The Future of Undergraduate Immunology Education: Can a Comprehensive Four-Year Immunology Curriculum Answer Calls for Reform in Undergraduate Biology Education?

Abstract

The field of immunology is rapidly evolving and has significant relevance to understanding human health, particularly in light of the threat from infectious diseases and the ability to harness the immune system to treat cancer, autoimmune diseases, and allergies. Providing opportunities to explore the field of immunology is relevant to undergraduate students interested in pursuing careers in health professions and biomedical research. There are calls for greater emphasis on interdisciplinary science education at the undergraduate level and the acquisition of transferrable competencies that will prepare undergraduates for success in a range of careers. The study of immunology provides an ideal platform to expose students to interdisciplinary science, both at the foundational and applied level. We describe the organization of an immunology curriculum, development of program learning objectives, selection and mapping of content objectives across courses, and programmatic assessment with the intent to meet calls for reform in undergraduate biology education. ImmunoHorizons, 2020, 4: 745-753.

Editorial: The Present and Future of Immunology Education

“…explores the comparison of immunology as a discipline to neuroscience, which have many intellectual similarities to immunology but is significantly more highly represented in the number of undergraduate majors and discusses the potential reasons why this might occur. This article, as well as a recently published paper ( 2 ), details how undergraduate teaching and the curriculum might be changed to enhance Immunology a paradigm for interdisciplinary courses. Chatterjea discusses teaching immunology as a liberal art and emphasizes how immunology is not a single story.…”

Piecing Complement Together with LEGO Bricks: Impacts on Interest, Confidence, and Learning in the Immunology Classroom

“…The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) offers a unique 4-year undergraduate immunology major. Students in this program take an introductory immunology course in their sophomore year, concomitantly with courses in the introductory biology and chemistry series (22). Thus, students in the introductory immunology course have varied scientific knowledge, based on the sequence of courses they have completed.…”

American Association of Immunologists Recommendations for an Undergraduate Course in Immunology

“…Few resources are available that use a methodical approach to capture the key topics for inclusion in the course. In recognition of the critical need for enhanced guidance on undergraduate immunology curricular development, several recent publications have begun the process of advocacy around a more-unified approach to undergraduate immunology education (3,4). Of note, a recent study that reported the results of surveyed immunology educators has helped identify current curricular practices by experienced instructors, which has highlighted curricular priorities for both course and curriculum design for the field (5).…”

“…Novel ideas and cutting-edge teaching strategies have been shared at the AAI Annual Meeting and in a special section of the AAI Newsletter that is dedicated to pedagogy. The rising interest in immunology education is also reflected in recently published articles, which have begun to highlight effective teaching pedagogies and topics to cover (4,9,10).…”