D) Designing a successful CURE: The basics

Although CUREs share several characteristics (see Introduction), there exists a diversity of CURE designs and models. Shuster et al. (2019) proposed a taxonomy of CUREs with two main categories: researcher-independent CUREs and researcher-driven CUREs. The former category includes many discovery-based CUREs. Researcher-independent CUREs are not tied to the expertise or research interests of the instructor. As such, they can be supervised by different instructors, may have a greater lifespan, and can potentially foster student-driven questions (Shuster et al., 2019). However, these CUREs are supervised by non-expert researchers who may not be confident in the project and require training (Shuster et al., 2019). Researcher-independent discovery-based CUREs can be replicated across institutions and lead to national programs (e.g., Genné-Bacon & Bascom-Slack, 2018; Jordan et al., 2014; Shaffer et al., 2014). Some of those national programs have common research goals. For example, the Genomics Education Partnership (GEP) is annotating the genome of Drosophila (Shaffer et al., 2010; 2014). Instructors can apply to join these programs and receive centralized training, benefit from the support system put in place by these project’s networks, and exchange with the associated communities of instructors and researchers. One advantage of such programs is the potential time savings made by instructors in developing and initiating a CURE (Gentile et al., 2017). There are also national programs that have been developed to support students and their instructors in undertaking their own research projects. Examples of these programs include The Genome Consortium for Active Teaching (GCAT; Campbell et al., 2007; Walker et al., 2008) and its sister program, GCAT-SEEK (Buonaccorsi et al., 2014; Buonaccorsi et al., 2011) as well as the Ecological Research as Education Network. Both GEP and GCAT have been extensively analyzed for their ability to support CUREs (Lopatto et al., 2014). Malotky et al. (2020) present yet another model of researcher-independent CURE in their CEL-CURE. This CURE involves “Community-Engaged Learning”; the research questions investigated by the students each semester stem from conversations with community partners in an original combination of service-learning and research (Malotky et al., 2020). Similarly, Adkins-Jablonsky et al. (2020) developed a series of CUREs centered around environmental justice in an effort to increase community-engagement as well as science efficacy and identity.

Researcher-driven CUREs are experiences in which the students contribute to the research program of the instructor. Researcher-driven CUREs are mentored by experts who are invested in the success of the CURE and its dissemination to the research community (Shuster et al., 2019). These CUREs are likely to be hypothesis-driven and lead to publication (Fukami, 2013; Shuster et al., 2019). There are some opportunities for researcher-driven CUREs to benefit from the support of national programs–the Keck Geology Consortium provides such an opportunity (De Wet et al., 2009)–but these opportunities are rare and often support small numbers of students (six to nine students in the case of the Keck Consortium). Because of the inherent integration of their teaching and research missions in researcher-driven CUREs, faculty members at research institutions may be more likely to be invested in the development and success of such CUREs as opposed to researcher-independent ones, whereas faculty members at community colleges and institutions with little support for the course development efforts associated with creating a CURE, and limited research funding, can benefit from joining national programs that provide a framework for implementing CUREs.

Thus, there are three possible paths to designing a CURE:

1. Implementing a researcher-independent CURE for which there is a pre-existing structure available through national programs or the peer-reviewed discipline-based education research (DBER) literature
2. Developing a new researcher-independent CURE
3. Designing a unique researcher-driven CURE

When designing a new CURE, just like any other course, instructors should adopt a backward-design approach (Dolan, 2016; Graff, 2011; Hills et al., 2020; Shapiro et al., 2015; Wiggins & McTighe, 1998). This approach requires instructors to first identify the outcomes desired from the CURE, then determine the acceptable evidence that these outcomes have been met, and only afterwards, plan the learning experiences and instruction (Cooper et al., 2017). One important caveat to this structure when designing a researcher-driven CURE is the need to integrate the research goals of the researcher with the learning outcomes for the students. Such integration can and should follow a backward-design approach for the research component as well (Cooper et al., 2017: Table 1). It may be necessary to adjust the research project to meet the desired learning outcomes or revise the learning outcomes of the CURE to match the limitations of the research project (Cooper et al., 2017). The instruction and mentorship of the research experience itself will need to consider several critical issues (e.g., Cooper & Brownell, 2018; Kloser et al., 2011; Shaffer et al., 2014; Zelaya et al., 2020) presented in Table 3.

The issues of Table 3 can be rephrased as framing questions (questions 1-2, 4-5, 7-8, and 10 from Dolan, 2016) to guide the development of a CURE:

1. How will the CURE be integrated into the curriculum? Identifying the target audience of the course, the nature of the course, and its place within the curriculum as well as the CURE’s research goals.
2. To what extent will students have intellectual responsibility and [ownership] of the research? Determining the role the students will have in developing, implementing, and communicating the research.
3. Which components of the research process will be integrated into the CURE? Defining the research experience of the students and guiding them through the literature, data collection, and data analysis.
4. How will research progress be balanced with student learning and development? Designing an inclusive experience that includes peer-reviews and addresses the limitations imposed by the course structure.
5. How will the research learning tasks be structured to foster students’ development as [scholars]? Scaffolding the CURE and individual assignments, fostering reflection, and promoting successful group work.
6. How will students communicate the results of their research? Choosing the appropriate mode of communication to reflect authentic scholarship and ensure equity.
7. How will [the progress and experience of students] be assessed? Adopting a mode of grading that is true to the research process as well as transparent and inclusive for all students.
8. How will research learning tasks change as discoveries are made and initial research questions are answered? Including iteration within the course and ensuring the success of a CURE over the long term.
9. What are the logistical obstacles and solutions for the different steps of the CURE? Overcoming problems accessing and analyzing data and funding a CURE.
10. What are the roles of instructional [and support] staff? Transforming instructors into mentors to support students and teaching assistants.
11. How will the success of the CURE be assessed? Assessing the usefulness of the scaffold of the CURE and its individual activities and evaluating the success of the research and the students.

1. Successful CUREs across disciplines

Many successful CUREs have been developed across institutions, course-levels, and disciplines. Table 4 presents a selection of CUREs, sorted by discipline, focusing on examples that provide templates or curriculum elements for the replication of the experience or its implementation in a different context. These examples can be used to start reflecting on the questions presented above.

Examples of CUREs across disciplines and topic

Table 4. Examples of CUREs across disciplines and topic. * CURE implemented at the Ohio State University, † Interdisciplinary CURE

In addition to the many published CUREs, there are also several CUREs that have been developed across the campuses of Ohio State in STEM, social sciences, and humanities. Table 5 provides examples of these courses at the time of writing including the instructor or contact person who may be able to provide documents from their course and/or insights into their experience developing and implementing the CURE.

Table 5. Examples of unpublished CUREs across disciplines and topic at the Ohio State University.

2. Expected learning outcomes of CUREs

CUREs can help foster student success in different components of the curriculum. They can be implemented at the introductory level as well as in upper classes (Table 3) and even in first-year seminars (Vater et al., 2019); they can lead to thesis projects and fulfill other writing requirements; they can also involve extensive laboratory work (e.g., Pontrello, 2015), field work (e.g., Gonzales & Semken, 2009; Messager et al., 2022; Thompson et al., 2016), or community-based interventions (e.g., Malotky et al., 2020). As such, CUREs may be appropriate as entire classes or elements of classes in foundation courses, theme courses, honors classes, non-major courses, required introductory courses for the major, or upper-level electives.

The first step in the design of a CURE is to identify the desired pedagogical goals for the course. Keep in mind that pedagogical goals, or learning goals, describe what you as instructor, and your program, aim for with the CURE. They give students a general idea of what they will gain from the CURE. Expected learning outcomes (ELOs) describe what students are able to do at the outset of the CURE. ELOs are specific statements that use action verbs to state what student should achieve; they should be measurable and realistic.

There are three important categories of learning goals to consider. The first one concerns discipline-specific knowledge and skills, including technical skills. The second one is concerned with soft skills, including broadly applicable competences in communication and habits that promote success, like the ability to work well as part of a team. The third category of learning goals that is worth including in the framework of a CURE is personal goals. Encouraging students to develop their own learning goals for the CURE can be a powerful way to increase buy-in and ownership of the project (see [Activity 1]). It has also been linked to more positive impacts of the course for students (Lopatto et al., 2022). Whichever of these three categories they belong to, the goals should be aligned with appropriate expected learning outcomes.

Discipline-specific goals can be sourced from program guidelines and department resources. In the case of courses redesigned into CUREs, the learning goals articulated for the non-CURE format of the class should also be considered. Learning goals adapted to CUREs, particularly learning goals that incorporate technical skills, can be found in the CURE literature (e.g., Connor et al., 2022; Hanauer et al., 2017; Mishra et al., 2022; Table 4) and select dedicated publications (e.g., Irby et al., 2018). An additional source of learning goals may be found in the discipline-based education research literature, particularly concept inventories. Concept inventories and concept assessments, more than lists of discipline-specific learning goals, enable the evaluation of student learning through validated sets of multiple-choice questions (Libarkin, 2008). There exists concept inventories for a large number of disciplines and topics, particularly in STEM (Libarkin, 2008; Table 6); there are also databases of learning objectives for some disciplines (e.g., Bioliteracy; Chemistry, Life, the Universe, and Everything).

Learning outcomes can be drawn from program requirements and general education curriculum expectations. At the Ohio State University, competencies and skills that are not discipline-specific are articulated in the expected learning outcomes of the foundations, themes, integrative practices, and embedded literacies of the general education curriculum (Ohio State GE Program). Like at many other institutions, additional expected learning outcomes exist for the Honors program (Honors Program Goals).

Foundations courses enable students to gain a well-rounded education across academic disciplines and modes of inquiry. At Ohio State, students are required to take a course in each of seven fields of study (GE Program Structure), each associated with five to eight ELOs. Theme courses have their own sets of ELOs based on the theme they fall under. Theme courses are particularly appropriate for CUREs because the implementation of a CURE in a theme course enables it to qualify as a high impact practice course. The integrative practice inventory itself dictates ten expectations for these courses; they should be carefully considered at the time of design. Within a major, courses at the introductory or upper level can be valuable contexts to develop CUREs. Courses within the major are driven in part by the ELOs of the embedded literacies. Honors courses should satisfy ELOs from the Honors program.

Instructors should select learning outcomes from the appropriate list based on the nature of the course being developed (see question 1 starting on p. 51). Based on the discipline of the course, a subset of the ELOS for the foundation courses, theme courses, or embedded literacies are relevant. Once the ELOs for the course have been selected, they should be translated to specific outcomes for the CURE being developed. Specific learning outcomes should be center ed around students. All statements should start with “Student will be able to …” This statement should be followed by an action verb appropriate for the goal (see Verb wheel for examples). Each CURE outcome should also be associated with specific assignments that will enable the instructor to assess whether students have met the desired course outcome; in application of the backward-design approach (see p. 32). Examples of such alignment efforts are shown below for select learning outcomes. Instructors developing their own CUREs can contact the Office of Academic Enrichment (https://osas.osu.edu/oae/) as well as the Office of Undergraduate Research and Creative Inquiry (https://ugresearch.osu.edu/) for assistance in translating the learning outcomes of university-wide programs into course-specific ELOs. Best practices in writing and using learning goals are reviewed in Orr et al. (2022) at http://lse.ascb.org/learning-objectives/.

For each of the four curricular context identified above for Ohio State, tables 7-10 show the alignment between select ELOs, their translation for different example CURES in different disciplinary contexts (STEM, social sciences, and humanities or any), and a proposed assignment enabling the evaluation of the ELO. The assessment of learning outcome competency is critical and should be integrated in the design process of the course (see Mishra et al., 2022 for an example).

Examples of ELO alignments for Foundation courses

Table 7. Examples of ELO alignments for Foundation courses

Examples of ELO alignments for Theme courses

Table 8. Examples of ELO alignments for Theme courses

Examples of ELO alignments for Embedded literacies

Table 9. Examples of ELO alignments for Embedded Literacies

Examples of ELO alignments for Honors courses

Table 10. Examples of ELO alignments for Honors courses