Educators Resources : Let's Experiment

Educator Resources Overview

The resources here provided are a distillation of the learning elements of the online course “Let’s Experiment: A Guide for Scientists at the Bench.” Our goal is to make it easy to access and use the course’s videos, video transcripts, infographics, term sheet, assessments, and discussion questions. We encourage educators to use some or all of the materials for their training.

Educator Guide

We have developed an Educator Guide that is meant to demonstrate how iBiology’s online course “Let’s Experiment: A Guide for Scientists Working at the Bench” (LE) can be used in multiple settings to assist when teaching experimental design. We give examples of how to use the whole course, as well as pieces of the course and materials associated with this course, to effectively teach important concepts and strategies behind experimental design, including aspects of rigor, reproducibility, and transparency as well as responsible conduct of research. The guide includes summary of the online course and evaluation outcomes, course learning objectives, model examples for training, and a complete list of references, recommended readings, resources and course components.

Here are some examples of how this course and related resources can be useful in training your students or mentees:

1. To train new or inexperienced graduate students or undergraduates in the basics of experimental design, rigor and reproducibility as well as good record keeping techniques.
2. To provide a set of standards for doing rigorous experimental biology research for all undergraduates, graduate students, postdocs and early career stage professors in your lab.
3. To help specific undergraduates, graduate students or postdocs who have been struggling with experimental design, rigor and reproducibility or record keeping improve their laboratory practices.
4. To give new or inexperienced undergraduates or graduate students an idea of what doing real science at the bench is like through our case studies and descriptions of experimental design and laboratory techniques.

"Let’s Experiment" Brief Overview

"Let’s Experiment: A Guide for Scientists Working at the Bench" (LE) is a free 6-week online course designed to help guide participants through the process of planning and executing experiments in biology. In the online course scientists from a variety of backgrounds give concrete steps and advice to help participants build a framework for how to design experiments. We use case studies to make the abstract more tangible. In science, there is often no simple right answer, and our course reflects the important nuances of research. Through the course, participants develop a general approach to experimental design and understand what they are getting into before they begin.

Here is a high level description of what participants learn in this course:

• The elements of a well-designed experiment, including variables, controls, sample size and replication.
• An introduction to experimental variability, sample size estimation, data analysis, and p-values, and how to seek help when needed.
• Insights into their potential bias as an experimenter, how that affects reproducibility, and how to prevent it from impacting the design and execution of an experiment.
• Experimental tips and best practices on reagent authentication, keeping a good laboratory notebook, and getting an experiment to work.

Tell us what you think...

We have put together these resources in an attempt to be helpful, so we very much would like to know what you think, and/or how you might be using them. We would also like to know what you think is missing or what could be better. Please reach out to us at courses@ibiology.org and gives your thoughts and feedback. Thank you!