Hi everyone,

 

I got sick last night and I’m still running a fever, so I’m not going to make it to today’s meeting.

 

But, since it is a very special day, we are not going to cancel the meeting. Instead Omer is going to be in charge.

 

We will be meeting in 145 Morrison this semester from 12 – 1:30 pm.

 

Today’s agenda is pretty short and easy. We will go over some rules/guidelines and have discussions. Specifically:

1. This semester we are going to take ‘minutes’ of our meetings. Minutes are just notes of what is discussed. Certain aspects need to be more detailed than other aspects. I’m not an expert at this, maybe some of you are, but we are going to help each other learn. This will be performed on a changing basis (someone can volunteer to take minutes today, then they won’t have to do it again until the end of the semester). Please type these while we meet.
2. Besides the person taking minutes, nobody else should have their laptop/ipad/phone open except when we are reviewing the journal articles. And then it will only be to look at the journal articles. We are all going to try very hard to respect each other by not looking at our phones/emails during group meeting. This doesn’t mean that in the case of an emergency a person can’t check their phone, but in general, let’s put them away.
3. Please go around the room to introduce ourselves (name, grade/position, 1 fun thing we did over the winter break)
4. Omer will explain (and others can help) the idea of the 5 minute overview of a journal article. You will set a time for when the articles must be shared (will it be by 9 am Monday mornings, Sunday at 5 pm, etc.?). You will also decide how you want to share the articles (should we email the list, should we have a folder on SharePoint, etc.?).
5. Lab notebooks will be reviewed this semester during specific group meetings (listed on the schedule). If you are unsure what is needed in your lab notebook please ask/discuss. I would like them to be detailed enough so that when one person leaves the group we know what they did and did not try and we don’t have to repeat their work (for instance, what concentrations of LPS did Joey add to cells? What type of cells? How did he dissolve it? How was the LPS stored? What controls were used? What did the raw data look like? What did the analyzed data look like? What media was used for the cells? Was media, saline or PBS used for the actual experiment? Etc.). Please keep your lab notebook updated weekly (I recommend setting aside 2 hours every Friday/weekend to update your notebook, but that’s just what would work for me). We will exchange and check each others notebooks for the first time on 2/12 – please make sure you get all caught up before then! A couple of rules that I follow – 1) you do not need to sign each page (I can explain why if you don’t know), 2) you can type up/print out a copy of your protocol and tape it into your notebook (this allows for easy changes to the numbers/conditions that you are trying each time you run an experiment), 3) you need to use ink (not pencil) in your lab notebook, 4) if you forgot your notebook and wrote information on a different sheet of paper you can tape that into your lab notebook – you don’t have to re-write it, 5) you must have directions on where to find the raw data and the data analysis documents written down in your lab notebook (file path in SharePoint). What other rules should everyone follow? Please write these down so we can remember.
6. Omer will give a practice talk next week. After that I will give the first ‘overview of research’ talk with background about her so that you know what I’m looking for. Omer’s practice talk is for his formal seminars at other universities, so it will be slightly different than the rest of us.
7. Please discuss the Crucial Conversations book – what were your favorite parts, what was confusing, have you tried to use any of these tips/techniques and did they work for you? What else?
8. Anything that I’m forgetting?

 

That’s it. If you have any questions please let me know.

 

I might try to sleep today, so if I don’t answer my texts/email quickly please be patient. If there is an emergency you can call my phone – I typically will wake up for that.

 

Thanks everyone!!

 

Iverson