A Decade with DYSS: Lessons Learned and Looking Forward

Each summer over the past decade, the Chemical Engineering Department at the University of Washington has hosted the "Distinguished Young Scholars Seminar" (DYSS) series, bringing outstanding research trainees from top-tier programs around the country for day-long campus visits filled with student discussions, faculty meetings, mock interview questioning, and a research seminar. Here, we discuss the history and evolving structure of DYSS, highlighting prior successes and lessons learned, as well as opportunities for ongoing improvement.

A Study of the Jordanian Postgraduate Students' Perceptions on Research Writing through Online Learning

Almost every aspect of life has been disrupted due to the erupting of COVID-19 pandemic, education is arguably one of the most effected fields. The shift towards online education had become the focus of many studies to examine the students' perceived learning outcomes as well as their satisfaction in virtual learning settings. This study investigates the effect of the abrupt switch to online teaching on the written production of the curriculum and instruction postgraduate students' research writing for the academic year 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The sample comprises 53 PhD and Post-Graduate students in the department of curriculum and instructions in the faculty of educational Sciences at Mut'ah University in Jordan. The data were collected using a close-ended questionnaire which elicits responses on a five-point Likert Scale. A thorough examination of the instrument's reliability and validity was conducted. Results showed that students and universities administrations have been quickly adapted themselves to the new changes, with perceptible positive attitudes among the PhD and Post-Graduate students regarding the virtual activities applied in teaching and learning writing. This study provides a source for university instructors, syllabus designer and policy makers on the importance of integrating online learning in as part on the universities conventional.

Local History Practice in the System of Bachelors-Historians Training: Experience and Prospects

The article describes and summarizes the experience of conducting local history educational and productive practice for students of the first (bachelor's) level of education, majoring in "History and Archeology" at the School of History, V.N.Karazin Kharkiv National University (Ukraine). The authors show that the set of principles and research methods, being the basis of this investigation, ensures reliability of the analysis and representativeness of the results. A review of the latest publications on the topic confirms its relevance and lack of development in the specialized literature. The article substantiates the important role and significance of the local history educational and productive practice for further professional activity of the future graduates. The authors explain the main approaches to the organization of this form of educational activity in traditional conditions (among such approaches--the implementation of creative projects in small groups, excursions and expeditions). The article reveals the changes that took place in the process of organizing and conducting local history educational and productive practice after the outbreak of the coronary crisis. The approaches and methods, developed for the distance passing of local history educational and productive practice, may be useful after returning to the traditional system of education. The authors, using a correlation-regression analysis of the ratio of the number of students who underwent local history educational and productive practice and the number of students--speakers at the International Local History Conference of Young Scientists, found a moderate correlation between these indicators. The article concludes that the local history educational and productive practice encourages students to further research activity in the field of local history.

Comparison of Student Outcomes in a Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience: Face-to-Face, Hybrid, and Online Delivery of a Biology Laboratory

Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) incorporate authentic research instead of confirmatory exercises into laboratory courses. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a general shift in instructional modalities from face-to-face (F2F) towards hybrid and online teaching. Student impacts caused by the abrupt shift to online teaching have been characterized, but comparisons between modalities for CUREs are missing. Therefore, we evaluated student learning and attitudinal outcomes in F2F, hybrid, and online delivery of an introductory college biology CURE. Additionally, we compared student outcomes between White/Asian students and persons excluded due to ethnicity or race (PEER) in these modalities. There were significant learning differences between modalities, but there were no significant learning differences by PEER status. Of six attitudinal variables, one varied significantly by modality and three varied significantly for PEER students. These results suggest that CUREs can be adapted to the online or hybrid modality with minimal impacts on student outcomes.

Service Learning during a Global Pandemic: How and Why?

This case study provides an overview as to how two faculty members co-taught an asynchronous online course with a service-learning component during the COVID-19 global pandemic. Within this paper, the authors recount the adjustments that were made in order to accommodate an online teaching modality while maintaining their commitment to service learning.

Analysing the Impact of an Elective Research Experience on Medical Students' Research Perceptions.

Introduction: Physicians are at the centre of bench-to-bedside research, yet the number of physicians engaging in research is declining. One solution to overcome this alarming trend is exposing medical students to research. This study aims to assess the impact of engaging medical students in research, and the feasibility of conducting research solely using online communication. Methods: A pilot elective research opportunity was offered to medical students enrolled to the University of Malta Doctor of Medicine and Surgery course by a resident academic (summer 2021) of the same institute to assess the epidemiology of COVID-19 in Europe. An anonymous survey was distributed to seventy medical students recruited to participate in this elective research project. The data collected was analysed and interpreted. Results: A response rate of 88.73% was achieved. "Career progression" and "lack of time" were the most reported motivating and hindering factors towards conducting research, respectively, before engaging in a research experience. Research experience helped overcome reported barriers (p < 0.01), while also challenging students' perceptions towards research. An increase in positive perceptions towards research was observed after conducting research. An overwhelming majority (90.47%) of participants reported that mentorship played an influential role in their overall experience, and 95.24% commented that they would like research opportunities to be made available by their faculty. Discussion and Conclusion: Giving students the opportunity to conduct research demonstrated how research experience improves students' soft skills and the understanding of research. This study also portrayed how remote research opportunities are effective in engaging students and increased the number of students who would consider a career in research. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40670-023-01727-w.

Investigation of Protein-Protein Interactions Utilizing a Nano-Gold Colloid Surface Plasmon Resonance: Application to SARS CoV-2 Spike Protein Coated Gold Colloids

Best Practices for Undergraduate Student Research Programs. This book brings to light the important research and training that takes place at predominantly undergraduate institutions (PUIs). The purpose of this work is threefold: to disseminate important physical chemistry results to the chemistry and physics communities;to demonstrate that it is possible to involve undergraduates in publishable physical chemistry research;and to provide guidance on how to approach the challenges of physical chemistry research at a PUI. The material highlights the impactful training efforts within the undergraduate research environment which are essential for developing a pipeline of enthusiastic and capable talent heading to graduate schools or industrial and secondary education careers. This important work provides a "how to"by way of primary research examples involving various experimental and theoretical physical chemistry subfields. © 2022 American Chemical Society.

Building Hyflex UX "Lab Spaces"for Developing Student Research Toolkits

In this paper, we present an extension of best practices for proposing and equipping a usability lab for research and education in a technical and professional communication university department. We implemented future-proofing approaches while building our labs during a global pandemic to prepare research and learning opportunities for students to gain user experience research methods and literacies in a highly flexible and virtual environment. Students who can point to well-articulated research can successfully advocate for more user-centered design practices in their future workplaces. But, the COVID-19 pandemic shed light on instances where practitioners and educators were forced to adjust their research methodologies in the middle of planning a project. Through university grants and internal funding, we each proposed separate styles of usability labs based on these experiences at separate universities. By expanding on established usability lab building practices, we offer this case study of how we created labs in two separate institutions that were built to adapt for future UX research needs. While the two labs are built with different university-based objectives in mind, the authors find common ground on developing research toolkits and competencies for their students for communicating, collaborating, and connecting their research both in-person and virtually. © 2021 IEEE.

Benefits of ESA Gravity-Related Hands-On Programmes from the Students’ Perspective

The past decade has seen the development of student-focused programmes in the aerospace industry, including the European Space Agency’s suite of gravity-related student experiment programmes. These opportunities enable student teams to propose and conduct research experiments on altered gravity platforms including a drop tower, a hypergravity centrifuge, an aircraft performing parabolic flights, and on-board the International Space Station (ISS). In a sector with significant barriers to entry, these programmes offer students a practical end-to-end research experience and an introduction to working in the space industry. This paper will explore the benefits and challenges unique to each of ESA’s ‘Spin Your Thesis!’, ‘Fly Your Thesis!’, and ‘Drop Your Thesis!’ educational programmes from the perspective of the 2021 student cohort. The programmes will be compared and contrasted, highlighting the changes in approach and methodologies depending on the platform. This interdisciplinary cohort is split into eight international teams, each consisting of students from a wide range of cultural and/or educational backgrounds. The role of this diversity in successful collaboration is examined, discussing whether teams from diverse disciplines can collect higher quality data on a wider range of topics. Diversity is also evident in the selection of experiments being performed on the three altered gravity platforms. Research topics range from attitude control, acoustic levitation, and debris removal technology demonstrations, to biological process simulations, and smart granular gases. An overview of the individual projects and their anticipated outcomes will demonstrate how this research relates to ongoing research in the space sector. Finally, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the undertaking of these programmes is assessed, with this cohort taking part in these programmes in a virtual format, often without direct contact with other teammates. The results of this paper will not only benefit future students hoping to take part in these altered gravity programmes but will also emphasise the benefits of these opportunities, both for the participating students and the space industry. Copyright © 2021 by the International Astronautical Federation (IAF). All rights reserved.

STEM Lab on a Kitchen Table: An Investigation of Remote Student-Driven Problem-Based Research.

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic affected formal and informal education programs in the USA. The pandemic had a devastating impact on programs that required a dedicated physical space and in-person laboratory research. The distinguishing feature of New Hampshire Academy of Science (NHAS) programs is the participation of secondary school students in STEM research projects that emulate university-level research. Moving to a remote format presented various challenges. In this case study, we describe and discuss our experiences transforming a summer STEM research program for secondary school students from on-site and in-person to a remote platform, providing details of the planning phase, the logistics of maintaining the quality of the students' research, and the results of internal and external evaluations. Of the 33 students who participated, 32 completed all central elements of the program, and 25 went further and submitted summary papers and presented their research at the remote annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. External evaluation found that students saw their work as similar to that of professional scientists, and perceived themselves to have gained proficiency in the use of scientific techniques and instrumentation. Students expressed they missed elements of in-person lab work including social interactions.

The role of the student scientific circle in the training highly qualified specialists during distance learning

An important stage in the formation of the future specialist is the independent work of the applicant, in particular the involvement of the best representatives in research work. Applicants are attracted to the GDR through a student research group. The COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic and quarantine restrictions have forced almost all countries to reconsider educational strategies. Purpose - to evaluate student research group the role of the functioning in the higher medical educational institution at the Department of Pediatric Dentistry in the training of future highly qualified specialists and the peculiarities of its work during distance learning. Results. An important means of organizing the educational work of applicants for in-depth study of various aspects of pediatric dentistry is their research activities in independent work, in the process of which teachers are initiative and interested applicants who continue research within the student research group department, conducting research on selected topics. During distance learning IFNMU uses the site «Office 365 Cloud Services», which is accessible to all teachers and students. During the quarantine, student research group meetings are held in the format of online conferences in the Microsoft Teams program (previously created team with the type «Class» - student research group Department of Pediatric Dentistry, which added students of all courses of the Faculty of Dentistry and events in the program - in calendar according to the calendar-thematic plan student research group meetings, students and teachers are invited). Microsoft Teams is a teamroom for Office 365, which is a simpler version of learning management systems, but allows the learning team to communicate and share files. The program is convenient because it combines everything in a common work environment, which includes chat for discussion, file sharing and corporate programs. The student research group meeting was organized by video link. Conclusions. Thus, participation in the student research group Department of Pediatric Dentistry IFNMU gives applicants the opportunity to prepare a full-fledged scientific work that enhances the educational process, promotes their professional growth, helps to combine creativity, theoretical knowledge and practical skills. In addition, it increases the level of training of future specialists and the formation of research work skills as a component of professional training of applicants and the development of scientific potential of future scientists even during distance learning. © 2021 Group of Companies Med Expert, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

A First Year Engineering Information Literacy Workshop: Redesigned for Remote Delivery

This paper presents an update of analysis and lessons learned in a required first-year engineering curriculum at a medium sized private urban university. Over the last two years, Research & Instruction librarians at Northeastern University partnered with the First Year Engineering program to develop and refine an interactive in-person workshop series designed to introduce new engineering students to key research resources at the start of their degree programs. The program has grown rapidly, serving more than 500 first year engineering students in fall 2019 with positive outcomes including high perceived value by students, high participation rates, and faculty noting improvement in the quality of students' research. When the COVID-19 pandemic forced Northeastern University to adopt a hybrid learning model, the team redesigned the workshop for remote delivery with the goal of maintaining high participation rates and positive student outcomes. This paper (1) Describes how the workshop was redesigned, including the process and new workshop format which included an asynchronous module delivered via Canvas, followed by a live Zoom class meeting. (2) Compares the outcomes of the online workshops delivered in fall 2020 with the outcomes of the previous in-person workshops to assess the impact of the new delivery mode. (3) Shares lessons learned and considers opportunities to improve remote design and delivery of such workshops in the future. Findings for the redesigned workshop indicate positive outcomes consistent with the in-person workshops, including measures such as attendance rates, assessment scores, students' perceived value, and faculty survey feedback on the quality of students' research. Students found slightly more value in the synchronous class meeting (81.8% rated it extremely or very valuable) than in the asynchronous module (72.8% extremely or very valuable). Students also made suggestions for improvements, such as providing more time for in-class assessment items to provide more hands-on search practice, which they found engaging, and to account for technical issues that slowed them down, such as Internet lag and navigating multiple windows. Other lessons learned include planning for the significant time and effort it takes to redesign a workshop for a new delivery mode, to simplify implementation wherever possible, and that engagement needs to be much more intentional in the online environment. Overall, given the limited timeframe in which to redesign the workshop and challenging circumstances for all, achieving parity with last year's outcomes indicates that in its new format, the workshop is still providing first year students with the foundational research skills they'll need to be successful in their academic and professional careers as engineers. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2021

Preparing Future Engineers Through Project Based Learning

A significant amount of research suggests the common reasons students leave an engineering major include lack of faculty mentoring, lack of a sense of belonging, financial hardships, and course difficulties in the prerequisite STEM courses [1]. Project-based learning (PBL) potentially addresses several of these reasons and increases the chances of a student completing an engineering major. Engineering students are more likely to persist when they feel a sense of belonging and community engagement, when they have early interactions with faculty mentors, and when they experience a series of successes [2]. The research question involves whether student research projects with small, faculty-mentored groups promotes student retention. Students participating in Contra Costa College's Center for Science Excellence (CSE) STEM mentoring program are encouraged to apply for external internships and internal research projects. As of the last cycle before the interruption of internship opportunities associated with COVID-19, 79% of participating students intended to apply for summer internships. Students are also able to work on internal research projects mentored by CSE faculty mentors. Over the past three years, engineering students that have participated in research projects have remained in our program and transferred at a high rate. Of thirty student research participants, fourteen have transferred into engineering majors (47%), two have transferred into other STEM majors (7%), eleven continue to take transfer preparatory courses at Contra Costa College (37%), and the educational status of three students is unknown (10%). For the college as a whole, the transfer rate is 32%, the graduation rate is 24%, and the retention rate after one year is 67%. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2021

Taking Pause: A COVID-19 Student Reflection on Global Health Research Opportunities, Training, and Institutional Reform.

Restrictions to research due to COVID-19 have required global health researchers to factor public health measures into their work and discuss the most ethical means to pursue research under safety concerns and resource constraints. In parallel, global health research opportunities for students have also adapted to safety concerns and resource constraints. Some projects have been canceled or made remote, but inventively, domestic research opportunities have been created as alternatives for students to continue gaining global health learning competencies. Knowing the ethical challenges inherent in short-term student global health research and research in strained health systems, it is intriguing why these safer alternatives were not previously pervasive in global health education. This paper provides perspectives from students training at academic institutions in the US on how COVID-19 disrupted student research and what can be learned from the associated shifts in global health research. Additionally, the authors take this opportunity to advocate for academic institutions from high-income countries to reflect on long-standing global health research conventions that have been perpetuated and bolster training for students conducting global health research. The authors draw on their experiences, existing literature, and qualitative interviews with students who pursued global health research during COVID-19.

Making Sense of the Unknown: A Narrative Analysis of COVID-19 Stories as Told by WSU Research Students

Storytelling is an important tool through which to make sense of life experiences. Stories can be classified as personal narratives, historical documentaries and those that inform the viewer about a specific concept or practice. These narratives can be used to promote discussion about current issues in the world. Storytelling can thus be seen as an effective learning tool for students by providing a strong foundation in "Twenty First Century Literacy" skills as well as advancing emotional intelligence and social learning. This project used storytelling to gather information regarding people's encounters with COVID-19 and lockdown, with specific focus on the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Employing a content analysis methodology, it attempts to analyze responses to narrative inquiry interviews about the COVID-19 pandemic as conducted by students, as part of their introduction to the methodology of research. These responses were used to generalize findings, as well as to look at individual reactions that could bring light to, and make sense of the human experience of the pandemic within an educational context. Both negative and positive experiences were related by interviewees and students.

Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences Performance Following the Transition to Remote Learning during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) are an alternative pedagogical approach to the apprenticeship model for high-impact research immersion experiences. A W.M. Keck-funded Research Immersion Program at a Hispanic-serving institution in Southern California proposed to expand the benefits of the CURE model by developing lower- and upper- division CUREs across a variety of STEM (biology, computer science, mathematics, and physics) and associated disciplines (anthropology, kinesiology, sociology, rhetoric, and communications). A subset of these courses moved completely online mid-semester of spring 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The goal of the study presented here is to understand the overall experiences of students and faculty members in the CURE courses in light of the transition to online learning. We present data here that show gains in skills development and understanding research design and stability in science opinions and self-perception in the spring 2020 semester, despite the transition to remote learning. We also report faculty perceptions regarding the challenges, supports, and successes of transitioning and implementing their CUREs in a remote learning environment.

A student led computational screening of peptide inhibitors against main protease of SARS-CoV-2.

The main protease of SARS-CoV-2 is a promising drug target due to its functional role as a catalytic dyad in mediating proteolysis during the viral life cycle. In this study, experimentally proven 14 HIV protease peptides were screened against the main protease of SARS-CoV-2. Fourteen middle and high school "student researchers" were trained on relevant computational tools, provided with necessary biological and chemical background and scientific article writing. They performed the primary screening via molecular docking and the best performing complexes were subjected to molecular dynamics simulations. Molecular docking revealed that HIP82 and HIP1079 can bind with the catalytic residues, however after molecular dynamics simulation only HIP1079 retained its interaction with the catalytic sites. The student researchers were also trained to write scientific article and were involved with drafting of the manuscript. This project provided the student researchers an insight into multi-disciplinary research in biology and chemistry, inspired them about practical approaches of computational chemistry in solving a real-world problem like a global pandemic. This project also serves as an example to introduce scientific inquiry, research methodology, critical thinking, scientific writing, and communication for high school students.

Providing interactive and field laboratories while teaching university marine biology classes in an era of COVID-19.

An entirely online upper-division university marine invertebrates course modeled after a field experience-intensive course that also provided interaction with live animals and research experience was offered at Rosario Beach Marine Laboratory in the summer of 2020. We describe online methods we used for providing field experiences to students participating online, as well as a workstation and interactive method for identification and detailed anatomical examination of live macroinvertebrates with students. Students were also involved as active participants in a field research project. Nearly all of the equipment involved is inexpensive or readily available in most university biology laboratories or classrooms.