CUREs: Bringing Research into the Classroom

As you are planning a CURE, it is critical to determine answers to the following questions:

• Who is the student audience for your course?
• What level of preparation and prior knowledge can you expect from them?
• What is the intent and scope of the research?
• What program requirements will you need to integrate in your course?
• What will be the duration of the CURE?
• What will be the roles of the postdocs, graduate students, and undergraduate students you work with, and how will the CURE benefit them?

Keep in mind that you will need to:

• Identify the expected learning outcomes (ELOs) of the relevant department, program, major, minor, or certificate and plan how your course outcomes will align to them.
• If proposing a new course, know the guidelines and requirements of the course approval process. Contact the chair of the undergraduate curriculum committee of your department or unit for guidance.
• If revising an existing course, engage colleagues (staff and faculty) that have been involved in its implementation.
• Engage external research stakeholders in your planning, as needed.

Research shows that student ownership of the research project undertaken in a CURE positively impacts their experience of the course (Hanauer et al., 2012; Harrison et al., 2011; Hatfull et al., 2006). Promote ownership of learning by involving students meaningfully in the design and implementation of the research project at all stages. For example, your students should tackle questions and test hypotheses relevant to the broader research community. Give them multiple opportunities to develop their own claims and to defend them with evidence from the literature or their own work. Encourage students to make judgments and decisions throughout your research protocols, and to redirect and iterate on the process when needed. 

The scientific method requires identification of an appropriate scientific question, collection of data, analysis of that data, interpretation of outputs, and communication of the knowledge gained from research. Identify which of these elements you will include in the CURE, how you will teach them, and how students will be involved in their execution.

The approach to research undertaken in a CURE should follow the standard process of scholarly pursuit in your field of study. No matter the approach, you should introduce students to all stages of the research process, iterating whenever it is called for along the way.

An effective CURE will empower students to think for themselves while enabling them to make mistakes in a safe and supportive environment. Encourage students to embrace the joy of discovery as well as the uncertainty of investigating a question with unknown outcomes. The research process often comes with surprises. Assuring students this does not equate failure but is rather a natural part of investigation and learning can help to alleviate some academic stress. Set up checks and balances for student-collected data and build ample room into the course for redirection, feedback, and iteration.

The power of CUREs resides in the combination of research and teaching to create a unique pedagogical experience for both students and researcher-instructors. But achieving balance between your research and teaching goals can pose challenges. The time constraints associated with a traditional course structure may place limits on your ability to repeat experiments, increase your sample size, or simply to fully explore a particular question or dataset.

How will you train students in the whole of the research process if they cannot fully engage in all stages? Present the trajectory of a research project from inception to publication, including the role of formal and informal peer-review of ideas, conference presentations, and manuscripts. You might incorporate mini-workshops and whole-class or small-group activities that use already analyzed or published datasets to help students understand critical concepts that cannot be authentically explored on your timeline.

CURE students benefit from intellectual exchanges with other members of the research team, including graduate students, postdocs, and undergraduates in mentored research experiences. Consider how collaboration across your team will help you accomplish research tasks and goals while providing new knowledge and practice opportunities for students.

Many undergraduate students are not well-versed in research activities. Your course activities should incorporate intentional scaffolding to help them navigate new information and unfamiliar or challenging tasks. Plan a series of assignments or steps that guide students through the entire project, support them to practice important skills, and provide opportunities for feedback and improvement. Students’ prior knowledge should inform the first rungs of your scaffolding, while your course learning outcomes provide the endpoint. Read more about scaffolding assignments.

It's crucial that you provide the supports needed for students to learn. Present all necessary background information to help students understand and complete research tasks. Coach them through challenging tasks, include opportunities for reflection, and encourage them to repeat or expand upon their work when needed.

• Articulate the purpose and criteria for important research steps, activities, assignments, and evaluations. Transparency in teaching can promote metacognition and help students reflect upon and meet learning goals.
• Teach best practices for responsible and ethical research conduct. Formally train students in the reading and analysis of primary literature and in the use of published data, online databases, citizen-science projects, and/or data collected by previous CUREs or collaborators.
• Provide ancillary resources, such as those created by University Libraries, to support the research process and promote information literacy.
• Consider incorporating writing-to-learn activities to facilitate reflection. Writing-to-learn promotes students learning and helps them develop as writers.
• Design and supervise group work to foster accountability and collaboration among students, as well as to help students meet their personal learning goals.

Find more ideas in Supporting Student Learning and Metacognition, Designing Research or Inquiry-Based Assignments, and Helping Students Write Across the Disciplines.

Ongoing assessment of students’ work in a CURE enables you and your class to stay up to date on research progress, including any setbacks to address. Well-designed assessments help students reflect on their learning and identify challenges so they can find tools to overcome those obstacles.

• Align your assessments with the expected learning outcomes for the CURE.
• Provide rubrics and clear criteria for success so students understand the level of mastery that is expected of them.
• Ensure that formative assessments are helping students practice key skills and prepare for any summative assessments in the course.
• Include frequent low-stakes assignments—with opportunities for feedback—to help reduce the equity gap.
• Promote accountability in group work by incorporating peer review and self-review in your grading.
• Consider ways you might use contract grading, specifications grading, peer-grading, and self-assessment instead of traditional grading.

Read more about Designing Assessments of Student Learning and Designing Research or Inquiry-Based Assignments.

Communicating research findings is a critical component of any student-led research project. Presenting at conferences, publishing findings in a research database, and submitting to peer-reviewed publications have all been shown to benefit undergraduate students (Kloser et al. 2013; Spronken-Smith et al., 2013; Little, 2020; Wiley and Stover, 2014; Turner et al., 2021). Student-authored manuscripts and presentations serve to motivate learners, provide accountability for their work, and enhance their belief in themselves as researchers and scholars.

How you communicate the results of your CURE should reflect authentic scholarly communication in your field. You may choose one method of communication or prepare multiple deliverables in different formats. Once you determine the ideal mode(s) for disseminating findings, it’s important to consider how this work will be divided among students and to establish clear guidelines for authorship. With your support, students can gain confidence in their research skills and engage meaningfully with real-world audiences.

Your role in a CURE involves shaping a positive learning environment, mentoring students in the research process, assisting them in practicing and acquiring key knowledge and skills, and explaining the purpose and significance of the research work. As such, a successful CURE is easier to implement with help.

Identify collaborators that will support and enhance your project and consider how you will define their roles. Assistance may come from fellow investigators, lab personnel, graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, instructional support staff, or colleagues across campus. As an authentic research experience, your CURE will introduce students to the importance of collaboration in research. 

Keep in mind that every member of a CURE has goals, needs, and expectations. This is true of students and instructor(s), but also applies to any other team members involved in the project. Carefully consider your shared purpose and how your CURE will help all stakeholders accomplish their goals.

The implementation of a CURE requires students to access the tools of the research trade. These tools will be dependent on your discipline but may include the following: lab space; specific equipment, materials, and technologies; library and archive resources; research specimens; and software or computing facilities. Perhaps you will even need to plan research activities in the field. Advance planning is critical to the success of your CURE. Failing to anticipate and plan for needs and potential roadblocks could limit the types of research questions and activities you pursue with students.

You can overcome obstacles to data collection by using existing research databases, citizen science data, online archives, and museum databases. Consider how you might integrate CUREs with mentored student research projects and collaborate with other researchers to facilitate funding, data collection, and data analysis. Leverage campus resources such as IT services  and University Libraries collections and subject librarians when troubleshooting technology issues or solving research problems.