Undergraduate Research Experiences for STEM Students Successes, Challenges, and Opportunities (2017) / Chapter Skim
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2 Heterogeneity of Undergraduate Research Experiences: Characterizing the Variability
2 Heterogeneity of Undergraduate Research Experiences: Characterizing the Variability
Pages 33-68
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From page 33... ...
For some UREs, the goal might be to have students persist in a STEM discipline, but for other UREs the goal may be to have students become an informed citizen 1 This chapter includes content from papers commissioned by the committee titled Strength ening Research Experiences for Undergraduate STEM Students: The Co-Curricular Model of the Research Experience by Linda Blockus (Blockus, 2016) and Course-based Undergraduate esearch Experiences: Current Knowledge and Future Directions by Erin Dolan (Dolan, 2016)
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From page 34... ...
The Council on Undergraduate Research defines undergraduate research as "an inquiry or investigation conducted by an undergraduate student that makes an original intellectual or creative contribution to the discipline."2 Faculty associated with the group CUREnet proposed a definition of a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) that requires the integration of five dimensions: use of scientific practices, discovery, broadly relevant or important work, collaboration, and iteration (Auchincloss et al., 2014)
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From page 35... ...
To help demonstrate the wide variety of experiences that have developed, this chapter groups UREs into the following types: • Individual faculty research group (apprentice-style) ; • Capstone experiences and senior theses; • Internships and co-ops; • CUREs; • Wrap-around experiences; • Bridge programs; • Consortium/project-based programs; and • Community-based research programs.
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From page 36... ...
norms of the research environment (e.g., identity, self-efficacy, self-confidence, specific experiences around gender and race in STEM) • Guide students in learning about and exploring future educational or career pathways • Construct research experience appropriate to students' skills and understanding of disciplinary material • Introduce relevant concepts, ways of thinking, and skills • Assign research tasks • Encourage lab participation • Monitor progress of students
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• Summer research experiences (8-10 weeks; ~40 hours per week) • Academic year research placement (30 or more weeks)
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, academic credit, or both. Stipends are typically provided for summer research experiences and academic-year extensions of those experiences.
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Many professional societies have a funding mechanism to which undergraduate students can apply and which will subsidize their travel expenses. Moreover, students also may develop manuscripts for submission or may be included in publications as a coauthor with others, depending on the research group's policies.
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, but also can impact undergraduates' access to research experiences. Departments that encourage faculty to take actions that embed research experiences into the curriculum through the use of independent studies, credit-bearing summer research programs, academic year seminars, and CUREs may increase the number of students who participate in UREs (Free et al., 2015)
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From page 41... ...
Box 2-1 summarizes the challenges encountered by one university official in his efforts to determine how many students participated in UREs at the University of California, Davis. BOX 2-1 Efforts to Document the Number of Undergraduate Researchers Professor Marco Molinaro, Assistant Vice Provost for Undergraduate Educa tion at the University of California, Davis, recently summarized many of the most important challenges and opportunities in this area.
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From page 42... ...
Summer bridge programs, like other summer URE programs, are offered outside of the academic year but are shorter than a full year. However, summer bridge programs are more likely to be group-based, whereas summer URE programs cover a wide variety of program styles ranging from group-based efforts to students working independently within a research environment (e.g., a faculty member's lab or field opportunity, an industry setting)
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From page 43... ...
For example, NSF supports a wide range of projects across the STEM subdisciplines through the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) programs.3 Students typically apply for REUs through a competitive process so that they can spend the summer in a laboratory or at a field site (domestic or international)
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Students receive a $4,000 stipend, $400 for travel costs to present their work at conferences, travel support to and from the URE, and shared on-campus housing. SOURCE: Committee developed from the consortium website at http://www.willamette.edu/ cla/math/reu [November 2016]
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This detection technique can be used in the early detection and diagnosis of cancer, with the ultimate goal of improving survival rates. SOURCE: Committee developed from the website at http://www.olin.edu/projects-research/ capstone-culminating [November 2016]
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This phase ends with students interacting at faculty conferences, discussing their employer's performance evaluation, debriefing with the faculty coordinator, and delivering an oral presentation. SOURCE: Committee developed from the website at http://www.northeastern.edu/physics-coop [November 2016]
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Box 2-6 highlights the components in costs and mentoring at Drexel University for co-op experiences offered there. Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences In CUREs, students investigate novel research questions and therefore contribute new knowledge to the field.
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Students earn academic credit for participating in the CURE, which may replace required traditional course labs in some cases. Some CUREs offer the oppor unity to continue research in the summer.
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Some CUREs are a single semester, others last for two semesters (see Box 2-7 on the SEA-Phages program and Box 2-8 on the Binghamton University Lyme and Other Tick-Borne Disease Project) , whereas others can last three or more semesters (see Box 2-9 on the Freshman Research Initiative at The University of Texas at Austin)
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A program sponsored by NIH, Maximizing Access to Research Careers (MARC) , is a national-level program that provides financial support to historically underrepresented minority students for a 24-month period to improve their preparation for high-caliber graduate training at the doctoral level.8 MARC institutions select the trainees, typically students in the last 2 years of undergraduate study who have expressed interest in pursuing an advanced degree.
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From page 51... ...
Students in the second course of the two-course sequence are required to present their individual research projects using a PowerPoint briefing in lieu of an annotated bibliography and paper. SOURCE: Committee developed from the website on the Binghamton University Lyme and Other Tick-Borne Disease Project, see https://www.binghamton.edu/undergraduate-research/ hhmi/current-projects.html#five [November 2016]
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The latter programs are typically referred to as postbaccalaureate programs. Bridge programs can serve to introduce research early in a student's career, when they not only provide the opportunity to begin making connections between classroom and learning within the research environment, but also can provide access to research faculty with whom undergraduate students would not otherwise interact until they took more advanced courses.
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. Bridge programs are also offered for incoming graduate students, for whom they provide an opportunity to begin research group rotations before their formal graduate training program begins.
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. SOURCES: Committee developed from the Bridge to Baccalaureate Program website at http://biology.sfsu.edu/faculty-pages/bridges_main [November 2016]
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Undergraduate students apply to participate in summer research teams of five to eight students and two or more collaborating faculty. In addition to field sites in North America, many teams travel abroad, gaining both geology research experience and exposure to other cultures.
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. Community-Based Research Programs Often linked to service-learning courses, community-based research experiences are a unique type of URE that includes service to the community as an outcome of the research.
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SOURCE: Committee developed from the VIP Program website at http://www.vip.gatech. edu [November 2016]
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It brings together outstanding undergraduates (nominated by HHMI-funded educational program directors, HHMI research professors, or from a Science Education Alliance school) and pairs the selected students with HHMI research professors across the country for a summer research experience.
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Additional information, including demographic data, can be found on the Leadership Alliance website. SOURCES: Committee developed from the programs' websites at http://www.hhmi.org/ programs/exceptional-research-opportunities-program [November 2016]
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The National Center for Earth-Surface Dynamics 2 at the University of M innesota received funding from the NSF Science and Technology Center to develop a program that introduces undergraduate students to research with a focus on community-based participatory research and diverse disciplinary teams. Students work on one of three teams on projects that integrate Earth-surface dy namics, geology, ecology, and other disciplines using quantitative and predictive methods.
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From page 61... ...
These introductory experiences with open-ended inquiry might be in the form of a research methods class that allows students to perform many aspects of the research experience -- formulating, executing, and presenting the results of a research project -- with the goal of developing the skills, motivation, and confidence to engage further as a STEM professional.
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From page 62... ...
The curricula and pedagogy facilitate a discovery-as-if-new experience, build collaboration skills, and support development of science/engineering identity. For example, selected geology undergraduate students at Hope College completed two international field expeditions to Sweden in the past 10 years.13 Goals of the program included reinforcing how research questions are formulated and answered with field observations.
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From page 63... ...
• Assume responsibility for a novel independent research project from beginning to end • Review, evaluate, and integrate findings from the primary literature to design and interpret the results of the project • Conduct research under the guidance of a mentor and make decisions to adjust or change the direction of the project when necessary • Analyze data, draw conclusions, and communicate research findings verbally or in writing to the research team • Define directions for future studies based on research results Research Program • Extensive intellectual engagement in research and professional development • Develop contextual understanding through peer review by communicating research findings beyond the immediate research community of practice • Build a research professional network by socializing into the culture of research beyond the immediate research community of practice • Explore research careers • Develop research identity through guided reflection and self evaluation FIGURE 2-1 Model for student research engagement. SOURCE: Committee adapted from Blockus (2016)
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The expectation of intellectual engagement at this stage may be minimal, as it is merely intended to provide students with opportunities to develop basic research skills appropriate to their discipline. As students participate in more and different experiences, the level of engagement may increase as the student becomes more fluent with the practices of research, which may lead to greater independence in the work they undertake.
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Paper commissioned for the Committee on Strengthening Research Experiences for Undergraduate STEM Students. Board on Sci ence Education, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education.
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From page 66... ...
. Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences: Current Knowledge and Future Directions.
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. Geoscience Education Research Project: Student benefits and effective design of a course-based undergraduate research experi ence.
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. Senior Capstone Design Experiences for ABET Accredited Undergrad uate Electrical and Computer Engineering Education.
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