Harrison Theresa M, Ching Christopher R K, Andrews Anne M
Neuroscience Interdepartmenal Graduate Program, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, 90095; Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, 90095.
Neuroscience Interdepartmenal Graduate Program, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, 90095.
J Undergrad Neurosci Educ. 2016 Apr 15;15(1):A5-A10. eCollection 2016 Fall.
Neuroscience doctoral students must master specific laboratory techniques and approaches to complete their thesis work (hands-on learning). Due to the highly interdisciplinary nature of the field, learning about a diverse range of methodologies through literature surveys and coursework is also necessary for student success (hands-off learning). Traditional neuroscience coursework stresses what is known about the nervous system with relatively little emphasis on the details of the methods used to obtain this knowledge. Furthermore, hands-off learning is made difficult by a lack of detail in methods sections of primary articles, subfield-specific jargon and vague experimental rationales. We designed a student-taught course to enable first-year neuroscience doctoral students to overcome difficulties in hands-off learning by introducing a new approach to reading and presenting primary research articles that focuses on methodology. In our literature-based course students were encouraged to present a method with which they had no previous experience. To facilitate weekly discussions, "experts" were invited to class sessions. Experts were advanced graduate students who had hands-on experience with the method being covered and served as discussion co-leaders. Self-evaluation worksheets were administered on the first and last days of the 10-week course and used to assess students' confidence in discussing research and methods outside of their primary research expertise. These evaluations revealed that the course significantly increased the students' confidence in reading, presenting and discussing a wide range of advanced neuroscience methods.
神经科学博士生必须掌握特定的实验室技术和方法来完成他们的论文工作（实践学习）。由于该领域具有高度跨学科的性质，通过文献调研和课程学习了解各种不同的方法对于学生的成功也是必要的（非实践学习）。传统的神经科学课程强调关于神经系统已知的内容，而相对较少关注用于获取这些知识的方法细节。此外，由于原始文章的方法部分缺乏细节、特定子领域的行话以及模糊的实验原理，非实践学习变得困难。我们设计了一门由学生授课的课程，通过引入一种专注于方法的阅读和展示原始研究文章的新方法，使神经科学一年级博士生能够克服非实践学习中的困难。在我们基于文献的课程中，鼓励学生展示一种他们以前没有经验的方法。为了促进每周的讨论，邀请“专家”参加课堂。专家是具有所涵盖方法实践经验的高年级研究生，并担任讨论共同负责人。在为期10周的课程的第一天和最后一天发放自我评估工作表，用于评估学生在讨论其主要研究专业领域之外的研究和方法时的信心。这些评估表明，该课程显著提高了学生阅读、展示和讨论各种先进神经科学方法的信心。
