This section contains all of my Review & Reflect assignments that I completed throughout this course.

R&R Assignment #1

1. In a few days you will need to submit a draft of your research question for the final project. How did/will you go about developing this question?

I will go about developing my research question by first researching a topic and then I will narrow down the Developmental Biology topic to one aspect that I can use for my paper. I am not sure what topic within Developmental Biology I want to focus on for my final project. I am going to have to read some Developmental Biology literature in order to familiarize myself with the scope of the field and the various studies being conducted. I think I will choose my topic based on two criteria: how interesting I find the subject and how much research has been done on the topic. The later is important because I know that if I choose a topic that has not been well researched then I may struggle with making predictions and discussing possible results when I go about answering my question. Once I have found a topic that I would like to use to formulate a research question I will find all the papers available on this topic to see what has and has not been investigated. Based on what has been found on the topic, I will synthesize a question that has not already been studied and I will then devise a simple, single experiment that could be used to answer the question.

2. What do you expect to be challenging about this task?

I think the most challenging part of developing a research question is going to be finding a topic that I am going to find interesting for the next three months. Developmental Biology is a large field and there are many interesting topics currently being studied. The hard task for me is going to be choosing a topic that I think I will enjoy learning about for an extended period of time.

3. Think about evaluation criteria for your draft research question assignment. If your instructor were to mark your draft question, what do you think she should be looking for? What makes a top-level draft research question assignment? If my instructor were to mark my draft question I think she should look to make sure that the question has not already been researched and that it is answerable through one experiment. If the question is novel then I think she should next look at whether it addresses a crucial concept that we have covered in class. Finally, my instructor should look at the impact of my question and its importance in understanding a key event/mechanism. I think a top-level draft research question is one that would make the larger scientific community excited to see the findings. I think a high-level research question should have the potential to be high impact and be able to capture the interest of the layman.

R&R Assignment #2

1. You recently developed a draft research question for your final project, which is not an easy task. What are two things that you learned throughout the process? Were you expecting to learn these? Why or why not?

During the process of developing a draft research question for my final project, I learned the importance of being an efficient and critical reader. I realized when I was developing my draft research question that I was going to have to read many articles in order to find a topic I would be interested in studying for my final project. In general, it takes me a long time to read scientific papers therefore to cut down on the amount of time I spent reading articles I tried to be very critical while reviewing papers. If I felt like the paper was not going to help me develop a research question, I would move on to another paper. In addition, I realized the importance of writing short summaries for each paper in order to have something to review when I was developing a question. Before I started drafting a question I knew that during the process I would have to critically analyze papers, however, I did not expect how important the summaries would be. These summaries helped me record important information and papers that I thought would be useful for developing a question.

2. In your R&R #1 you reported some challenges that you expected to encounter. Did your expectations turn out to be accurate? Is there anything you did to overcome those challenges and that turned out to be useful?

My expectations for drafting a research question were accurate. I had a hard time finding a topic for my final project and I spent most of my time reading papers to familiarize myself with the topics being studied in developmental biology. In order to overcome this challenge, I tried to read articles efficiently and critically. I skimmed each article first to get an idea of the topics being covered. After skimming through the article if I found the information being discussed interesting I would go back and re-read the paper more thoroughly.

3. The next step for your project is to develop a sound, well-researched hypothesis (i.e. a plausible answer to your question that makes testable predictions). What is your strategy to complete this step?

In order to develop a sound and well-researched hypothesis, I am going to review the summaries that I prepared when I was drafting my research question. Based on the summaries I wrote, I will go back and review papers that I think will help me design an experiment to test my research question. Once I’ve designed an experiment I will list all the possible outcomes for my experiment and using my predicted outcomes along with the summaries I wrote, I will come up with an answer to my question.

R&R Assignment #3

1. How would you describe your progress so far?

I have not made very good progress on my final project. Up until now, I feel like I only work on
my paper when I have an assignment due on some aspect of my final project. I don’t want to be
stressed about my final project later on in the semester when things tend to get busy. I would like to dedicate at least one hour every day to work on my paper so I get more work done now and don’t have to stress about things closer to when they’re due.

2. Are you satisfied with your progress so far?

I am not very satisfied with my progress so far. By this point in time I was hoping to have more
of an outline ready to help me flesh out my ideas for my paper. I’m currently working on the
outline and am assembling together a list of articles that I’d like to use for my project.

3. What evidence/pieces of evidence did you use to determine whether you have made progress?

I am basing my answers to these questions on my project outline that I submitted last weekend. I was not able to put answers down for all the sections in the outline template. In addition, I think the fact that I am still reading articles to learn more about my topic and the research that has been done so far is evidence that I have a lot more work to do for my final project.

R&R Assignment #4

1. How do you go about planning your strategy for answering a question on an exam vs. in an “inconsequential” situation? You may use examples to illustrate your point.

In an “inconsequential” situation I approach answering questions differently than in an exam setting.  On exams, I plan out my responses to questions more than when I am in low pressure situations. In a low pressure situation I will usually draft a response without planning out my answer to the question. I find that I often run out of time on exams and as a result I try to manage my time effectively on exams so I am not rushed. In low pressure situations, I don’t manage my time as effectively and will spend more time answering questions than I would if I was in an exam.

2. How do you go about enacting your strategy for answering a question on an exam vs. in an “inconsequential” situation? You may use examples to illustrate your point.

Depending on whether or not I am in an exam setting, I approach answering questions differently. On exams I tend to plan my responses out and I try to manage my time more than when I’m in a low pressure situation. On an exam, when I start working on my response to a question I will write out quickly all the points I want to talk in my answer. In contrast, for “inconsequential” situations I tend to answer questions without first making a plan of the things I want to include in my response. In addition, on exams I will quickly go through the entire exam before starting to answer questions. I find that going through the exam quickly when I first get it helps me organize my time as I can get a sense of which questions I am going to need more time answering. After going over the exam, I will start off with the questions that I am most comfortable answering. Going over the entire exam also gives me a chance to digest any questions that I think I am going to struggle with as I usually work through my exam starting with easy and then moving to harder questions.

3. Thinking about the upcoming midterm, what do you expect to be the biggest challenge for you, and what is a strategy that you will use to conquer this challenge?

For this upcoming midterm, I think the biggest challenge for me is going to be settling into the midterm right when I get it. Sometimes with exams it takes me some time to settle in and focus on the questions and not the stress of the situation. I often lose time just trying to control my stress at the start and as a result, I am rushed during the exam. In order to tackle this challenge, I am going to review the assigned material thoroughly so that I have a good grasp of what’s happening in the assigned paper and am comfortable answering questions about the paper. Additionally, when I get the exam I am going to review all the questions quickly and then I will start by answering the easy questions.

R&R Assignment #5

1. Take a moment to think about your work related to this course (in class and on your own time). What is one thing that that you learned and that stands out to you? Why does it stand out?

Out of all the material we learned in this course, one of the things that really stands out to me is imprinting, and how imprinted long non-coding RNAs act to regulate the expression of other imprinted genes. When I read about Igf2r and how it is repressed by Airn in a transcription-dependent manner I remember being really blown away because this was the first time I had ever heard of a gene whose expression was governed by whether another gene was being transcribed! This stood out to me so much at the time that I decided I wanted to do my final project on the Airn/Igf2r imprinted gene cluster. I think the ‘wow’ factor in combination with the fact that I studied imprinted genes for my final project is part of the reason why imprinting really stands out to me. Imprinting is very very cool 🙂

Another thing that really stands out to me are the group activities and how much I learned by discussing things with my peers. Not only were these group activities fun but they also prepared me for the tests we did in class and I thought they were a very effective way of learning. I didn’t know how much I liked discussion-based group work until this class. I began to notice half-way through the course how much I was enjoying coming to class because of the discussions we were having!

2. Think about a skill or concept that you were not very confident about at the start of term. Has your confidence changed throughout the term? Why do you think is has or it has not changed?

When I first learned about imprinting in BIOL 335 I had a really hard time understanding how imprinted genes could be expressed depending on their parent -of-origin. In this course I really wanted to learn more about the molecular mechanism behind imprinting. I saw my final project as an opportunity to improve my understanding of imprinting and I chose to study an imprinted gene cluster. The combination of in class lectures and preparing for my final project helped me understand this challenging concept. Moreover, as I became more confident with the material, I began to answer more questions in class regarding imprinting and imprinted genes. It was amazing to see my confidence increase as I began to better understand the imprinting mechanism.

3. Now, think about yourself as a learner and as a researcher (really, when we do research we are constantly learning, so the two overlap in this sense). What is one thing that you have learned about yourself? Do you think this “thing” is important? Why or why not?

One thing I learned about myself during this semester is that I am an innovative person. I love seeing problems and trying to innovate new solutions and this became apparent to me when I was researching for my final project research question. For my research topic I decided to study the Airn/Igf2r imprinted gene cluster. Once I chose the topic, I had a really hard time settling on a research question because as I began reading papers I found that there is a lot about this imprinted gene cluster that we don’t understand! I found this aspect of designing a research question to be very exciting because there are a lot of interesting questions that still need to be answered. I think innovation is a really important skill as it drives science forward and the ability to be innovative helps us learn more about things we do not understand well.