Let's talk posters: a novel role-playing activity to prepare undergraduate researchers for poster presentations.

Calls to increase undergraduate involvement in research have led to a significant increase in student participation via course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs). These CUREs provide students an authentic research experience, which often involves dissemination of research by public speaking. For instance, the First-year Research Immersion (FRI) program at Binghamton University is a three-semester CURE sequence that prepares students for scientific research and effective communication of their findings. After one semester of research, students from the FRI program are tasked with presenting their research to hundreds of faculty members, staff, friends, and family at the annual FRI poster session. However, our students, and undergraduates in general, report high anxiety and fear around public speaking such as this. To better prepare our students for public speaking at a research poster session, we developed a workshop that includes a novel role-play activity to mimic a fast-paced poster session or conference in order to address students' fears and increase confidence levels. The role-play activity gives students iterative practice such that they are prepared for the realities of a poster session including variation of poster attendees. During the activity, students switch roles between presenter and audience member. In the role of an audience member, students are given Pokèmon-like role-playing cards that explain the traits and abilities of various types of poster-goers that students might come across (faculty in and out of discipline, staff, family, friends, etc.). Students improvise and enact their card-assigned role as they engage with their classmates who are practicing their poster presentations. To assess student outcomes, students were given three surveys: pre-activity, post-activity, and post-poster presentation. Immediately following the activity, 64% of students reported the highest level of confidence, and following the poster session, 93% of students reported extreme confidence in their poster presentation abilities. These data show that this role-play activity can help address student confidence and better prepare students to communicate their research.

Erratum for Hills and Light, "Training for Responsible and Ethical Management of Lab Notebooks in a Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience".

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1128/jmbe.00024-22.].

Training for Responsible and Ethical Management of Lab Notebooks in a Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience.

Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) represent an innovative educational strategy to engage more science, technology, engineering, and math undergraduates in authentic research experiences. Research shows that student participation in CUREs results in positive student outcomes similar to those for traditional research experiences. However, less is known about how the research focus of a CURE or the varied emphasis on certain CURE design elements can impact student outcomes. CUREs provide a unique opportunity to infuse training essential for future researchers. Although responsible and ethical conduct is an important component of research and scientific practice, limited attention has been paid to incorporation and assessment of responsible and ethical conduct of research (RECR) in CUREs. Here, we address the gap in CURE RECR training by presenting an activity that can be easily built into any CURE or inquiry-based lab to train students in RECR relative to data management, specifically, the lab notebook. In this activity, students are asked to replicate or execute an experiment with only the records of a previous student's lab notebook. This previous student's notebook is purposefully designed by the instructor to miss important information that might not seem obvious to students but would prevent a future researcher from replicating the experiment. The idea is to create an early understanding of delayed gratification for students when it comes to responsible and ethical maintenance of lab notebooks. This activity is paired with a pre- and postactivity lecture and debriefing to instruct, guide, and reflect with students on RECR surrounding lab notebooks as well as iterative practice and assessment of lab notebooks throughout the semester.

Keeping Students Connected and Engaged in a Wet-Lab Research Experience during a Time of Social Distancing via Mobile Devices and Video Conferencing Software.

Two major COVID-19 pandemic challenges presented for in-person instruction included adhering to social distancing guidelines and accommodating remote learners who were temporarily isolated or permanently participating from afar. At Binghamton University, our First-year Research Immersion (FRI) program was challenged with providing students with a wet lab course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE), an intense hands-on experience that emphasized student teamwork, lab protocol development, iteration, troubleshooting, and other elements of the scientific process that could not be replicated in a fully remote environment. We developed an innovative technology approach to maximize all students' connection to the lab research experience, utilizing dedicated mobile devices (iPod Touch) and video conferencing software (Zoom) to synchronously connect remote learners to in-person learners, peer mentors, and instructors in our FRI research labs. In this way, despite limited lab capacities and fluctuating remote learning populations, we were able to connect remote learners to their peers and mentors in real-time and give them responsibilities that allowed them to be engaged and feel like meaningful participants in the research process. Although our students reported a preference for in-person labs, they noted that this hybrid model was better than other traditionally employed remote-learning lab options. We believe that the lessons learned here can be applied to improve access to research in all situations and allow us to be prepared for other catastrophic disruptions to the educational system.

TikTok: An Emergent Opportunity for Teaching and Learning Science Communication Online.

Increasing use of social media during the COVID-19 pandemic practice of social distancing has emphasized the value and power of effective science communication through social media. As such, it has become equally important to teach and learn how to use social media accurately and effectively for science communication. In response, we developed an activity to use the social media platform TikTok to both model and build effective 21st century science communication skills. TikTok is a short-form video sharing platform whose popularity sharply increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. By using the short, focused video style of TikTok, we modeled effective social media science communication practices to teach basic science concepts and laboratory techniques. At the end of the semester, students were then challenged to create their own informative and engaging TikToks about their team's research projects to practice effective science communication. Here we share our approach and several TikTok best practices for effective and engaging science communication teaching and learning, along with example videos created during this process.

Pseudomonas Quinolone Signal-Induced Outer Membrane Vesicles Enhance Biofilm Dispersion in Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

Bacterial biofilms are major contributors to chronic infections in humans. Because they are recalcitrant to conventional therapy, they present a particularly difficult treatment challenge. Identifying factors involved in biofilm development can help uncover novel targets and guide the development of antibiofilm strategies. Pseudomonas aeruginosa causes surgical site, burn wound, and hospital-acquired infections and is also associated with aggressive biofilm formation in the lungs of cystic fibrosis patients. A potent but poorly understood contributor to P. aeruginosa virulence is the ability to produce outer membrane vesicles (OMVs). OMV trafficking has been associated with cell-cell communication, virulence factor delivery, and transfer of antibiotic resistance genes. Because OMVs have almost exclusively been studied using planktonic cultures, little is known about their biogenesis and function in biofilms. Several groups have shown that Pseudomonas quinolone signal (PQS) induces OMV formation in P. aeruginosa Our group described a biophysical mechanism for this and recently showed it is operative in biofilms. Here, we demonstrate that PQS-induced OMV production is highly dynamic during biofilm development. Interestingly, PQS and OMV synthesis are significantly elevated during dispersion compared to attachment and maturation stages. PQS biosynthetic and receptor mutant biofilms were significantly impaired in their ability to disperse, but this phenotype was rescued by genetic complementation or exogenous addition of PQS. Finally, we show that purified OMVs can actively degrade extracellular protein, lipid, and DNA. We therefore propose that enhanced production of PQS-induced OMVs during biofilm dispersion facilitates cell escape by coordinating the controlled degradation of biofilm matrix components.IMPORTANCE Treatments that manipulate biofilm dispersion hold the potential to convert chronic drug-tolerant biofilm infections from protected sessile communities into released populations that are orders-of-magnitude more susceptible to antimicrobial treatment. However, dispersed cells often exhibit increased acute virulence and dissemination phenotypes. A thorough understanding of the dispersion process is therefore critical before this promising strategy can be effectively employed. Pseudomonas quinolone signal (PQS) has been implicated in early biofilm development, but we hypothesized that its function as an outer membrane vesicle (OMV) inducer may contribute at multiple stages. Here, we demonstrate that PQS and OMVs are differentially produced during Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilm development and provide evidence that effective biofilm dispersion is dependent on the production of PQS-induced OMVs, which likely act as delivery vehicles for matrix-degrading enzymes. These findings lay the groundwork for understanding OMV contributions to biofilm development and suggest a model to explain the controlled matrix degradation that accompanies biofilm dispersion in many species.

Emphasizing iterative practices for a sequential course-based undergraduate research experience in microbial biofilms.

Iteration is a fundamental area of course design in course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs). Iteration includes development of many skills necessary for laboratory work, experimental design, data analysis, communication and teamwork. With a focus on the microbial biofilm research track of the First-year Research Immersion (FRI) program, the perceptions of four student cohorts were examined at the end of the three-term CURE sequence, relative to exposure to iterative tasks, learning gains and benefits from the research experience. Based on results from the first two cohorts, substantial changes were made in the CURE sequence to increase iterative tasks and discussion with students about the iterative nature of research. In turn, the results for the latter cohorts reached FRI program targets. In sum, novice researchers benefit from a deliberate step-wise approach for developing skills to meet the requirements and understand the complex role of iteration in real research.