Scientific research is a collaborative endeavor. I plan to focus this hybrid re-design of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Laboratory on promoting collaboration across teams and lab sections.
Pitfall #5: Ignore the ways students learn from each other stood out to me as something to avoid.
To facilitate students learning from peers as well as the instructional team, I plan to:
- Integrate collaborative work groups and spaces in the on-line environment. I plan to use a digital scientific notebook platform called Benchling, so students can share project ideas, plan experiments, and analyze data.
- Design course assessments to emphasize student collaboration.
Examples might include teams of 4-5 students work on a research project over the term with multiple check points/lab meetings occurring in group discussions. Each team could create a scientific poster based on their experimental results. I could set up a peer review of other teams’ posters. Finally students would present at a virtual research fair. Individual students could also prepare flash talks on their projects and get critiques from their peers.
One area I am thinking about is how to introduce my graduate teaching assistants to this digital space. I would like them to contribute to the collaborative work space design and “customize” it.
Benchling seems like a great resource for your students. I had never heard of it, poking around their site a bit it seems super handy, I’ll have to keep it in mind myself. I’m really excited to hear that you’re thinking about how to introduce your graduate TAs to these online spaces! As a TA it is always a challenge to navigate how much ownership to take of Canvas pages or course websites when an instructor isn’t clear about it.