Group Development and Peer Review   of Research Proposals - by Joanne Stewart Why I like this activity I like the way this activity has them work on developing their ideas at more than one level. It involves brainstorming, a first pass at developing one of the ideas into an answerable question, and then the opportunity to present the idea and get feedback from others. Having some experience with research from its conception to its completion is important and by monitoring other student projects students get lots of practice evaluating projects even though they will only complete one. I have seen this type of activity used in a general chemistry or biology laboratory setting where students are working with a single experimental procedure such as an enzyme kinetics assay. In this setting they still need to decide which variable they are going to change and how they are going to make their measurements. Additionally, any time you are collecting data there are issues about how to best make sense of that information. These are all important scientific skills, even at an introductory level. I use this in an upper level course where students have been exposed to a whole bunch of different techniques. So they have all the issues mentioned above plus the challenge of selecting the most appropriate technique to match their experimental question. Tell me more about this activity: A general description Some advice and reflections on this activity Why I like this activity Project description handout In-class planning handout Writing the proposal handout More about Joanne Stewart

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