1st Year Journal Clubs:

The first half of the semester is a structured journal club that investigates in-depth assigned papers from the primary literature of a specific area of research.  The second half of the semester consists of the mentored development of a mini-grant proposal that further investigates questions raised in the journal club discussions.  These semester-long courses have 5-8 students and are generally co-taught by several faculty.  Students elect one Journal Club/Grant Writing course from among approximately five classes focused on different topics that are offered each Spring Semester.

Suggested Guidelines for 1st Year Journal Clubs

 

1) Organizational Meeting. You will need to contact the students to schedule an organizational meeting (preferably the first week of class) where you will decide a time and a place for JC. You should also describe the expectations of the students. Often the faculty member gives a brief (5-15 minute) introduction to the topic to explain potential areas for presentations. Generally the faculty member chooses key papers for each topic. Students choose their topic and date. Each student is expected to give one 30-50 minute presentation during the course.

2) Faculty Guidance. The faculty member should offer the students the opportunity to meet before the presentation for guidance.  This is particularly important for students in the first-half semester JCs where this may be their first JC. The initial 1-2 chosen papers should be viewed as a starting point to be expanded upon by the student or faculty member or both.  The students often benefit from guidance concerning how many papers should be presented and which directions will be likely to produce an interesting story/discussion.  Some students make extensive use of this guidance and others do not.

3) Student Participation. All students should receive the papers to be discussed in advance of the presentation. Participation should be strongly encouraged and requires the students to be familiar with the work to be presented (may require prodding by the faculty).  Some strategies that have led to past success are:

  1. requesting students to email a question(s) about the paper(s) prior to the meeting each week
  2. calling on each student to explain data in the paper
  3. randomly choosing a second student on the spot to help lead the discussion

 

4) Constructive Feedback. After the presentation, the faculty member should meet with the presenter to provide constructive feedback regarding the presentation.  This can include organization of the presentation, quality of visual aids, speaking style or any other aspect of the presentation that was good and should be encouraged or that could stand improvement.

5) Attendance is Mandatory. If a student cannot attend class, he/or she should let you know.  In the past years, we had a few situations where only half of the students attended their JCs, which was discouraging for the student presenting.  Although grading is Pass/Fail for this course, and almost all students pass, you have the option of giving a failing grade if a student fails to attend or if their mini-grant is not acceptable. You may request that a student revise their mini-grant to make it acceptable.

6) The Curriculum Chair(s) will hold an orientation meeting in late Fall to share ideas among course organizers, review guidelines, and to answer any questions. This meeting is especially helpful for new courses.

 

Updated 8/15/2010