worked to generate a more complete structural model of Lyn, a kinase critical for the immune response. The other half studied the MEK–ERK kinase system, which also plays roles in immunity as well as in regulating cell growth and proliferation. During the first half of the course, all students engaged in both computational and experimental work to design and produce mutants, either to identify sites that keep Lyn in its “off” state or to strengthen the interaction between MEK and ERK. In the second half of the course, students carried out a range of structural, binding, and activity assays to evaluate the impact of their mutations.
The students in Charkoudian’s Biochemistry Superlab focused on studying the conformational dynamics of acyl carrier proteins involved in natural product biosynthesis. During the first half of the course, students’ lab work was structured as they learned key concepts/techniques related to the field, and they were challenged to propose seven weeks of experiments on an important and interesting open question related to this topic. Charkoudian then refined the projects, which were carried out in teams of two during the second half of the course. Several teams proposed building chimeric ACPs and/or use site-specific vibrational spectroscopy to study different fast and functionally relevant motions of ACPs.
These general approaches were established from Charkoudian’s original Cottrell Scholar Award, and the latter was carried out in collaboration with Cottrell Scholar 2008 Casey Londergan, also at Haverford.
“It is really amazing to see how the impact of these awards has extended well beyond the funding period, both in terms of ideas and connections to collaborators,” Charkoudian said.
Fera said she was first encouraged to develop a CURE while attending the Cottrell Scholars Collaborative New Faculty Workshop in 2017, where she learned about similar courses at other institutions. She said having other Cottrell Scholars within the Tri-College Consortium (an academic partnership between Bryn Mawr College, Haverford and Swarthmore College) has been invaluable.
“Lou, in particular, offered helpful advice as I began designing my own course which launched in 2018,” Fera said. “Attending the annual conference and talking to Cottrell Scholars has continually reinforced my commitment to this approach and has inspired me to keep evolving the course over the years.”
Charkoudian said hearing what other members of the CS community are doing has inspired her to take on more challenging research questions and more innovative teaching approaches.
The idea for the symposium came when Fera and Charkoudian, who were both stepping into new roles as department chairs this year, meet for lunch to discuss how they could support their departments and each other. When they realized they were both teaching CUREs, they decided it would be fun to connect their classes.
“The more we thought about it, the more we realized that it would be an innovative and effective way for students to practice their communication and networking skills,” said Charkoudian. “We put it on the calendar, built our classes around this shared event, and found it highly motivating to our students. We’ll definitely be looking to do this again.”