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Undergraduates phenotyping Arabidopsis knockouts (unPAK) is a biology research network that has provided undergraduate research experiences (URE) since 2010. In 2019, unPAK expanded to include a summer URE that engaged undergraduate researchers from across the network in an intensive collaborative program. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, unPAK rapidly shifted to provide the summer URE program remotely. This article describes (i) the instructional and communication processes of unPAK in the remote URE; and (ii) a summative assessment of the outcomes associated with the remote summer program as compared with the 2019 in-person program. We conclude by offering timely recommendations for educators in biology that emerged from the 2020 remote summer research experience, which may be applicable to other remote UREs and course-based research experiences (CUREs).Recently, students and faculty have been forced to deal with unprecedented disruptions to their courses and broader uncertainties that have presented serious challenges to quality instruction. We present a flexible, team-based approach to teaching and learning that can transition seamlessly between face-to-face, hybrid, and fully online instruction when disruptions occur. We have built a community genome annotation program that can be implemented as a module in a biology course, as an entire course, or as directed research projects. This approach maintains an engaging and supportive educational environment and provides students the opportunity to learn and contribute to science with undergraduate research. Students are provided guidance through multiple interactions with faculty and peer mentors to support their progress and encourage learning. Integration of the developed instructional tools with available technology ensures that students can contribute remotely. Through this process, students seamlessly continue their annotation coursework, participate in undergraduate research, and prepare abstracts and posters for virtual conferences. Importantly, this strategy does not impose any additional burden or workload on students, who may already be overwhelmed with the additional work associated with the transition to remote learning. Here, we present tips for implementing this instructional platform, provide an overview of tools that facilitate instruction, and discuss expected educational outcomes.The emergence of COVID-19 and the pandemic that followed have given us a front-row seat to the debate over individual rights vs. public health. There is a fine line between protecting the health of a community and maintaining civil liberties. More than a year before COVID-19 made the jump to humans, a lower-division, non-majors course was developed to explore the application and ramifications of quarantine and isolation. This 10-week class focuses on the biological and epidemiological rationale behind these nonpharmaceutical interventions, important historic examples, and the emotional, societal, and political consequences of such policies. Abemaciclib This Quarantine and Isolation elective was included in the 2019-2020 University of Washington, Bothell course catalog and was scheduled to be taught in person spring quarter; little did we know that weeks before this class would meet, Washington State would become the apparent epicenter of America's COVID-19 outbreak. As our campus followed physical distancing protocols and moved to remote emergency learning, it became necessary to shift this course to online delivery, include conversations on how this new public health crisis connected to events of the past, and best support students with their heightened levels of stress and anxiety. The goal of this paper is not only to share curriculum related to quarantine and isolation, but also to describe successful strategies for online instruction and student support during a pandemic and beyond.In early spring 2020, New York's K-12 schools, colleges, and universities went into lockdown in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and faculty began converting face-to-face classes into distance learning classes. Teachers and college faculty learned to use new technology to continue instruction for the remainder of the academic year. Learning curves were steep for some, as using technology proved to be overwhelming. Students who registered for in-person classes had to learn in an online environment. Pre-Health Science majors who rely heavily on practical, hands-on courses to gain the necessary skills required for their career participated in virtual anatomy and physiology laboratories. Clearly, face-to-face courses are not always possible; therefore, it is imperative to know the best practices of online teaching and learning.The extreme academic and social disruption caused by COVID-19 in the spring and summer of 2020 led to the loss of many student internships. We report here our creation of a novel internship for students majoring in the biological sciences. Student interns worked together to systematically categorize multiple episodes of This Week in Microbiology (TWiM). They annotated episodes by labeling relevant ASM fundamental curricular guidelines and the microbiology techniques described in several podcast episodes. Interns worked together, which advanced their written and oral communication skills while improving their scientific thinking skills. Faculty then enhanced each annotation by adding short figure-reading exercises that can be used in a variety of educational settings to teach science literacy. When surveyed, students reported greater confidence in analyzing and interpreting results from a variety of microbiological methods, improved communication of fundamental microbiology concepts in written and oral form, and enhanced ability to collaborate with others. Combined, this digital internship provided a unique opportunity for students to develop critical technical and scientific thinking skills and generated useful open education resources for teaching general microbiology in the form of annotated podcasts.Students and instructors have been faced with unexpected challenges that presented rapidly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic forced students into an unfamiliar learning ecosystem to which they had to quickly adapt in order to continue to be successful in their courses. Literature supports the importance of metacognition and self-regulated learning in the success of students in an online environment. More importantly, the concept of metacognitive regulation, which includes monitoring, planning, executing, and adapting learning strategies, is vital to student academic success. These strategies have been shown to close the opportunity gap observed specifically in persons excluded because of their ethnicity or race (PEERs) in STEM. Outlined here is the use of student-developed learning plans as a guided process to enhance students' metacognitive regulation of their learning. These learning plans provide students a template to assist them in time management, practical study skills and planned study sessions, that are designed to increase their self-efficacy, motivation, and performance in online classes.