2024 ASM Conference for Undergraduate Educators

SPOTS AVAILABLE! Just come to registration desk for check-in

Please have your laptops handy for the second half of the workshop!

If you are interested in incorporating bioinformatics or data science concepts into a course, or working with students on data that is immediately publishable, then this workshop is for you! The workshop focuses on analyzing microbial data in the free, open source KBase platform, following a workflow that results in a publishable genomic dataset for an ASM Microbiology Resource Announcement.

This workshop will provide examples of how educators use KBase (kbase.us) with their students – from CUREs to independent research. Participants will be introduced to resources developed through the Program for Microbiome Workforce Development (NSF #2316244) and KBase Educators (bit.ly/kbase-edu), including teaching and template workflows to analyze raw data and streamline data publications. Together, we will go through steps in the data analysis to publication process, starting with an example isolate or metagenome dataset. We will also introduce the importance of good sample metadata and environmental ontologies. Everyone will have access to these tools and resources after the workshop to use with their students and adapt for future use!

For questions, please contact Ellen Dow - egdow@lbl.gov.


Target Audience: Relevant for educators who want to integrate (new, more, any) computational biology tools and resources into their courses, support student-curated data publications, or just change up existing course-based undergraduate research experiences.

Prerequisites: A basic understanding of genome assembly and annotation, currently teaching or planning to teach courses and/or independent student research that include computational biology, bioinformatics, and isolate or community-based microbiology data analysis.

1. Welcome to ‘CUE (again) (2-3 min)
2. Q & A “what would you like to do this year that you feel you missed the last time you came to ASMCUE (either virtually or in-person)?” (5 min)
3. Discuss – opportunities to help with this CUE (5 min)
4. Discuss – Impact of CUE on P & T and how to document (5 min)
5. Q & A – Plans to network, some best practices (make actionable post CUE plans), and opportunities available (5 min)

While undergraduate research experiences are valuable, their acquisition has historically been inequitable, partly due to a lack of Scientific Research Cultural Capital (SRCC). To address this, we developed in-class "Research Workshops" at a four-year institution and local community college. These workshops educate students on UREs, including opportunities and benefits, and teach practical skills like using online resources and contacting professors. Students who participated showed increased interest in UREs. The workshops also enhanced students' skills in securing research experiences, communicating with faculty, and resilience. This approach may help a more diverse group of students participate in undergraduate research.

This session will focus on strategies for facilitating the training and professional development of faculty teaching course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs). In this session, I will highlight how the First-Year Innovation and Research Experience (FIRE) program at the University of Maryland trains and mentors our 15 professional track faculty. Attendees will learn how FIRE structures our training and professional development of new and existing faculty. Attendees will discuss best practices for training faculty running CURE-based courses. Attendees will also explore how to build communities of practice amongst faculty mentoring undergraduate researchers in CURE-based courses.

Roundtable discussion. Bring your thoughts and questions.

In this roundtable discussion, participants will reflect on the changes they have made to their courses in response to the rise of generative AI tools. Topics will include limiting AI use, monitoring its application, and addressing student misuse. Following this, participants will share their experiences—both successes and challenges—in integrating AI into their courses. Together we will reflect on high value use of this new technology for both students and faculty.

Below is the ChatGPT version of the description:
This roundtable invites faculty to discuss the use of generative AI tools in undergraduate biology courses. Topics will include balancing AI restrictions with opportunities for student engagement, strategies for monitoring AI use, and addressing academic integrity. Faculty will share their experiences, highlighting both successes and challenges, in adapting assessments and teaching methods. The goal is to foster an exchange of ideas for responsibly and effectively incorporating AI to enhance student learning in biology classrooms.

This is a two-part series designed to provide attendees with (1) further insight into novel pedagogical development (both at the activity and curriculum levels), the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning (SoTL), and discipline-based education research (DBER); and (2) effective strategies regarding how to progress from ideation to dissemination of educational resources and scholarship. This first session will focus on the ideation and development of novel pedagogical activities, as well as beginning strategies for SoTL and/or DBER.

This is a two-part series designed to provide attendees with (1) further insight into novel pedagogical development (both at the activity and curriculum levels), the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning (SoTL), and discipline-based education research (DBER); and (2) effective strategies regarding how to progress from ideation to dissemination of educational resources and scholarship. This second session will provide attendees with guidance related to types of manuscripts and best practices for publishing in the Journal of Microbiology and Biology Education.

Instructor Talk (IT)—the noncontent messaging that educators employ while creating the learning environment of a course—has been shown to directly influence student engagement and success. First-day Instructor Talk (FIT) is hypothesized to be especially important for establishing classroom culture and addressing early student concerns. As previous research on FIT has largely centered on faculty lecturers, the FIT used by educators in biology laboratory courses remains understudied. In this session, I will introduce attendees to IT frameworks, explore findings from a laboratory-based FIT study that our team conducted, and prompt attendees to consider the “right FIT” at their institutions.

Have you ever looked out at a sea of empty seats in your classroom and wondered where your students are? You are not alone! Student engagement and attendance are historically low, with instructors at many institutions reporting as few as one-quarter of their students attending class after our post-COVID return to in-person instruction (Basken, 2023; Holstead, 2022; McMurtrie, 2022). Instructors are understandably concerned about negative impacts on student outcomes and interactive learning activities. We will first describe the benefits that in-person attendance has for student learning, then share the pros and cons of teaching practices commonly used to boost attendance in STEM lecture courses. As a group, we will identify which practices are most impactful, and invite attendees to contribute practices and ideas to a collaborative document. Our goal is to provide a variety of options for instructors to serve their pedagogical goals and the specific needs of their classroom.

This Microbrew is a discussion about strategies to address student math skills, where they are, and to develop competency to perform data analysis in microbiology lab to address the quantitative reasoning curriculum outcome. This session is on the math skills used throughout a semester long microbiology lab and will incorporate exercises for determining cell size using a microscope equipped with a micrometer, how to setup serial dilutions and to determine the concentration of microbes in an original sample after a serial dilution is performed. To improve student learning a unique math skills sheet was developed for the students to refer to throughout the course to help master the needed skills. The participants will discuss these skills and their personal experiences in helping students overcome math hesitancy and inadequate prior math skill preparation.

The rapid advancement of high throughput technologies has generated an enormous amount of heterogeneous data relevant to the life sciences and data science as a whole. This underscores the need to leverage this data to prepare undergraduate students for career opportunities in STEM that may be more data-focused by teaching big data analytical techniques (BDAT). Faculty at teaching-focused institutions such as community colleges, face numerous obstacles when incorporating BDAT in their life sciences curricula including heavy teaching loads, lack of time, resources, and support to develop new curricula. Additionally, bioinformatics software and modules are often written with specific user expertise in mind, making general usage by faculty difficult and time-consuming. Come learn about the NSF funded Consortium for Biological Data Science Education RCN and our planned infrastructure to support faculty in introducing BDAT and curricular supports. Faculty will be able to engage and provide feedback on an Influenza Viral Dynamics Module and view 6 more modules under consideration in this effort created by MC Melendrez-Vallard.

The COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated the importance of understanding viruses, but also the challenges with misinformation about and misunderstanding of viral evolution, control, and treatment. Educating undergraduates about viruses can help mitigate these challenges, but virology is not always offered at this level. In part, this is due to the complexity of viruses, and finding time in the curriculum to include virology. Here, session participants will be introduced to recently-developed undergraduate virology curriculum guidelines and example learning objectives, to develop (or modify) their microbiology (and/or introductory biology) course(s) to help their students better learn this important material.

This session will explore the recently published ASM report on “Microbial Science: Career Paths, Demands for Skills, and International Trends in Employment and Publications.” Participants will learn about the key trends in workforce development in the microbial sciences and adjacent disciplines. They will discuss how to define and ensure the critical role of educators in empowering the workforce of the future. Participants will discuss developing strategies to empower the microbial scientists of the future wherever they operate.

Learn more about the recent ASM report, Workforce Trends: the Future of the Microbial Sciences

An active learning assignment was developed for students in an introductory microbiology course for health professionals and also used in advanced immunology and virology courses. Project objectives included providing students with an opportunity to develop skills in research, written communication, and team-building while better understanding how various diseases impact individuals of diverse cultures, backgrounds, ethnicities and gender identities. Additionally, students cultivate proficiency in analyzing medical information and critically reviewing peer work. Students develop a 2-4 page, well organized, creative and personalized presentation encompassing the chronological case history, any personal or clinical intervention of the disease pathology and its outcome. The account must include at least four integrated questions requiring a reader to comprehensively address the following topics: disease etiology, diagnosis, pathogen characteristics, pathogenesis, treatment and/or prevention. Unfamiliar terminology must be defined and instructional visuals included. Classmates solved and reviewed peers’ case studies, and expressed enthusiasm for this real-life experience.

Here we present an innovative approach to assessing understanding of biochemistry concepts through gamification. Students role play as lab technicians and are given a mission by “demanding” Principal Investigator: determine the identity and sequence of a mystery molecule and escape the lab. The engaging escape room format is an ideal space for problem solving, synergistic teamwork, and active learning. To successfully identify the molecule, students must demonstrate their understanding of the four major classes of biological macromolecules and ways to distinguish among them. Students are provided with an initial clue to the molecule’s identity. Once they successfully interpret each clue, they obtain another piece of the puzzle, thereby incrementally guiding themselves toward identification. Through gamification, we encourage students to work together to solve a problem and develop a deeper understanding of biomolecules. We will discuss the design, implementation, and ideas for effective assessment of this activity.