Pedagogic Journal Club 101

In preparation for a journal club I’m leading shortly, I was reflecting on some generic starter questions which could be applied to reading any paper (this would be true in the context of reading an article on your own as well).

To start with, you can apply the 5W1H approach. In the context of reading a journal article I tend to take these in a non-typical order:

• Who? Who conducted the research?
• Where? Was it one institution only or a multi-centre project? UK, USA or elsewhere?
• What? What, briefly, was the main point of the work [you will look in finer detail later on]?
• When? Not only when was the work published, but when was the work actually conducted? This is especially pertinent if the article is describing the impact of technical innovations.
• Why? What are the reasons the authors give for conducting the work? These may be generic and/or driven by particular local developments.
• How? This is the nitty-gritty and will take on the bulk of a journal club discussion.

As part of the “how” there are additional key questions to bear in mind as you work step-by-step through the paper. These are:

• What key information are we being presented in this section of the paper?
• What key information are we *not* being presented in this section of the paper?

In both pedagogic research articles and scientific papers these two questions are particularly valuable when examining information that has been presented in figures and/or tables. Sometimes necessary background details to follow the implication of displayed data have to be found elsewhere in the text, and sometimes they are missing entirely (at which point you need to decide for yourself whether this an accidental or a deliberate omission).

For a journal club specifically you also need to remember that it is intended to be a discussion not a presentation of what you have found; you are the guide as you lead a band of intrepid explorers below the surface of the paper. If the journal club is working well you will come away from the process with additional insights they have made about aspects you missed in the text.

Biosummit 2017

The University of East Anglia (Norwich) was the venue for the annual Biosummit, a gathering of UK bioscientists with an active interest in pedagogic research. As usual there was much to reflect upon. A summary of the event is captured in this Storified summary of tweets. My own formal contribution was limited to reflections on the value of using the Royal Society of Biology’s CPD framework as a valuable mechanism for capturing the evidence of activity, and reflection upon that activity, which is increasingly required for appraisals, accreditation and applications. The slides from my talk are available below (and via this link).

This continues to be a bona fide “Community of Practice”. One of the highlights is seeing like-minded friends and catching up on what they’re doing in their lives as well as in their work. The content of the conference, however, remains central. This year there were a number of highlights for me.