My goal is to implement a stand-alone CURE course in organic chemistry in the spring of 2025 (CHEM 300). I spent part of my 2022-23 sabbatical searching for an experiment to replace an outdated lab that I had been teaching some variation of for my entire career (30 years). In addition to being more modern, I believe it needs to represent demonstrable improvements in safety and sustainability, according to the Twelve Principles of Green Chemistry. I had considered incorporating my own research program into this course, but I discarded that notion because it is not amenable to supporting a large number of unsophisticated students as collaborators.
One of the thorniest issues identified in our CURE teaching circle concerns identifying a suitable project for a CURE. My approach for developing a project has evolved organically over the past year. In addition to my own work and investment of time doing research, I have greatly benefited from being able to recruit collaborators and hold conversations with those I consider to be “sympathetic ears.” The process started when I joined the research group of Professor Bruce Lipshutz at UC Santa Barbara for a few weeks in the winter of 2024. In addition to teaching me their novel approach for doing “water sensitive chemistry” in water, Bruce connected me with one of his collaborators, Hubert Muchalski, who is at another PUI (Fresno State University). I next scoured the literature for a published organic chemistry experiment that concerns modern cross-coupling reactions and that would be amenable to both adapting to the Lipshutz “in water” technology and evolving into a research project (Grove, et al. 2006). Once I identified this experiment, I asked my colleague, Matt Whited, if he would be willing to also pilot the experiment using the Lipshutz group technology during fall term. I then reached out to Bruce and Hubert to let them know of my plan, and they responded enthusiastically. Importantly, Hubert also agreed to pilot the experiment during the fall term.
This past fall Matt and I piloted this new experiment in both sections of Organic Chemistry I. There were several setbacks and many conversations and communications with Hubert and Matt about how to overcome them. Two other chemistry department staff members were crucial to the project’s success—Carrie Flesch and Julie Karg. Carrie helped me to source chemicals and equipment and Julie helped me to identify places of confusion in the protocol and streamline students’ work flow in the lab. The experiment was overall quite successful, and I repeated it in the winter term, albeit with some tweaks.
My plan for transforming this experiment into a CURE stems from the student discussion that took place after the experiment this past fall. Matt and I dedicated an entire lab period to analyzing and discussing the results with students. We prompted students to identify remaining questions and propose experiments that could be used to address those questions. I am now doing research with two SRPs over the summer, who will help to analyze the organic chemistry student results and evaluate potential research directions for the CURE course.
Many conversations with my fellow “CURE-ies” (my nickname for the STEM CURE Teaching Circle participants) concerned the barriers that I have noted in the earlier paragraphs—how can we identify a “good” project, how can we implement this well, and how can this work be sustainable? Although not a scientific survey, I noticed that most of the published CUREs in organic chemistry arise from research institutions (Carnegie classifications R-1 or R-2). That makes sense—these institutions have numerous research programs in each area of chemistry from which to choose a suitable project and they have armies of graduate student teaching assistants to run the labs. Based on my perusal of the literature, there are far fewer examples of published CUREs from PUIs. I believe this is simply due to the workload involved in gearing up for and running a CURE in institutions where the majority of the work would land on a single faculty member. Notably, a number of published CUREs at PUIs involve collaboration. Whether collaborators are at one’s own institution (in the same or a related field) or at another institution, this seems to be an important component for succeeding at a small institution (reference the articles on collaboration more explicitly). This is partly why I chose to highlight the collaborative work that I believe contributed positively to the development of my own CURE in my narrative comments above.
Another focus of our conversations concerned CURE outcomes, both in terms of faculty and students. In particular, we discussed the challenges of bringing a CURE project to the point of publication and what type of publication is necessary to garner the moniker of “Research,” (or as Jay Tasson would say, “Big R versus little r research”). Importantly, collaboration again is instrumental in enabling faculty to publish their work, particularly if they are at PUIs (Wolfe and Steed, 2023). My plan is to present results from my CURE or “CURE-like” activities at national meetings and develop them into publications in pedagogically-oriented journals. If the student results begin to suggest a viable path to publication in a research journal, I will take that step when appropriate. Knowing that collaboration will continue to be a key to my success, I will continue to nurture those relationships that I have already begun in the course of developing this project.
The single greatest motivator for me in doing this work is knowing that research experiences play an important role in promoting students’ persistence in the field. However, the barriers to traditional mentored research opportunities predominantly impact marginalized groups and first-generation students. Providing this opportunity earlier in a student’s undergraduate career, within a course, is important to me, as it can help to level the playing field among students from different backgrounds. One of the first and most enduring goals of the CURE-ies was to identify the components of the research experience that are most important for increasing students’ sense of belonging. Individually, we pursued different paths in addressing that goal. I gravitated to the vitae of Joi P. Walker at East Carolina University.
Professor Walker and collaborators recently published an article that describes how a CURE experience impacted student participants’ ability to navigate the social understandings and practices of the science lab (Walker, et al., 2023). They also investigated how these themes align with Lave and Wenger’s Community of Practice (CoP) Framework. While the CoP framework has been applied to academic administrative and professional units, “this work represents a rare example of the CoP framework being used to describe a situated learning context that includes faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students.”
This study emphasized for me the importance of designing and implementing a CURE that includes the following:
- The project should yield novel results on a subject that is important. It may be more important to a layperson than an expert (or vice-versa), but the sense of community that the students develop derives in part by having a shared purpose in a pursuit that they believe is valuable.
- The implementation should enable iteration and improvement, both in order to overcome experimental obstacles and to become expert at a particular technique or analysis. These promote both a sense of community and individual confidence.
- The implementation should promote student ownership of the project; students should care about how the experiments are progressing and be motivated to accomplish the project goals.
I believe that I can incorporate the elements above in the CURE I am planning. The analysis by Walker and coworkers provides a helpful framework for designing my CURE. In addition to identifying a suitable project and being mindful about offering ample time for repetition and practice, I believe that it will be important for me to find a way to incorporate each student’s “voice” into the project.
[1] T. Grove, D. DiLella, and E. Volker (2006) “ Stereospecific Synthesis of the Geometrical Isomers of a Natural Product.” J. Chem. Educ. 83, 7, 1055. https://doi.org/10.1021/ed083p1055
[2] Joi P. Walker, William E. Allen, Lindsey Clevenger, Kathryn N. Hosbein, Anthony M. Kennedy, Heather Vance-Chalcraft, and Brandon Whiting (2023) Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences as a Community of Practice (CoP) J. Chem. Educ. 100, 2520−2528
[3] Amanda L. Wolfe and P. Ryan Steed (2023) Generating Publishable Data from Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences in Chemistry, J. Chem. Educ. 100, 9, 3419–342
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