TY - JOUR
T1 - A revolution in biochemistry and molecular biology education informed by basic research to meet the demands of 21st century career paths
AU - Black, Paul N.
N1 - Funding Information:
The Department of Biochemistry at UNL has top-tier research programs with research expenditures of $9-10 million/year, the majority of which are externally supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, USDA, Department of Energy, and private foundations including the American Heart Association and Michael J. Fox Foundation. Coupled with this strength in research is a university-wide and highly impactful undergraduate research program, Undergraduate Creative Activities and Research Experiences (UCARE), that supports students over two semesters or a summer. UCARE is funded in part by gifts from the Pepsi Quasi Endowment and Union Bank and Trust. The office of the Agriculture Research Division (ARD) also supports academic and summer research experiences for undergraduate students. UCARE and ARD students must identify a research mentor and write a research proposal that is peer-reviewed. In biochemistry, additional undergraduate research students are supported during the academic year and summer by funds from individual research grants. These students are guided through standard operating procedures in research, biosafety, codes of conduct, expectations for ethical research, finding the right graduate program, and assistance through the graduate school application process.
Funding Information:
With the modernization of the biochemistry undergraduate curriculum to meet 21st century career paths, as is the case in many programs throughout the country, student engagement in their learning through critical thinking has become an expectation. It is now the tradition of biochemistry at UNL to present a body of information in concert with asking where it came from and how it advanced the field. As noted above, the biochemistry program has been modified to cover all four years. These changes in the undergraduate biochemistry curriculum have been driven by the faculty and supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the Kelly Fund, which is an internal philanthropic fund that supports advances in teaching and learning. The fundamentals are taught, but with a high level of student engagement in current trends in research, thereby providing an important backdrop to add interest and applicability to the learning process.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Black.
PY - 2020/7/31
Y1 - 2020/7/31
N2 - The National Science Foundation estimates that 80% of the jobs available during the next decade will require math and science skills, dictating that programs in biochemistry and molecular biology must be transformative and use new pedagogical approaches and experiential learning for careers in industry, research, education, engineering, health-care professions, and other interdisciplinary fields. These efforts require an environment that values the individual student and integrates recent advances from the primary literature in the discipline, experimentally directed research, data collection and analysis, and scientific writing. Current trends shaping these efforts must include critical thinking, experimental testing, computational modeling, and inferential logic. In essence, modern biochemistry and molecular biology education must be informed by, and integrated with, cutting-edge research. This environment relies on sustained research support, commitment to providing the requisite mentoring, access to instrumentation, and state-of-the- art facilities. The academic environment must establish a culture of excellence and faculty engagement, leading to innovation in the classroom and laboratory. These efforts must not lose sight of the importance of multidimensional programs that enrich science literacy in all facets of the population, students and teachers in K-12 schools, nonbiochemistry and molecular biology students, and other stakeholders. As biochemistry and molecular biology educators, we have an obligation to provide students with the skills that allow them to be innovative and self-reliant. The next generation of biochemistry and molecular biology students must be taught proficiencies in scientific and technological literacy, the importance of the scientific discourse, and skills required for problem solvers of the 21st century.
AB - The National Science Foundation estimates that 80% of the jobs available during the next decade will require math and science skills, dictating that programs in biochemistry and molecular biology must be transformative and use new pedagogical approaches and experiential learning for careers in industry, research, education, engineering, health-care professions, and other interdisciplinary fields. These efforts require an environment that values the individual student and integrates recent advances from the primary literature in the discipline, experimentally directed research, data collection and analysis, and scientific writing. Current trends shaping these efforts must include critical thinking, experimental testing, computational modeling, and inferential logic. In essence, modern biochemistry and molecular biology education must be informed by, and integrated with, cutting-edge research. This environment relies on sustained research support, commitment to providing the requisite mentoring, access to instrumentation, and state-of-the- art facilities. The academic environment must establish a culture of excellence and faculty engagement, leading to innovation in the classroom and laboratory. These efforts must not lose sight of the importance of multidimensional programs that enrich science literacy in all facets of the population, students and teachers in K-12 schools, nonbiochemistry and molecular biology students, and other stakeholders. As biochemistry and molecular biology educators, we have an obligation to provide students with the skills that allow them to be innovative and self-reliant. The next generation of biochemistry and molecular biology students must be taught proficiencies in scientific and technological literacy, the importance of the scientific discourse, and skills required for problem solvers of the 21st century.
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U2 - 10.1074/jbc.AW120.011104
DO - 10.1074/jbc.AW120.011104
M3 - Article
C2 - 32527726
AN - SCOPUS:85089127235
SN - 0021-9258
VL - 295
SP - 10653
EP - 10661
JO - Journal of Biological Chemistry
JF - Journal of Biological Chemistry
IS - 31
ER -