2024 article
Editorial: Using case study and narrative pedagogy to guide students through the process of science
Smyth, D. S., Marsteller, P., Alexander, C. C., Deal, A. L., & Goller, C. C. (2024, October 14). FRONTIERS IN MICROBIOLOGY, Vol. 15.
author keywords: case study; molecular case study; narrative; literacy; scientific communication; R coding; underrepresented minority (URM) students; diversity
open access via doi.org (publisher)
UN Sustainable Development Goal Categories
4. Quality Education
(OpenAlex)
Source: Web Of Science
Added: November 4, 2024
course goals. The authors describe tailoring this case study for both major and nonmajor courses and find that engagement with the case study led students, regardless of major, to draw meaningful conclusions about the importance of the human gut microbiome and the use of antibiotics in current society.The Trujillo and Dutta article presents a detailed rationale and process for developing molecular cases that can engage biology, chemistry, and biochemistry students, and even the general public in understanding molecular structures and their applications in the real world. The article describes some of the work from the Molecular Case Network1 , including a detailed example of one of the cases. The article describes the framework for developing and using MCSs at the intersection of technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge (TPCK), as well as their use in interdisciplinary teaching and learning. This community of educators has developed multiple cases across various topics that employ freely available molecular structures to engage students in exploring biological functions, macromolecular sequences, macromolecular structures, chemical environments, and molecular forces to explore structures and connect structure to function. The authors present one detailed example, "Happy Blue Baby," to illustrate the points of their model. They also explore the rationale for using molecular stories to engage students and introduce them to bioinformatic resources. Since students and faculty often are unfamiliar with the tools, the MCN group created videos, tutorials, and other documentation to supplement the cases. The article also describes challenges when piloting cases and the mechanisms developed to overcome them.While new technologies continue to evolve, case studies and narrative pedagogies offer the opportunity to engage students and help them practice their research skills while investigating new questions (Raza et al. 2020). Case studies can be easily shared in an open education environment on the BioQUEST QUBES hub2 , on the NSTA cases site3 , and through several scientific society pages and journals.Stories and narratives can impact student engagement and have been demonstrated to improve learning (Bonney, 2015;Raza et al., 2020). Faculty development in using case studies in STEM, including development networks for new case studies and the support of hosting sites for OER resources for the long-term accessibility of these materials, should be a funding priority for agencies such as the National Science Foundation. We request that DBER faculty and education researchers help the community develop assessment instruments and design experiment studies to measure learning gains tied to case study style pedagogy. Data on impact will help us to encourage and convince all our colleagues to use and create their cases. Research into the impact of case studies on teaching the process of science, as well as the value of recognizing interdisciplinary perspectives while tackling real-world issues of relevance of STEM, is critical for our students and colleagues if we are all to be a part of the solution to wicked problems such as climate change, pandemics, and the impacts of emerging technologies. We hope you find these articles and exciting upcoming contributions of use and value and that you consider some of the approaches described for your classrooms.Words: 981/1000