Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana.
Master of Science in Science Education Program, Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana.
Biochem Mol Biol Educ. 2020 May;48(3):262-268. doi: 10.1002/bmb.21337. Epub 2020 Feb 20.
Journal clubs are widely used as an educational tool in graduate life science programs. In journal clubs, students are assigned to read specific journal articles to achieve a broad knowledge in their field of study and to gain competence in reading and assessing scientific publications. However, students often show low motivation to read assigned articles, and under-prepared students contribute little to in-class discussions. In order to promote student engagement in graduate-level journal clubs, we used an inverted, student-centered format that focuses on a scientific question or topic rather than specific publications. Both the weekly topics and the scientific publications were selected by the students and focused on aspects of the students' thesis research. For each weekly topic, students were asked to find papers, read the papers and summarize the findings during class, which led to the presentation of a variety of approaches and viewpoints. This approach trained students in literature search, focused reading and oral presentation skills and provided a broad overview of the research in the selected topic areas. Student feedback showed a high level of acceptance of the new format. We propose this inverted journal club format as a useful alternative to traditional formats, because it focuses on a different scientific skill set and leads to increased student engagement through its student-centered approach.
期刊俱乐部在研究生生命科学课程中被广泛用作一种教育工具。在期刊俱乐部中，学生被分配阅读特定的期刊文章，以在他们的研究领域获得广泛的知识，并获得阅读和评估科学出版物的能力。然而，学生通常对阅读指定的文章缺乏动力，而且准备不足的学生对课堂讨论的贡献很小。为了提高研究生期刊俱乐部中学生的参与度，我们使用了一种颠倒的、以学生为中心的模式，该模式侧重于一个科学问题或主题，而不是特定的出版物。每周的主题和科学出版物都是由学生选择的，并且侧重于学生论文研究的各个方面。对于每个每周的主题，学生被要求寻找论文，在课堂上阅读论文并总结发现，这导致了各种方法和观点的呈现。这种方法培养了学生的文献搜索、精读和口头陈述技能，并提供了所选主题领域研究的广泛概述。学生的反馈显示出对这种新格式的高度接受。我们提出这种颠倒的期刊俱乐部格式作为传统格式的一种有用替代，因为它侧重于不同的科学技能集，并通过以学生为中心的方法提高学生的参与度。
