CURRICULUM, INSTRUCTION, AND PEDAGOGY article
Front. Educ.
Sec. STEM Education
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1606578
This article is part of the Research TopicImmunology Education: In the Classroom and BeyondView all 5 articles
Strategies for Navigating Primary Scientific Literature in Undergraduate Immunology Courses
Provisionally accepted
- 1Concordia University (Saint Paul), Saint Paul, United States
- 2Rocky Mountain College, Billings, Montana, United States
- 3Wartburg College, Waverly, Iowa, United States
- 4Minnesota State University Moorhead, Moorhead, Minnesota, United States
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The impact of immunology on our daily lives is growing every year. From vaccines to immunotherapies, it's essential for our healthcare professionals (present and future) and the general public as patients or caregivers to be literate in immunology. One way to foster immune literacy in this rapidly advancing field is through Primary Scientific Literature (PSL). There are unique challenges with integrating PSL into immunology courses. First, the laboratory techniques used are often new and not things students have tried before or may have access to, such as flow cytometry. Second, the tools used in this literature can be confusing. For example, antibodies are often used as both part of the research method and as the research subject. Third, immunology literature is especially heavy in acronyms, jargon and abbreviations. In this manuscript, four instructors gathered to discuss the strategies that they have used in their classrooms to utilize PSL in immunology (PSL-I) and scaffold various activities around it. These teaching methods vary from highlighting immunology-specific techniques, interpreting figures, alignment with the 5E instructional model to guide an inquiry, jigsaw format learning, to in-depth journal-club style analysis. Finally, this paper discusses reflections from our experiences teaching PSL-I. We know that there are misconceptions about immunology and health in general. If we teach PSL and how to interpret it, we hope to prepare our students not just for their chosen field, but also to think critically and discern facts from fiction in society.1 Scientific Foundations for Future Physicians. Report of the AAMC-HHMI Committee. chrome
Keywords: Figures, jigsaw, journal club, ImmunoSkills, scaffolding, Active Learning, competencies, 5E instructional model
Received: 05 Apr 2025; Accepted: 26 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Bergerson, Basta, Coleman and Pandey. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Rachel J Bergerson, Concordia University (Saint Paul), Saint Paul, United States
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