Teaching Graduate Skills Foundation Skills for Life Sciences Research Skills for Life Sciences

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Teaching Graduate SkillsFoundation Skills for
Life SciencesResearch Skills for Life Sciences








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BI2005 Foundation Skills for Life Sciences The
course focuses on developing core skills for life
scientists and is required for all students with
degree intentions in the School of Medical
Sciences and Biological Sciences 360 students.
What does it involve? Wednesday mornings PRS
session 8.45-10 in Arts LT followed by Workshop
10-1 in College Teaching Facility (Zoology
Building). Staffed entirely by academics in SMS
and mainly by demonstrators in SBS. Practice
Questions on WebCT. Individual Assessment
following Wednesday (College Teaching Facility)
at 9am, 10am or 11am.
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Major Level 2 re-organization. 3 Discipline
courses and 1 Skills course in first semester
instead of 4 Discipline courses. No exam in
January, only in-course assessments. So reduced
number of exams in January. So why did we do
it? It was done in response to feedback from
Level 3 students and also supervisors of Honours
projects.
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Week 12 Numerical Skills
Week 13 Practical Skills
Week 15 Data Interpretation
Week 17 Statistical analysis
Week 19 Experimental Design
Week 21 Problem Solving and Scientific Writing
All content is contextualised to relevant
disciplines. The Practice questions are NOT the
same as the Assessment Questions. Students cannot
learn the answers and remember them.
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Students are instructed to retake any failed
assessment as many times as needed, Practice
makes Perfect! Although they can only achieve a
9 for any additional attempt, means all students
get practice, weaker students get more practice
and help.
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• In the diagram above, what is the dilution
  between X and Y?
• 10-2
• 10-3
• 10-1

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• Pros
• Challenging
• Flexible
• Allows all students to reach a basic competence
  level in multiple skills
• Very forgiving, repeat assessments until pass
• Enables targeted help to weaker students
• Cons
• Huge amount of work for course design team
• Diversity of student ability means probably too
  easy for some and way too difficult for others

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Interesting fact? In the first run of the course
in 2006-7, there was a session on Writing
Skills. The students absolutely HATED IT. The
material developed is now available for voluntary
use by first year Biology course.
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• BI2506 Research Skills for Life Sciences
• Background
• The Honours project is the highlight of most
  students time at University. Most of us consider
  it as a true research project.
• Why BI2506?
• All Level 2 students (180) with degree
  intentions in the School of Medical Sciences.
• Aim is to develop the essential skills needed
  to undertake a research project.
• Also allows flexible delivery and a different
  way of doing things.
• (Heavily plagiarised from the Phase I MBChB
  SSMs, which have run very successfully since
  1996).
• Dr Stephen Davies is the inspiration for this
  course.

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• Course Learning Outcomes
• To carry out work in a disciplined manner as part
  of a team.
• To take responsibility for ensuring that the
  group deliver the research project.
• To understand how to use library facilities to
  perform a basic literature search and assemble
  relevant information.
• To understand the basis of scientific
  investigation and the importance of hypothesis
  driven enquiry.
• To understand the importance of critical
  appraisal of information sources and the reality
  of conflicting views on important research
  topics.
• To explain and educate your peers on information
  that you have learned about the group topic.

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• To demonstrate basic computing and
  communication skills to create an oral
  presentation.
• To answer questions on any aspect of the
  project following the oral presentation.
• To contribute to the discussion on the oral
  presentations of other groups in your theme.
• To understand the meaning of plagiarism and
  take responsibility for ensuring that the groups
  project is a true reflection of the groups own
  work.
• To demonstrate the skills needed to write an
  individual report of the project under exam
  conditions.
• To develop transferable skills related to
  teamwork, time management, communication and
  information technology skills.

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• What do they have to do?
• Work in groups of 6 to research a topic on
  Health and Disease.
• Prepare a joint project for Powerpoint
  presentation in week 37.
• Write an individual summary of the project under
  exam conditions.
• One of the most important aspects of the project
  is that the members of the group explain and
  inform the rest of the group about the section of
  the project that they have been responsible for
  investigating.
• In the question session following the oral
  presentation, any member of the group can be
  asked questions on any aspect of the project.
• So the expectation is that that they have an
  understanding of the project in its entirety, via
  Peer Assisted Learning (PAL).

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Groups have a tutor who is there to troubleshoot
and also runs a tutorial type exam after 6 weeks
to ensure all students engaged and keeping others
educated. They decide how to run it, who does
what, who does the presentation. Set milestones
that have to be achieved. Have a Secretary and a
Treasurer.
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Assessment Group Presentation 30 Tutors of
Theme 10 Other groups in Theme Course
Performance 15 Tutor (Including
Tutorial 10) 5 Peer group Individual
Essay 40 Tutor (moderated by Theme leader
and course organiser) 100 The Resit
exam consists of an oral presentation to staff
and submission of an entire project report under
exam conditions, ie have to do it all on their
own.
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• What is the structure of the research project?
• Mostly you will be looking at a specific disease
  entity and then finding out about the following
  key areas which will form the common structure
  for all the projects.
• Relevance of the disease or condition. How
  common is it, who does it affect?
• 2. What are its causes eg are they genetic,
  autoimmune, viral, lifestyle-induced? Or indeed
  all of the above?
• 3. How does the disease affect normal
  biochemistry and physiology, or structure?
  (Clearly need to understand normality first).
• 4. How is the disease treated? What is the
  rationale for the treatment?
• 5. Are there any exciting new therapeutic
  strategies that might be used in the future?
• Within this overall structure, different topics
  will have different emphases, eg if you are
  looking at Is Exercise the Best Medicine, then
  the emphasis is more likely to be on points 3 and
  4 above, while, for example, some genetic
  diseases, may not be amenable to any treatments
  at the moment.

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Broad themes, (overlap between them), 4/5 topics
in each Diseases affecting the Nervous
System Developmental Diseases Acquired
Diseases Is Exercise the Best
Medicine? Genetic Diseases Diseases of the
Immune System One of the most important
outcomes is that students realize that, unlike
textbooks, which tend to give a straight dogmatic
story, real research often seems to be completely
contradictory. In some areas, there is no
agreement over the cause or the treatment of a
condition. Critical evaluation of the evidence
and realisation of the conflict that may occur
are learning objectives of this course.
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• Pros
• Students enjoy the autonomy and the
  responsibility
• Very flexible to deliver
• Plays to students strengths
• Enhances academic and transferable skills
• Students love it
• Cons
• Students who register later than first week

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Statement Agree/Strongly Agree Disagree/Strongly Disagree
The course has challenged me 78 4
The course has increased my interest in my subject 75 5
The course has increased my understanding of my subject 75 2
The course has helped me become a more independent learner 74 6
The course has helped me develop my group working skills 79 3
The course has helped me develop my presentation skills 78 4
I feel more confident about undertaking new assignments 74 2
I would perform a similar project better in the future 79 2
I have enjoyed this course 65 6
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More examples of research-linked
teaching Students now in Level 3 who did the
BI2506 course last year found it was really
useful for the project run course in
PY3002. This year to address the diversity of
ability and background in the large first year
Biology class 380-400, students were invited to
address Biological Challenges and develop
websites for prizes. Entirely voluntary, although
did have a dedicated tutor. 6 groups started but
only two ended up submitting for the
deadline. http//www.abdn.ac.uk/u03rp7/biological
_challenges/ www.abdn.ac.uk/u01sbk7/index.html
Take Home Message If you challenge students
and provide the framework, they will rise to the
challenge and really do well at whatever level,
BUT it has to be in a subject that they are
interested in.
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Evidence for last statement PRS used to ask
Biology class their opinion. Your opinion
matters, (although none of this will affect you
directly). There is currently discussion in the
University about the Curriculum. Some of the
ideas relate to making courses greater in
breadth. So Science students would learn more for
example about history, philosophy, sociology,
politics and language. Similarly Arts students
would learn about physics, chemistry, maths and
biology.
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• Please indicate below which of the following you
  would most agree with
• n
• Very much in favour of this idea. 6 7
• Quite a good idea. 18 20
• Not sure either way. 7 8
• Not interested. 21 24
• This would really put me off Aberdeen. 36 41