(Editor’s note: This personal account was written by Dr. Shelby S. J. Putt, an assistant professor of Anthropology.)
When I was an undergraduate, I conducted an independent research study. This experience catapulted me into graduate school. It is one of the reasons why I am an anthropologist today. Many university students are unaware of the research opportunities available to them and the benefits that these opportunities impart unless research experiences are embedded directly into their courses. One solution is the CURE (course-related undergraduate research experience) teaching approach. The CURE approach actively engages all students in a course in original and collaborative research during class time, leading to novel findings that are relevant to the scholarly community.
Last fall, Illinois State University’s Office of Student Research received funding from a PIE (Provost’s Innovation and Enhancement grant) to incentivize CUREs. I was one of three faculty chosen for the award, along with David Malone, Distinguished Professor of Geology in the Department of Geography, Geology and the Environment; and Autumn West, Instructional Assistant Professor of English. Thanks to this support, I offered a new CURE in the spring and summer, which actively involved 10 students in experimental archaeology research. Not only did this opportunity leave a lasting mark on the students who took part, but it has also had a large impact on my research and teaching.
In spring 2024, I offered Experimental Archaeology, a new, project-based learning course in which the entire class worked together to conduct an experimental archaeology study that addressed the theory of language and toolmaking co-evolution, a topic that is at the core of my research agenda. I helped guide the students through the scientific process of planning and designing the experiment, which included building and defending arguments in a theoretical framework, confronting the ethics of involving human subjects in the study, collaborating with other research teams, collecting and analyzing pilot data, and presenting their findings to members of the department. We enrolled approximately 80 human subjects in the study. There was a week toward the end of the semester when the second floor of Schroeder Hall was bustling with people and filled with the ting-tinging sounds of rocks striking together. While the data collected were messy, as is to be expected with novice researchers, the results are intriguing and may be used in a future grant proposal to expand on the research. We are planning to present our results as a class at the next university research symposium.
Three students from this course—Lucah Kloster, Louane Rimer, and Heather Salmons—decided to pursue related research projects during the paid summer internship. They joined graduate student, Michaela Schroeder, and Human Origins student, Valerie Jackson, who worked on ape toolmaking projects. Because of their participation in this CURE, Lucah reports that they are now “considering pursuing research as a career avenue,” something they had never considered previously. For Valerie, the internship confirmed for her that she wants to pursue a career in anthropology, and she plans to apply to our accelerated master’s program next year. Louane, who plans to submit a grant proposal to Sigma Xi to extend the study that we started in the spring, reflects that “the internship really helped [her] develop as a writer.” Heather decided to pursue graduate studies in our accelerated master’s program as a result of her participation in the CURE. Finally, Michaela spent the summer rewriting her master’s thesis as a publishable manuscript, which we plan to submit to the American Journal of Primatology at the end of the summer. I am extremely proud of all these students’ accomplishments.
Leading this research experience has made a large impact on me as a teacher, researcher, and scientist. Because of the one-on-one personal attention that teaching under the CURE approach requires, I have formed close bonds with these students in a way that I have not experienced in other types of courses that I have taught. I have seen the benefits of project-based learning firsthand, and I have been humbled to witness how a single course can change the trajectory of someone’s life, just as it did for me. This experience has reminded me why I originally decided to pursue research as a career path in the first place. It has reinvigorated my curiosity and research ideas. It has also reconfirmed for me that science is for everyone, not just the privileged few. As a scientist, it is not only my duty to carry out sound research but also to help pass on the torch to the next generation of scientists.
