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Program Objectives

• Despite the unique character of each discipline and corresponding academic department, we share a common set of teaching goals. Employers and admissions committees are looking for candidates who are critical thinkers, cooperative team players, and excellent problem solvers. Many of these attributes are developed in our laboratory courses in Natural Sciences and Engineering.
  
  
• Five major learning objectives in the laboratory courses contribute to development of these attributes. Review the laboratory teaching/learning objectives and performance standards. These are the real goals of our program, which transcend all majors, departments, and individual courses, regardless of content.
  
  
• Our Lab Proficiency Scale was developed to promote self-evaluation of competency in key areas: obtaining and analyzing data, communicating information and ideas, establishing context, integrating and applying knowledge, and maintaining productive work habits and relationships. We've developed surveys (Pre Lab Self Evaluation of Professional Laboratory Skills and Post Lab Self Evaluation of Professional Laboratory Skills) to help us improve our laboratory curriculum.
  
  
• The undergraduate program is a series of steps. Keep in mind that a level of performance that would result in a B/B+ or sometimes even an A at the introductory level, does not (and should not) translate into a high grade at the advanced level.
  We forgive a lot of mistakes early on but you must recall the lessons learned from these mistakes when you conduct similar work at an advanced level. Additionally, the criteria we use to evaluate your performance in an advanced laboratory course are different from those we use in an introductory course.

Course Objectives

• This lab course requires BOTH greater independence and teamwork than BIOS 311 and BIOS 313. You are expected to analyze, interpret, and present your work as a TEAM for the scientific poster.  We assess your abilities to apply knowledge you've gained in other laboratory and lecture courses to the presentation and communication of a real research project.
  
  
• This laboratory course advances basic laboratory, record keeping, and technical communication skills that were assessed in Bios 211: Experimental Biosciences, Bios 313: Introductory Synthetic Biology, and Bios 311: Advanced Experimental Biosciences. Student teams prepare and orally defend scientific posters to communicate their findings. Our emphasis is on the PROCESS of science (i.e., fundamental abilities) rather than the CONTENT (i.e., discipline-specific lab techniques).
  
  The poster is a TEAM project, and each member will receive the SAME grade.
  Therefore, EACH of you is responsible for the ENTIRE poster, not just the part(s) you worked on.
  Furthermore, you are expected to understand the rationale behind all of the experimental procedures and the meaning of the results.
  
  We will use the Poster Evaluation Form to grade your poster.
  
  
• Thus, I expect you not only to retain and use what you learned in Bios 211, 311, and 313 laboratory courses, but also to build on that foundation and achieve higher competencies. Here are some examples of how we are "raising the bar:"
  • The experimental procedures are often less demanding than those you performed in Bios 311; HOWEVER, just because the experiments may be more "cookbook" does not mean the lab requires less effort. I place a greater emphasis on analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data; if you keep a "sloppy" notebook and slap a poster together at the last minute without really understanding "why" you did a procedure and "what" the results mean, you will be disappointed with your final grade.
  • The team lab notebook will be graded ONCE, after lab has ended; team members record their individual activities and observations and initial all entries. You are responsible for maintaining a research quality notebook that follows the guidelines we have given you.
    We will use the BIOS 413 Notebook Checklist to grade your lab notebook.
    We intend to use the overall quality of the laboratory notebook and your specific notebook entries to evaluate your individual effort.
  • You and your partner(s) will prepare a Scientific Poster that is 50% of your final grade; you do not submit a "rough draft" of the poster for instructor feedback before submitting the FINAL poster. The poster is a TEAM project, and each member will receive the SAME grade.
  • You must work as part of a TEAM as well as function INDEPENDENTLY.

Special note on our roles as your teachers: Our job is to guide your learning. Guidance means we help you find ways to get the answers. We encourage you to ask us questions during lecture and during the lab - sometimes we may not answer the question directly or give you all of the answer (and sometimes we may not know "the answer"). Our goal with this approach is to help you develop your ability to obtain and use information; simply giving you the information does not accomplish that goal.

Preparation

• Requirements:
  • PRE-requisite = Bios 311: Advanced Experimental Biosciences
    
• ***You will need the following items for the FIRST day of lab:***
  1. Lab notebook (ONE PER TEAM): Hayden-McNeil, Chemistry Top 100-set, ISBN 978-1-930882-00-9 OR Chemistry Top 50-set, ISBN 978-1-930882-50-5 (www.labnotebooks.net)
  2. Extra Fine Sharpie
  3. Ball Point Pen
  
  
• This course is intended to allow you to apply your understanding of the material by participating in the design of the experiment. The procedures for experiments are not always "cookbook" and in some instances serve only as a guide to explain what is to be accomplished. You must understand the objectives of the experiments and the theory of the procedures to make rational decisions to meet the experimental goals.
  
  
• You must come to lab prepared--this requires you to READ the experimental protocols on the course web site BEFORE coming to lab, not just print a copy of them and bring it with you. Bring only the information you need to perform the experiments. The procedures for each day are available from the Course Schedule page and supplemental materials are in Resources in OwlSpace; you will be given any additional information in the pre-lab lectures.
  
  
• Interdisciplinary Web-based Teaching Laboratory Materials pages were developed so that you can continuously advance your skills as you progress throughout your undergraduate career, even as you take courses from different departments. We hope to eliminate inconsistencies, to reinforce universal truths, and to impress upon you the interdisciplinary nature of science and engineering.
  
  Examples of reference materials (pdf format) include dimensions and units, graphing, and error analysis and significant figures.
  
  
• SPECIAL NOTE: Digital image acquisition and processing tools make manipulation and idealization of raw images an easy task.
  • A recent editorial in Nature, Not picture-perfect, addresses these concerns. The Nature family of journals has developed a guide for digital images, which will be incorporated into Guides for Authors.
    ***Please read the introductory and electrophorectic gels and blots sections in the Guide for digital images.***
  • Also, read What's in a picture? The temptation of image manipulation published in The Journal of Cell Biology (JCB); additionally, see the JCB Instructions to Authors for image acquisition and manipulation.

Copyright, Acknowledgements, and Intended Use
Created by B. Beason (bbeason@rice.edu), Rice University, 16 June 2006
Updated 23 February 2010