An Open Inquiry Assignment for Small and Advanced Undergraduate Science Courses

• Main Author: Youngeun Choi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Society for Microbiology 2020-04-01
• Series: Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education
• Online Access: http://jmbesubmissions.asm.org/index.php/jmbe/article/view/1903

Open-ended inquiry exercises have been shown to increase student interest in science and academic performance. However, most of them are designed for lab courses. Here, I describe an assignment named HERE designed for small, advanced, and non-lab courses. Briefly, students were prompted to develop their own questions related to the lecture material, formulate hypotheses, read research papers that addressed the questions, and present the findings to the class. Students preferentially chose interdisciplinary research questions for the assignment and also reported self-assessed gains in scientific skills in the post-course survey. HERE also encouraged students to play a major role in their own learning and the instructor to adjust her role as a facilitator. I believe that owing to its versatile and flexible structure, HERE could be easily incorporated into other science courses as an effective active learning assignment.