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[Hemm] I think that we have in our curriculum good instructional techniques. That students
are learning the techniques that they need to learn. But they don't have this aspect
of doing real research. So we were hoping to keep the instructional positives that we
have and then add this aspect. [Wimmers] Well, what we were trying to do is give our students
an opportunity to have the experience of doing authentic research. We have a very large number
of students in the department. Very few of them get to do research individually with
faculty members so we wanted to give more students that experience. [Hemm] So the idea
is that even in bacteria like ecoli, that have been studied for decades, there still
is quite a bit that we don't know. And one of the things that we don't know is how many
very very small proteins are being made or encoded in the genome and if they are being
made, what they do. And since this is really a black box, its an ideal project to give
to undergraduates. To present it in a way that they choose potential small protein to
test to see if it really is being synthesized and then if it is, to give them the opportunity
to characterize it in the future. And to date the students have identified sixteen new small
proteins and they're being characterized by those students in the lab right now and I
think they've got some interesting proteins they have identified and it is going to be
exciting to see what they discover. [Wimmers] My greatest expectation was that the students
would develop a greater interest in research. But also you are interested in techniques
and giving the students the tools that they are going to need to get to graduate school
and compete for jobs. [Hemm] So we found that its been very positive, the student response
has been positive. We've been just starting the formal assessment but we've been getting
class evaluations for a number of semesters and 90% of the comments that we are getting
from students are positive. They're the kind of comments that you would like to see such
as "I never considered doing research but I am really interested in it now, Im thinking
of doing independent research in the future." I think that what Larry and I both found is
that adding authentic research to a real standard school curriculum or college curriculum is
challenging, and it is time consuming. It is also very rewarding but there are extra
aspects that require a good bit more effort on our side of the classroom. [Wimmers] Because
of that it works best if the research that you are introducing into the laboratory is
research that you yourself are doing. So you are already investing in that project and
in fact the results of students will further your own scholarly activities. But also, I
think for both of us, we want to help other faculty members in our department and other
departments use this model, where it is already starting to be done. Our genetics class is
starting to use it and they are designing a new cell biology laboratory class which
is going to use this general idea and at the introductory level I'd like to explore engaging
additional faculty in that specific class to do other projects.