Thank you for watching our video on how the Genomics Education Partnership (thegep.org) adapted to the rapid transition to remote learning brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic!

The pandemic left faculty scrambling to provide students with an online research experience. GEP was uniquely prepared to transition the core research component of the course to an online setting almost seamlessly because the research being done – the genomics – is done online.

The pandemic has further exposed the power of the GEP and its ability to reach all students on a grand scale. Now, the potential for wide adoption during non-pandemic times is even more clear. The research experience should not be limited to those who have access to a lab. When the world shifted online during the pandemic, GEP proved that research can still go on. We are more confident than ever that nationwide, all students can have access to a research experience and not just during a pandemic but always.

The GEP is happy to invite interested current and future faculty to contact us and join our partnership (thegep.org/contact)!

We are most interested in discussing how faculty adapted to, and strategies for keeping students engaged during, fully virtual scientific instruction. Our team is looking forward to answering questions about our work, and we'd also love to hear:

• What barrier(s) did you encounter in teaching online? 
• What barrier(s) did you find your students encountered in their online learning experience?
• How did your content delivery change in a virtual setting? What was/wasn't successful about the change(s)?
• Are there any changes you plan to make to your in-person instruction based on your experiences teaching virtually during the pandemic?
• What did COVID-19 enable/require you to do that led to an accomplishment or realization concerning teaching in general, or genomics/bioinformatics in particular?

 

Follow GEP on Twitter: @GEP_CURE

This is fascinating.  I am already familiar with the project, but am so happy to see how you all adapted to the pandemic.  I hope there will be publications about the adaptations for faculty and students.

I am interested in whether any students or faculty had access issues, because we saw that many students did not have appropriate computer or internet access, especially those who were in other countries.

I'd also like to hear others experiences about barriers and adaptations.

Love your questions above!

Yes CURES are great and I wish there were MORE of them for all units in Biology actually and that we did more of this in all of our classes at UNCP!

Thank you for posting this video! I have known about GEP almost since its inception through my work at the National Academies with Sarah Elgin, one of GEP's founders and organizers. I especially like the fact that GEP focuses on addressing issues related to CUREs systemically, through both students and their faculty mentors. 

Patricia Marsteller, a co-facilitator asked about access during the pandemic even though all of the work done through GEP is virtual. In listening through multiple sources about challenges faced by students trying to work virtually during the pandemic, two primary issues emerged: 2) lack of access to the internet when working off-campus, and 2) problems of being able to read and understand materials from their cell phones when that material was designed to be displayed on larger screens that the students didn't own. 

Has GEP adopted its materials for use on small screen cell phones? I also wonder whether GEP has thought about partnering with telecomm companies to provide nodes for internet access to students without that access. Several of them have touted their efforts during the pandemic to bring such access to K-12 students. Watching what opportunities might emerge from President Biden's infrastructure bill related to broadband access might also provide some powerful collaborations in the future should the bill become law.

Thank you again for letting this community know about GEP!

https://serc.carleton.edu/curenet/index.html

for lots of cure's  I also have a number of papers on cure's I can share.

Thanks Jay for extending my comment.  I do think access is really important.  Working on small screen laptops is hard enough, but cellphones..Yikes!

 

Dear Jay and Patricia, we did worry about access to technology and did a survey of our faculty last spring. We considered leveraging our GEP community resources to create loaner laptop sets, but it did not turn out to be necessary. It appeared that most institutions were creating local campus solutions to the tech access problem (e.g. loaner technology from campus). In a way, the pandemic forced campuses to deal with technology access since it became a problem for student learning in all courses, not just tech-heavy courses in genomics or biology.   So over the past year, we focused our GEP community efforts on broadening access to research experiences and genomics by increasing student support through our virtual TAs (available 7-days a week for 6-8 hours a day), improving curriculum, and supporting teachers (mentored online professional development, broadening recruitment, building community).

We are really working on expanding our network to welcome more community colleges and MSIs! I hope we can engage in conversation here with other professional development communities that are successful in this endeavor! and also hope to hear from individual faculty who are at CCs and MSIs - how can we better recruit and support faculty so we can serve a more diverse student population?  

GEP is definitely a natural for COVID times. I have wondered this past year what of the changes we were forced to make would survive because of the good they could do. I can see how the expanded work of GEP will survive! Along the line of Jay's question, I wondered about the availability of internet access via institutions and at home. Were there students who couldn't be involved because access to internet was unavailable? Were there hotspot solutions? Thanks! This is a great project.

Thank you for sharing your info about the GEP project! Appreciate especially the comment by the student saying she joined a scientific community!  In a nutshell that's what it's about.  

There need to be more programs like this to assist faculty in integrating CURES into undergraduate education for students for sure! 

Congratulations on a great project. I’m curious how the support by the mentors was organized.