Wartburg College’s Sean Coleman recently presented at the American Society of Microbiology of Undergraduate Educators Conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Coleman’s first presentation focused on his collaborative research, “Implementing a Stimulated Biomedical Conference on COVID-19 Diagnosis at Various Institutions: Impact on Student Learning of Vision and Change Core Concepts and Competencies.”
The activity designed for this research enabled students to practice core competencies in a real-world scenario where they can engage in a case study, select a specialty to interpret SARS-CoV-2 tests and then communicate the results to the patient. The research and findings also have been submitted to an undergraduate education research journal.
Coleman’s collaborators for this research included professors from Minnesota State University Morehead, Virginia Tech University, Michigan State University, Rocky Mountain College and Labette Community College.
Coleman connected with his fellow researchers through a National Science Foundation funded grant awarded to the ImmuniReach program, which promotes increased multidisciplinary instruction and better teaching practices in undergraduate immunology education.
“At a teaching-focused college like Wartburg, it is essential to keep up with the newest and best evidence-based teaching practices,” said Coleman. “This conference is one of the best for learning the latest teaching techniques. It is always invigorating, and I return with a lot of excellent ideas.”
Coleman’s second presentation focused on research done in collaboration with Cole Davidson, an assistant professor of biology at Wartburg, titled, “The Prevalence of Antibiotic Resistance in the Environment: Course-based undergraduate research experience as the foundation for an integrative first year, first-semester biology laboratory curriculum.”


This research began because of a desire among Wartburg biology professors to change the program’s biology labs from the “classic cookbook style” to a more inquiry-based and authentic lab experience.
The new first-year biology laboratory experience began in fall 2020 with the implementation of national Course-based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) in all first-year biology lab sections. The goal of this change was to increase the persistence, success and sense of belonging of first-year biology students.
“Our introductory biology lab immerses students in real research experience. This hands-on approach builds skills in experimentation, data analysis and communication. By tackling a real-world problem, they gain confidence and lay a strong foundation for future success. Plus, it is a good early resume builder,” said Davidson.
Not only does this curriculum change impact a student’s sense of belonging, but it also provides them with hands-on skills.
“Students will eventually design experiments to compare the percentage of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in different soils. While doing this, they are introduced to important skills, like building graphs, statistical analysis, reading primary scientific literature and building a poster. We hope that teaching these skills and using the scientific method in their first semester will aid students as they progress throughout their degree program,” Coleman said.
Their research also found a reduction in failing grades for entry-level biology courses.
“My role was instructing the labs beginning in 2022 and analyzing all the grades earned since 2021. From my perspective, it was interesting to see how many fewer Ds and Fs were earned in our BI 151 course. Wartburg’s rate was 6% compared to the national average of over 25%,” said Davidson. “We at Wartburg are genuinely dedicated to helping our students become stronger learners and scientists. We wanted to develop a course and lab that better prepared our students not only for majors in the sciences here at Wartburg but also for careers and further education after Wartburg.”