SInce starting in EVS I have established a student journal club. Initially this was purely as a way to critically evaluate one new publication per week as chosen by the students. The goal was, by being hypercrtical of other, published, work, the students’ own experimental design and figure presentation would improve.
Since then, its evolved quite a lot and sometimes is a bit more like small group teaching (including special sessions on RNAseq, protein biochemisty, image analysis, stats and eye biology) some of which involve some of the other faculty in the department.
I’ve also introduced the “contribution cup”. A silly game with arbitrary points system where students are assigned points based on their involvement in all aspects of EVS affairs (includingfor example points for asking questions in seminars as well as for winning the amino acid card game). Each week I provide a graphical update of the scores with the graphs selected based on their relative difficulty to interpret.
Season 4 has just ended and Valentina won. The trophy, I am sure you agree is awesome!
The silly hat is a prerequisite of the photo; somehow Vale still manages to look good!
LaNts and Laminins 