Student Evaluations
In this first set, I asked students from my PHM480 class to think about the assignments I had given them, as this was the most visible role I had in the course to them (as course assistant).
I have excluded responses that included personal reasons or were due to forces outside of the course (for example, if a student replied something along the lines of, "assignment X was difficult because it was due on the same day as my Orgo exam"). I have included my thoughts and responses in the colored text to illustrate what I thought about the response or how I have learned from the comment.
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Assignment 1 is what I refer to as a traditional writing assignment in higher level biology courses. Pick a topic, write about it for 4 pages. This assignment has been used in the past in this course. I also added two different types of assignments. Assignment 2 was a one page (back and front) pamphlet on a topic pertaining to the course, again of their choosing. The pamphlet was to be suitable for giving to someone who did not have a background in science. For example, explain Alzheimer's to your neighbor who has no background in science but wants to learn more because her aunt was diagnosed with this disease. For Assignment 3, students were to write an article that could be found in a general audience paper or magazine about a new scientific finding pertaining to neurobiological disease. See the handouts and rubric for assignments 2 and 3 here.
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1. Did you need different skills or techniques to complete Assignment 2 compared to assignment 1?
For assignment 2 I felt better doing it because it required creative thinking in the way it was to be set up instead of just a paper. Using that creative skill helped me write better I think because it was compartmentalized to my liking. Students did better with organization in this assignment than when writing a more formal paper. Compartmentalized= more structure.
Yes, to refine my writing and communication skills in order to be clear for a general public, as well, trying to explain how the brain was affected and cover what is important for a patient. Yes, the skills were very different. In the first assignment I was working much more on speaking to a scientific audience however in the second assignment I was concerned with informing lay individuals. The content, vocabulary and tone were different between the two assignments. |
To create the Huntington disease pamphlet, I visited a number of web sites like NIH and the Huntington’s disease society of America, and look at their pamphlet to have an Idea of how to do the assignment. However it took me more time to do the pamphlet than assignment #1 because I am, in a way, custom to writing science-like- articles but I have never before done an informative pamphlet. Finding precise words to explain certain topics in the pamphlet also toked me some time to finish my work. While I sympathize with the student when they said this assignment took them longer, I was pleased to see that it seemed to challenge the student in the way I had hoped. They were forced to think about word choices and what they are truly trying to say. It also exercised the skill of looking for the appropriate sources, such as identifying professional websites.
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Overall, I was happy that it was understood that there is a need to choose different words in order to explain concepts from one audience to another.
2. Did you need different skills or techniques to complete Assignment 3 compared to assignment 1?
To write a science magazine-like article, I would have needed to be familiarized with writing in a first person point of view. Also it is conventional to use phrases among other facts so that the reading can be a lot more easy and entertaining for the non-scientific community. I have yet to acquire this ability. |
Yes, skills such as being able to explain in a descriptive manner how the topic was important in order to attract the type of public. On assignment 3, I provided scientific concepts, statistics, and new treatments in a less technical way. |
The difference between assignment three and assignment one was less distinct than the difference between the first and second assignment. While I was still talking to a lay audience, I would consider the audience to be more of a lay scientific audience. They perhaps didn’t know anything about the subject but I expected them to have more familiarity with basic science concepts than individuals reading a pamphlet.
3. What difficulties did you have with Assignment 1?
The difficulty was to explain at a technical level, how the topic was important. Since it was a review, choosing what to add in order to cover the scientific approach was the hardest thing. |
I had trouble finding the words to explain things in an easier way. Such as taking the word stressor, and explained it in simpler and common words. |
4. What difficulties did you have with Assignment 2?
This assignment was for general public, which seems to be easy but challenge my writing and communication skills. Here I had to be precise and clear enough at a general level, which took me out of the laboratory concept to think the relevance of the research. I think that the main problem I had was finding what information of the disease was more relevant, and then take this relevant information and compress it to simpler words. |
I had a hard time fitting all the information into the pamphlet that I thought would be appropriate and important. I know a good deal about the subject and it was hard to sift through it all. It took me a long time to get the tone right and I really focused on the micropolitics of my wording. For example, never did I state “individuals SUFFERING from schizophrenia” rather I explained it as individuals EXPERIENCING schizophrenia because I think these small wordings can vastly effect the connotation and stigma attached to mental illnesses. |
5. What difficulties did you have with Assignment 3?
The difficulty was how to make science a story, explaining the relevance of the treatment in without technical rules, but still using scientific concepts. Also, choosing what innovation about a particular treatment was hard. Reading a lot of articles to decide which one I thought was promising, taking into account benefits and disadvantages.
I had a hard time actually meeting the assignment length requirement. It felt as thought I was going into too much depth on the subject at times. I read through some scientific articles and they all seemed to be much shorter and more concise. It was impossible for me to meet the requirement that all cited articles had to be published after 2011 and I don’t really think this requirement supported the goal of the assignment. Scientific information, especially new findings, are only the tips of years and years of work usually, and these findings are almost never unrelated to past research.
This was an unfortunate misunderstanding on my assignment instructions. I wanted the students to pick something that was recent- a late-breaking discovery, but I did not intend for all the sources they used to be from only the last few years. However, this question was asked by another student in class and I addressed this misconception that was holding this student back as well. Unfortunately, other students either did not hear this clarification or later forgot while working on their assignment. This has taught me that I should follow up via email or a new handout in class with any addendums so that everyone has the information they need and no one gets left out. I still wish students would ask me for clarifications or bring to light problems they are having BEFORE assignments are due so that we can get these kinks worked out. Still working on how to achieve this (any tips?).
6. Was there any aspect of the assignments that you felt you needed more instruction in?
I have many problems thinking about how you want this type of document written, maybe having samples like for the last assignment is good. |
I think that I would be great to have writing examples, or a platform such as past student’s writing assignments so that one can have something to look at and see if you’re doing the assignment correctly. |
Both of these answers were in response to the third assignment, the news article. While I was really happy with the outcome of assignment two, I was a little underwhelmed with what they turned in for assignment 3. Some of them obviously struggled with their writing, but even of the assignments that were written clearly, I did not find them very engaging. In preparation for this assignment, I asked students to look up news articles written to explain science to general audiences, and I directed them to a few sources that I enjoy, like the science section on NYTimes (on Tuesdays!), Scientific American, The Scientist. When students asked questions and we discussed the assignment, it seemed to me that this was not something they regularly did. I was shocked, because I love reading general science articles! I learned that I needed to give them more structure in terms of the layout and style, because they seemed really stumped by this and did not have as much fun with it as I was hoping. I'm contemplating, were I to use this assignment again, to ask students to bring in a piece of reporting about something involving science research that they enjoyed reading, asking them to start looking early in the semester so they have a chance to read over a few weeks and find what they like. Then I would want to pick apart what it was they liked about the article they chose, so they know what to emulate. I still do not want to just give them some sort of sterile template to follow as I think that is too basic, would not exercise their creativity, and would not be appropriate for their level of study. I still have hope for this assignment!
7. Which assignment did you find most enjoyable? Why?
As I said before, I enjoyed assignment 2 the most because it involved creative skills and visual compartmentalization. Also, it didn’t require as much writing as the 1st and 3rd, which is a weakness of mine. It also allowed me to speak to an audience instead of just writing a paper. This response indicated to me that with the pamphlet assignment students got to use a certain skillset that they may not often get to exercise in most of their science/biology courses. I was happy that this student was pleased to have something to work on that required 'creative/visual skills'.
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I enjoyed assignment 3 a lot! New things to experiment with that made me think as a journalist or writer more than as a scientist. It was really important to understand well what the topic was about in order to communicate appropriately with the public. Just what I was hoping for, and I'm really glad the student enjoyed the assignment, too!
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I found the pamphlet most enjoyable because I felt like I had a chance to communicate scientific information to the people who really needed to understand it. I don’t think people realize, especially individuals within the scientific community, how their phrasing influences the stigma and connotations of the information so it was a great exercise to create a conscious informational piece. I liked that this student already understood the importance of communication and the power in certain words, and this assignment gave the student an outlet for exercising this that perhaps they would not have been able to do in a traditional term paper assignment.
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8. Which assignment did you find most challenging? Why?
I would say that the assignment that I enjoy the most was also the most difficult. I enjoyed doing assignment 3 because it gave me the opportunity to write about something recent that most people are not aware of. But it was also the most difficult task because I was not aware of the writing styles required for the assignments. I still think I need more practice for writing these types of articles. |
For me, assignment 3 was hard because it was a mix from research articles and magazine documents, something new in my experience. The format required, the approach, and the coverage of it was my concern. |
Even though I did provide the students with a rubric to help them understand what I was looking for, a little more time discussing the assignment and looking over good examples would probably have been beneficial, and I will try to implement this change for future classes.
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