Week 1.1: Getting Underway#
Week 1 is the time for everyone to get to know who is involved in the minor—fellow students, supervisors, coaches and the teaching team. You will learn about the requirements to complete the minor successfully. You will spend some time getting to know your groups and start learning the foundational skills needed during the minor.
This week’s activities also include picking a team name and starting to develop research ideas. Unscheduled time should be spent reading articles on the topics, and discussing ideas with fellow students, and anyone else you want.
The schedule for this week includes :
Schedule#
The schedule for the introduction week is quite full and complex. It includes:
Monday:
Overview of the structure of the minor, our goals, expectations (see Introduction) and the assessment process
Technical Tools – explanation and exploration of all the tools we will be using: textbook, Brightspace, Teams
Get to know students and supervisors
Subtopics presentation by supervisors and coaches
Tuesday:
Literature Search workshop
Workshop: Group Roles and Group Dynamics
(teaching team makes student groups)
Wednesday:
Student groups announced
Team Building : playing (medical and biology-themed) collaborative and competitive board games
Group free time to create a team name, explore the subtopics, and read subtopic articles suggested by the supervisors
Thursday:
Jigsaw Puzzle part I (students will discuss in groups the different parts of the review given on Monday)
keep on reading and understanding the background of subtopics
Submit team name and personal learning goals
Friday:
Jigsaw puzzle part II (students will discuss the different parts of the review with the rest of the class. See Jigsaw puzzle part I)
Team builder
Submit the first writing assignments
First Friday symposium—reflect on the week
Introduction#
The minor Director will welcome you during this Monday morning session. He will introduce you to the minor, the transdisciplinary side of it, what we want to achieve, structure and schedule, contact details, etc.
In a collaborative project, it’s important to have a strong understanding of shared expectations. We will start the discussion by clarifying the expectations of the teaching team and have time to discuss your expectations. Once the groups are assigned, you will develop shared expectations within your own group.
Key Concepts#
If you think about this as preparing for a sailing voyage, this is about familiarizing yourself with your boat, laying out the map of your journey and getting excited about what you could learn along the way.
Information They Should Know#
What systems are being used
Who’s involved
Where to go to get help
Deadlines and assignments
Expectations
Workshop: Technical Tools#
In this short workshop, we will go over all the systems we will be using during the minor: the textbook, Brightspace, teams, etc.
Key concepts#
Understanding the tools that will be used. Like a sailor preparing for a voyage, it’s essential to have your tools ready and know how to use them and where things are.
Presentations of Subtopics#
The destination of this minor is doing a research project. Within a large umbrella topic, you will be offered subtopics as your starting point. These are broad questions where groups will need to work on understanding the area to develop a specific actionable research question. Supervisors, experts, and stakeholders will present the subtopics offered to student groups in the form of short presentations.
Presentations will last 7 to 8 minutes for each subtopic and will answer very broadly the following questions: why they think this subtopic is interesting; what is the state of the art in the field; and what are some of the burning questions in the area. The presentations will be followed by a few minutes to ask questions about the topic.
For each subtopic, we will provide a half-page summary and 2-3 articles as introductory reading to help you start on the right foot. These will be available in Brightspace.
When you start reading the subtopics, we advise you not to rush into picking one. Try to think of questions you would find interesting in all subtopics. Once groups have been formed by the teaching team, you can start narrowing down which topic your group wants to focus on. You will work in groups of 3-5 students and will need to develop an idea together. Each team will focus on a subtopic, you can merge subtopics or select elements from multiple subtopics. The goal is to integrate ideas from all group members not vote between two different ideas. The project of the groups will be to understand their subtopic, investigate different aspects of it, identify the stakeholders involved and create a research question and then proposal to investigate it. Each team is expected to become the expert on their topic.
Workshop: Scholarly Communication and Critical Reading#
The aim of the workshop Scholarly Communication – Critical Reading is threefold: (1) introduce the basics of good literature search methodologies, (2) introduce the characteristics of the academic communication environment, and (3) provide guidelines for critically reading scientific texts.
The first part of the workshop is the fundamentals of searching for scientific literature for articles of interest and methods for tracking what you’ve found and will use in your future research. Then we’ll begin the discussion of how to read what you’ve found.
Related to the second aim, the typical features of rhetorical communication situations in an academic environment will be addressed. Various elements in a communicative environment, such as audience, context, and conventions, can influence writers’ textual and stylistic choices. We will discuss various genres of scholarly communication that students will regularly come across, such as the scientific journal paper.
The third part of the workshop introduces critical reading as one of the first steps in both the research and writing process. Carrying out a critical literature review is an essential first step in the research process, of which scientific texts such as a research proposal or journal paper are an important part. This part of the workshop focuses on guidelines for critical reading of literature, to help students determine key information in relevant sources. It introduces the Scientific Argumentation Model, a helpful tool for systematically mapping scientific sources. Students will analyse and discuss critical examples of relevant papers by recognizing helpful structural and stylistic elements to navigate such sources.
Key concepts#
What is scholarly communication?
Genres in scholarly communication
How to read and interpret scientific sources
Writing process (and the role of critical reading in the writing process)
Relevant learning goals#
Understand the elements of the scholarly communication situation
Know about various genres in scholarly communication and their characteristics
Understand the various stages of the writing process
Understand essential elements and features of scientific texts for critical evaluation
Analyse examples of scientific papers with the Scientific Argumentation Model
Reflect on the value of information provided in scientific texts
Workshop: Group roles and group dynamics#
can make or break a project. Every team member has their own goals, interests, backgrounds, working methods, knowledge, and skills. The collaboration of such diverse groups will cause friction and conflicts . The skill of coping with friction and conflict is to keep them constructive rather than allowing them to become destructive. To help your team succeed, we will show you some essential tools for examining perspectives and conflicts. To support your collaboration, we will focus on various aspects of teamwork and collaboration during the whole minor.
This afternoon workshop will focus on group roles (Belbin), perspective (Core Quadrants), the Rose of Leary (effective communication) and the Topoi model of communication.
We will first introduce the “Belbin Team Roles” model. This model can help you understand different roles people like to take in collaborative teams. You will be asked to take the Belbin test prior to this workshop so that you can discuss the results in class, whether you disagree with them or what insight you gained from your results. The results will also be considered in forming student groups.
Workshop: Team building#
In the morning, the teams will be announced, and we will have time to get to know each other by playing competitive and collaborative board games related to biomedical research. During the first part of the workshop, we will dive further into the topic of teamwork and collaboration and discuss your experiences with the various games. We will discuss the essentials of effective collaboration and the role of competition in teamwork.
Key concepts#
Collaboration, competition, team work
Relevant Learning Goals#
Collaboration is one of the four main threads of this minor, and peer feedback is key to that.
Collaborate effectively with other group members, other groups, and the case owners/experts of the field.
Evaluate different roles of members in group projects.
Workshop Jigsaw puzzle part I#
In jigsaw activities, students engage with content in different ways, explaining more deeply different parts of the content. In this workshop, students will be grouped according to the piece of the review, given on Monday, that they have had to read. For instance, the four students who had to read the Introduction will come together and discuss the Introduction, they have become Experts in their part. What have they learned from it? What is important? What has piqued their curiosity? Have they found additional interesting information? The other groups do the same for their parts. During the session, the students will make 3-4 slides with the information of their part. These will then be presented to the other students during the Workshop Jigsaw puzzle part II, on Friday. Each group will select a representative to present their part in day 2 of this workshop.
Key concepts#
Collaborative learning, team work.
Learning goals#
Students will acquire a deep understanding of their assigned part and be able to explain it clearly to their peers. Students will gain experience in teaching complex material to their peers, developing skills in explaining, summarizing, and clarifying information.
Workshop: Reflective Science#
During this workshop, students will dive deeper into what each individual brings to the team. We’ll discuss what prior knowledge and skills we have that could be relevant to the team project. Further, we will reflect on how we prefer to work and communicate with each other. We will use a culture map to identify cultural and personal differences in communication and teamwork, aiming to understand how the individual team members can collaborate effectively.
Working effectively in a team requires good understanding of what knowledge and skills are required for the project to be undertaken, but also good understanding of cultural (including: field of expertise, social-economic background, or country of origin) and personal preferences of oneself and of all the team members. In this workshop, you will identify what skills and knowledge might be needed to start the project and if the required skills and knowledge are already present in the team. In addition, you’ll work on identifying and discussing personal and cultural preferences regarding teamwork and communication. Analysing how cultural habits position themselves relative to another culture, a deeper understanding of how culture influences collaboration will be discussed. (further information can be found in The Culture Map, Erin Meyer, ISBN: 9781610392761).
During this workshop, you will discuss what expertise each team members bring to the group, and formulate your learning goals.
Key concepts#
Self-awareness. Intercultural communication and work.
Workshop Jigsaw puzzle part II#
In this second part of this workshop, Expert students of one part will be separated and mingled with Experts of the other parts. Each student within these newly formed groups will present their different parts to the rest of the group. In this way, everybody will be teaching different content to the rest of the students. Students will then be making connections between the parts they have studied with the other parts of the content.
Jigsaw activities make the students more engaged with the content they are learning, sharing it with others and learning from others at the same time. This maximises interactions and collaborations in learning something, together.
Key concepts#
Collaborative learning, team work, making connections between parts, presenting.
Learning goals#
Students will acquire a deep understanding of their assigned part and be able to explain it clearly to their peers.
Students will connect their subtopic to the larger theme of the course, demonstrating how their section contributes to the overall understanding of the subject.
Students will practice active listening and clear communication, ensuring that they can both teach their subtopic to peers and understand the subtopics taught by others.
Students will analyze how the different subtopics interrelate and integrate them into a coherent understanding of the larger topic.
Students will gain experience in teaching complex material to their peers, developing skills in explaining, summarizing, and clarifying information.
Workshop: Topic selection#
There will be structured time with a facilitator to discuss the topics. For this activity, the students need to pick their favourite subtopics.
The team members identify three subtopics which interest them, and then the teams will have the possibility to explore two or three out of these via creative brainstorming sessions, using methods such as Draw the problem, Cover story or Anti-problem. This session will help make deciding on a topic easier.
Group activities (not scheduled)#
Read the suggested sources on the topics you’re interested in.
Find and read other sources on the topic
Set up Mendeley for your group for tracking who’s reading what
Decide on a team name and turn it in.
Discussion Questions#
Who am I? Going through the Belbin roles, what do you think about the results you got? What are the strengths and weaknesses of any of these frameworks?
Why am I interested in these topics? Which aspect of the research topic is interesting / challenging? What do I know about these topics? What questions do I have about the topics?
How is it going so far? What do you hope for next week?
What is the role of conflict in a collaboration?
What does a collaborative team need emotionally to be successful?
Weekly Submitted Assignments#
Details in Brightspace:
Group#
Decide on a team name and turn it in
Individual#
Reflection on the Belbin roles, the expertise you bring in the team, and writing Individual learning goals for the minor. (½ page minimum)
References#
Belbin Team Roles | Belbin https://www.belbin.com/about/belbin-team-roles
Information Literacy I - TU Delft OCW
Reference management (tudelft.nl)
The Culture Map, Erin Meyer, ISBN: 9781610392761