Approaches toward engaging undergraduates in scientific research have included research experiences based in faculty laboratories (FLREs), course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs), and courses rooted in primary research literature that may be precursors to research experiences. We examined outcomes for undergraduate biology students…

Introduction to Primary Literature (IPL) courses can be early-career precursors to undergraduate research experiences, whereby students can become familiar with potential mentors and their research toward better alignment with student/faculty interests and goals. IPL courses have been shown to increase student science self-efficacy and…

Peer Led Team Learning (PLTL) is an active learning model that is particularly effective for improving the academic achievement and retention of students who have been marginalized in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), such as women, and members of underrepresented minority groups. Cyber Peer Led Team Learning (cPLTL) is a…

"January Undergraduate Move Ahead Program" (JUMP) uses winter break as an opportunity to prepare small groups of scholarship students with high financial need for the second semester of their first-year biology curriculum and a career in life science. A winter intersession program has challenges, but more importantly, benefits that…

The COVID-19 pandemic forced higher education to develop new strategies to meet the needs of students. One of the most critical issues was delivering an online experience in undergraduate Biology laboratories aimed at meeting hands-on outcomes, specifically within the health sciences. Hybrid lab group models in which students rotated between…

3D printing is a widely used technology in a number of STEM fields and can be incorporated into undergraduate education in order to engage students in active learning. Using the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework, this study examined student perceptions of completing 3D printing of a physical model in two different…

Employing scientific reasoning when giving biological explanations comes easily to the experienced scientist. However, students often encounter difficulty when they attempt to explain biological phenomena. One significant obstacle appears to be the failure or inability to bear in mind the levels of organization. To address this issue, learning…

In our biomedical educational program, students follow research courses. Traditionally, students receive research questions and predetermined, teacher-prepared lists of laboratory materials to use. Currently, we aim to increase our research courses' inquiry level towards a more open inquiry by omitting these teacher-prepared lists. Additionally,…

To increase our students' access to study abroad opportunities, a full semester course was designed that embedded a study abroad trip to Belize during spring break. The course fulfills both an upper level science course for both biology and biotechnology majors and an elective course for the Global Studies minor. Ten students enrolled in the…

Anatomy and Physiology should be considered a gateway course due to its challenging scope and key role as a foundational prerequisite for many degree programs. Students often encounter gateway classes early in their college career when they are academically vulnerable due to their lack of university experience. A&P teaching methods are…

Pre-nursing students of an introductory Microbiology laboratory class, having learnt typical microbiological techniques during the semester, gained the confidence of conducting an inquiry-based project as part of their lab course work. Students cooperatively performed a microbiological analysis, to evaluate safety of sushi. This paper presents…

Evidence of the effectiveness of active learning has resulted in a shift in post-secondary classrooms towards student-centred teaching, often relying heavily on peer-to-peer interactions. While the overall benefit of these teaching methods is established, it remains unclear whether all sub-populations of students benefit similarly. Given the…

Because students and professors place different values on syllabi components, perceptions of course objectives vary. Previous studies investigated the relationship between students' and instructors' expectations and syllabi content, but do not address the role of explicitly stated course objectives in syllabi. Our study used qualitative methods to…

Hands-on research provides insight into the process of science and has been linked to increased retention of students in STEM disciplines. While large research universities can provide valuable undergraduate research experiences in laboratories, most cannot accommodate all of the students seeking research apprenticeships. Course-based…

Multiple worldwide efforts, including research experiences and internships for students, have been developed to increase diversity in STEM. In order to understand the outcomes of these research experiences, instruments have become available, but surprisingly, Spanish instruments for these purposes are scarce. The evaluation of diverse scientific…