Tutorial – Semester 2: Developing Programme-Specific Skills – Level 1

Semester 2: Developing Programme-specific Skills

A) Practical write-up (Full reports or scientific posters)

In semester 2, students enrolled on field courses will produce a field course report to present the results of their project, and students enrolled on lab-based practical units (BIOL10412/10422) will work in a small group to produce a scientific poster describing one of the experiments undertaken the semester. For all students, generic support will be provided via online resources available in the assessment area on the Blackboard sites of their respective practical units (BIOL10412/10422) OR the preparatory field course unit AND via the tutorial system.

Field course students will be provided with specific information regarding the format and length of their project report in the assessment area on Blackboard of each field unit. Further generic guidelines on writing field/lab reports can be found in Appendix 5 of this handbook.

Lab-based students will be put into groups of 2-4 by their Academic Tutor. They will be provided with a Powerpoint template for the scientific poster. They will present their poster as a Powerpoint slide to their Academic Tutor and the rest of the tutorial group in a tutorial session, and will be asked questions about the content by their Academic Tutor. Specific information regarding the poster and resources to help with producing it will be available in the assessment areas on the Blackboard sites of their respective practical units. Students should also consult the guidelines in Appendix 6 of this Handbook which explain how to write a scientific poster.

NB: Appendix 5 (full lab report) and appendix 6 (scientific poster) are very similar, so we have highlighted the differences between the two in blue font.

For all students, the marking criteria for their field report or scientific poster will be provided in the assessment area on the Blackboard sites of their respective practical or field course units.

B) Further Essay Writing

In Semester 1 you were introduced to the basic process undertaken to prepare an essay. Here you will extend and develop the skills you learnt in Semester 1 by researching and writing an essay of relevance to your degree programme. Your Academic Tutor will provide details of the subject, length and assessment process. You will be expected to apply the principles taught in Semester 1 relating to references to ensure that you do not have any plagiarism in your essay. You will not be given the chance to see the plagiarism reports and make edits to this essay. The essay you submit must be the final version, which will then be electronically checked for plagiarism. The deadline for this essay is 4pm Thursday week 6 (7th March 2019). Late submissions of the final essay will be penalised with a 10% mark deduction per 24h late.

C) Programme-specific activities

Your Programme Director will assign the following types of programme-specific activities for you to complete with your Academic Tutor. You will receive a mark for each activity, which will count towards your overall grade for the tutorial unit.

Data analysis/Problem Solving

These activities are designed to complement skills acquired in the Practical Module BIOL10402 and will focus on quantitative and analytical problem-solving tasks specific to your degree programme. Your Academic Tutor will inform you of the details of the assessment.

Group-based learning (GBL) sessions

GBL provides a means of developing team-working skills while exploring a topical issue in

your degree subject. Your group will choose or be allocated a subject for investigation, in consultation with your Academic Tutor. As a group you then research the subject, deciding amongst yourselves who should do what and the approach that should be taken. On completion of your research, all members of the group should contribute to the final outcome, which could be an oral presentation, written article or poster. The performance of the group will be assessed by your Academic Tutor and this will contribute to your overall tutorial mark. Note that, if you are asked to give a short talk, there are some guidelines on giving an oral presentation in Appendix 4.

Semester 2 Plenary Sessions

Details of which sessions you should attend are provided on the BIOL10000 Blackboard site. You should bring a device capable of accessing the internet and your student ID number to these sessions to register your attendance.The plenary session counts towards your tutorial attendance record. If you are ill on the day of the plenary session, you must contact the student support office prior to the plenary session start in order to obtain an excused absence. Contacting your Academic Tutor instead of the student support office will result in your absence being unexcused. If the session allocated to your degree programme clashes with a language unit or BIOL unit, you may attend the other session.

i) Basics of Experimental reporting Week 3 or 4 (check Blackboard BIOL10000 for details of which session to attend and specific Intended Learning Outcomes relevant to session)

Intended Learning Outcomes:

On successful completion of this plenary session students should be able to:

select and apply appropriate approaches to communicate scientific research undertaken to specific scientific audience
search for information and identify relevant data to meet information needs to communicate scientific research undertaken to specific scientific audience
identify appropriate resources to support communication of scientific research undertaken to specific scientific audience
consolidate knowledge to ensure develop and apply appropriate approaches to avoid plagiarism
develop and apply a range of transferable skills

ii) Employability Week 7