Integrating Research and TeachingHeightens Value to and ofUndergraduatesEngaging students in activities outside the traditional curriculum inmicrobiology encourages them to become lifelong, critical thinkers

Alix Darden

When The Citadel hired me in1995, I was asked to developseveral courses, teach undergrad-uates about genetics, microbiol-ogy, molecular biology, and im-

munology, and set up a lab to involve some ofthose students in research projects. While I waspreparing for my first semester, my expectationswere straightforward. I envisionedmy primary role was to impart in-formation to students in the class-room and to familiarize them withthe scientific process through theirefforts in teaching laboratoriesand, in some cases, research labo-ratories.

Rather naively, I believed thatthe majority of my time at a schoolwhose primary mission is educat-ing undergraduates would bespent teaching. However, I learnedquickly that the majority of mywork did not directly involve timespent with students. Instead, Ifaced a variety of other faculty responsibilities,many of which kept me away from students(Table 1).

Of course, another unwritten duty for anyoneteaching undergraduate science courses entailsstaying current in your field, a duty that takes onnew dimensions because your field now includesa wide range of subjects covered in the coursesyou teach in addition to the field in which youare doing research. Moreover, microbiology, ge-netics, and the related fields that I teach aboutare not stagnant. New advances, both intellec-

tual and technological, are constant and many,meaning new information needs to be incorpo-rated steadily into classroom lectures and re-search projects.

Other duties revolve around research andteaching labs, both of which need to be supplied,organized, and have materials prepared. Inmany institutions these duties fall totally or at

least partly to whoever is teachingthe relevant courses. Hence, whenI include particular lab exercises inmy course syllabus, I need to con-sider the quality of the learningexperience and the cost as well asthe preparation time for each oneof them. Startup funds to supportresearch activities typically arelimited, meaning that teachersmay want to write grants to sup-port research and possibly alsosome of the activities undertakenin teaching laboratories. Also,down the road, a faculty memberwill need to show promotion and

tenure committees evidence of his or her schol-arly achievements, which typically include pre-senting research findings at national meetingsand then publishing reports based on that work.

Several Years of Teaching Change

One’s Perspective

After several years in my faculty position, myperspective of student-faculty interactions be-gan shifting. The student learning role seemedincredibly passive, and I often felt that I was

Rather naively, Ibelieved that

the majority ofmy time at aschool whose

primary missionis educating

undergraduateswould be spent

teaching

Alix Darden is anassociate professorat The Citadel inCharleston, S.C.(dardena@citadel.edu).

Volume 69, Number 7, 2003 / ASM News Y 331

spending far more time on the course than thestudents were. Meanwhile, I learned of a shiftamong educators at the national level, who be-gan promoting active student learning as part ofmovement to reform higher education.

During the past decade, faculty members andother experts across the country repeatedlycalled for fundamental challenges in postsec-ondary science education. One important pro-posal for reforming the system recommends cre-ating learner-centered environments in whichstudents actively learn science by doing re-search. For example, their academic progress inthe sciences is enhanced when they collaboratewith peers and instructors, engage in researchprojects, explore fewer classroom topics but ingreater depth, relate scientific understanding torelevant social issues, and develop oral and writ-ten communication skills. By participating inthese varied activities, science students learnhow to learn and become lifelong learners.

During this same period, both local and na-tional assessments of what students are learningbecame, and continue to be, a legislative issuetied to the financial support of many state insti-tutions. Faculty are required to show that theirstudents can think critically about relevant is-sues and apply the information in novel ways.Another higher education reform was intro-duced in 1990 with the publication of Scholar-ship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professori-

ate, by Ernest Boyer. It redefines scholarshipand what constitutes scholarly work, incor-porating not only the scholarship of discov-ery, but also the scholarship of teaching andlearning. In a sense, this new definition givesfaculty members at colleges and universitiesformal permission to look at what and howour students are learning.

When faculty members serve as mentorsto students doing research, this collabora-tion benefits both parties. I now regard stu-dent learning as an area of my research andwatch for all areas in which I can collabo-rate with my students. This type of relation-ship, in turn, provides faculty members withsupport and assistance on the job whereonce there was little, if any. The benefits tothe student include a chance to do the sci-ence that they are learning about in classes,insights into career paths that they mightfollow, and one-on-one interactions withindividual faculty members.

Because student learning is now an area of myresearch, I need to generate hypotheses to test.These observations led me to develop the fol-lowing hypothesis. Many time-consuming, sup-posedly routine faculty activities can be recast asvaluable learning moments for undergraduatestudents.

Engaging Students in Nontraditional

Learning Activities

I now routinely engage students in activities thatordinarily are not considered part of the tradi-tional college curriculum in biology and micro-biology (Table 2). I also reward these studentsfor participating in those varied learning activi-ties in a variety of ways, including with grades,food, fun, and opportunities to formulate andexpress their opinions. However students arerewarded, it is important that the faculty mem-ber recognize the time they spend doing some-thing as valuable. Examples of activities inwhich my students are often engaged includelaboratory prep work of several sorts, generat-ing exam questions and other classroom-relatedtasks, and reviewing research lab findings andobservations as part of the newest curriculumdevelopments.

Preparation of teaching labs puts enormousdemands on me, and I am not provided with anyassistants to help in this work. It is not unusual

Table 1. Examples of faculty responsibilities performed away fromstudents

Teaching Scholarship Service

Design coursesPrepare syllabusesWrite and grade tests,

papers, etc.Prepare laboratories for

classDevelop classroom

activities to enhancelearning

Develop newlaboratory exerciseswhich reflectadvances in the field

Stay abreast of currentliterature in all thefields you teach

Learn the classmanagementcomputer program ofyour institution

Stay abreast of currentliterature in your researchfield

Stay abreast of technicaladvances in your field

Write abstracts, papers,grants, etc.

Organize and run researchlab

Institutional committeesCommunityProfessional organizations

332 Y ASM News / Volume 69, Number 7, 2003

for me to prepare each week for two differ-ent upper-level laboratories. Now my stu-dents regularly participate in these activi-ties.

For the microbiology teaching labs, mystudents are responsible for making thegrowth media that are used. Each weekmedia requirements are listed, includinghow much to make and what type of vesselto use. Student groups check off what mediathey will make, divide the labor, and startmixing media soon after they enter the lab.

Each student also is required to partici-pate in one 30-minute lab clean-up sessionper semester during which they dispose of oldcultures, put away equipment, and refill reagentcontainers. On the last day of a class, all stu-dents participate in a major lab clean-up, eachgiven their own chore. By the time they leave, alldirty glassware is cleaned and put away, all oldcultures autoclaved and disposed of appropri-ately, workboxes cleaned out and reorganized,sinks washed down, and bench tops cleaned,leaving the lab ready for the next semester.

Our genetics teaching laboratory is not solabor intensive as the microbiology lab course.However, many students majoring in biologyeducation are interested in gaining such labpreparation experience, and I gladly teach themhow to prepare for our genetics lab course—helping with several tasks such as labeling re-agents for molecular biology exercises, breedingflies, pouring agar plates, making agarose gels,and setting up workstations.

I also engage students in several unusual ac-tivities to enhance their involvement in the class-room side of their course work. For instance, Igive students credit for generating test questionsand providing answers for those questions. Thisactivity requires a good working knowledge ofthe material being presented in lectures, mean-ing that students who come up with good examquestions are demonstrating an ability to applythe information.

Because I use modeling activities to help stu-dents understand abstract concepts and becauseidentifying such models can be very time con-suming, I also give students credit for findingand presenting their own examples of such mod-eling to the class. They are expected to provide ahandout that will facilitate anyone else in theclass using that activity.

Meanwhile, to teach them how to find and

evaluate current scientific information, studentsare required to do literature searches, to findrelated references on particular topics, and tooutline a paper that they might write using thesereferences. This exercise not only teaches themlifelong learning skills but also provides me withuseful information on topics that I sometimeslater incorporate into my lectures.

When introducing new laboratory exercisesor learning activities into classes, I often do so aspart of smaller, upper-level courses in whichhighly motivated students are enrolled. This ap-proach allows me to refine the newer exercises,figuring that, if these motivated students cannotmake it work, then it probably is not going towork for first- and second-year students.

Every time I return from attending an ASMundergraduate education conference or nationalmeeting, I bring new ideas for engaging stu-dents. However, I realize that not everythingwill be effective. Therefore, students are askedto give feedback on what works and what doesnot, sometimes asking them to respond to sur-veys that are several pages long. To encouragethem to complete these surveys and to providereliable information, I give them credit and/orprovide food as rewards.

Full-Time Teaching Changes One’s

Perspective on Scholarship Activities

When juggling a full teaching schedule, room forthinking about other matters seems to be one ofthe first luxuries to disappear, while time forscholarship often goes by the wayside. Hence,when I can incorporate material relevant to myresearch into a course, I do so because it meansthat more of my brain space can be devoted toscholarly work than it otherwise would be.

Table 2. Students as Worker Bees

Teaching Scholarship Service

Generate testquestions

Help prepare and cleanup labs

Generate teachingactivities

Field test lab exercisesField test teaching

activitiesCurriculum

development

Proofreading abstracts, manuscripts,and grants

Perform literature searchesCompare laboratory techniquesPresent timely scientific findings

Judge sciencefairs

Volume 69, Number 7, 2003 / ASM News Y 333

When appropriate, I incorporate examplesfrom my research into both lecture material andlaboratory exercises. If, as part of a course re-quirement, students are reading and discussingjournal articles, I routinely assign them articlesfrom my research to-read list. Thus, as I readand analyze the article for that class, I double-upon reading and analyzing it for my research.Additionally, the students often bring up veryinteresting points during the discussion that Isometimes overlook. Similarly, students canlearn how to use electronic resources such asMedline by researching a topic relevant to re-search in my lab. When I review and give themgrades for their literature searches, I often alsofind references of potential interest, thus achiev-ing additional goals with this activity.

Laboratory exercises can involve using kits ortechniques that I also want to use in my re-search. One semester, for example, I obtainedyeast DNA microarray chips from the GenomeConsortium for Active Learning (GCAT, http://www.bio.davidson.edu/Biology/GCAT/GCAT.html), a program for bringing functionalgenomic methods into the undergraduate curric-ulum, primarily through student research. Stu-dents in my molecular genetics class spent thesemester designing and implementing a researchexperiment using these microarrays. At the time,I had no direct experience with microarray ex-periments, so my students and I became a teamwith different roles to play. We often workedout experimental difficulties as a group. I wasnot tempted to provide them with ready answersto questions that arose because I could not!Students were exposed to the experience ofworking on a real research project, while Ilearned enough about microarrays to determinethe appropriateness of the technique for myresearch.

Undergraduates are also an excellent resourcefor reviewing grants. They have helped me byediting grants and reading proposals for clarity.An upper-level undergraduate student majoringin biology should be able to comment on theflow and readability of the grant proposal. Stu-dents were honored that I respected their opin-ions. When students read and edited a particulargrant proposal two hours before it was mailed,their comments led me to correct significanterrors that I had overlooked. The grant wasfunded.

Results—Does this Approach Really Work?

As with every experiment that I do, assessment iscritical. Anything my students do, I evaluate forits effectiveness—grading their work while ask-ing their opinions. I also evaluate how I spendmy own time, if for no other reason than myyearly evaluation requires me to do so. Based onstudent feedback, I know whether and howmuch repetition of certain activities is effectiveand at what point it merely becomes tedious.Using this approach, I have successfully movedactivities from upper-level to introductorycourses, in effect, field-testing these materials inupper-level classes. Correspondence with paststudents indicates that they continue to usemany of the skills that they learned in theseclasses.

Feedback from students motivates me to con-tinue to be innovative in the classroom. I believethat because of the current ways in which Iinteract with students, I have become a betterteacher and my students are better learners.

Many of these activities have been presentedand published because I document these activi-ties, making much of the work that I initiallyviewed as a required task become part of myscholarly work. Essentially two goals that I amevaluated on, teaching effectiveness and schol-arship, can be achieved with one activity.

What Do Students Learn? What

Have I Learned?

No job in science is done the way science hastraditionally been taught in college. Science re-quires individuals to apply information, work inteams, and integrate new information into theirongoing activities. In effect, I am now exposingmy students to near-immediate, real-world ap-plications of what they are learning in class-rooms and laboratories, allowing them to dem-onstrate their skills in authentic assessmentswhile they undertake tasks much like those thatthey will be performing as they pursue variouscareers.

I believe that learning needs to be an activeprocess at all times. The faculty’s role is tofacilitate, guide, and motivate the learning pro-cess—training students to be lifelong learnersand critical thinkers. Because information in thesciences is constantly changing, they need to

334 Y ASM News / Volume 69, Number 7, 2003

learn how to evaluate, integrate, and apply in-formation, not simply memorize accepted factsand theories.

The faculty-student relationship is very muchone of the powerful over the weak. We facultymembers give students grades and, to some ex-tent, control what they will do in the future. Asstudents become our collaborators rather thanmere recipients of our knowledge, they come to

realize that their opinions are respected andvaluable to the faculty. When that happens,students take ownership of the learning processand become more involved in learning, realizingthat they have a critical stake in that process andcontrol over it. I have been energized by seeingwhat my students are capable of achieving.Thus, my students have proved an integral partof my success as a junior faculty member.

SUGGESTED READING

Boyer, E. L. 1990. Scholarship reconsidered: priorities of the professoriate. Jossey-Bass Publishers, San Francisco.Darden, A. G. 2001. The assessment-teaching link: using student perceptions of teaching strategies to determine the value ofthose strategies. Focus on Microbiology Education Newsletter, Winter, 2001: http://www.microbelibrary.org/newsletter/issues.htm.Darden, A. G. 2002. On the nature of scholarship of teaching and learning: comparing disciplinary research and educationalresearch. ASM News 68:152–153.Glassick, C. E., M. T. Huber, and G. I Maeroff. 1997. Scholarship assessed: evaluation of the professoriate. Jossey-BassPublishers, San Francisco.Huba, M. E., and J. E. Freed. 2000. Learner-centered assessment on college campuses. Shifting the focus from teaching tolearning. Allyn and Bacon Publishers.Nelson, C. E. 1999. On the persistence of unicorns: the tradeoff between content and critical thinking revisited. In B.A.Pescosolido and R. Aminzade (ed.), The social worlds of higher education. Pine Forge Press, Thousand Oaks, Calif.

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