Assignments for Second Interval

for participants in the
NSF Workshops on Visualization of Biomolecules in Teaching
Eric Martz PD
http://www.umass.edu/microbio/rasmol/workshop.htm

(If you are reading a paper version of this document, it is also available at http://www.umass.edu/microbio/rasmol/w_assig2.htm)

Your main assignment is to complete your teaching plan(s), implement the necessary scripts/resources, and use molecular visualization in your classes.

For each class in which you use molecular visualization, please keep notes on:

  1. Title of class
  2. Enrollment
  3. Level of students
And for each visualization or session incorporated into the teaching:
  1. Molecule(s)
  2. Software (RasMol, Chime, MAGE, etc.)
  3. Approximate time (minutes or hours) spent with visualization.
  4. Did you use resources obtained from the web or did you author your own?
  5. Pedagogic approach (projection? student hands-on?)

  6. What problems did you encounter?
  7. How effective was it? What will you change next time?
  8. Samples of student comments (solicited or unsolicited) will be useful.
  9. URL of class web page and/or resources created for class, if any.
Remember that you can ask questions on the workshop email list (http://www.umass.edu/microbio/rasmol/emvlist.htm). As the year progresses, URL's which you email to us can be added to our workshop website.

Our third and last workshop meeting day will be one year after our first two meeting days. At the 3rd meeting, we will ask each of you to summarize the information requested above. Optionally, you may wish to project some scripts or resources you have developed for all of us to see, or to present a discussion of your experiences with pedagogy. Each of you should be prepared to speak for 5-15 minutes to the group. If the 20 of you coming to each meeting speak for an average of 10 minutes each, that will occupy about half of the workshop. The other half will include hands-on work concerning software upgrades or new software which have become available during the year, and help with any topics suggested by you, the participants.

Need help? emartz@microbio.umass.edu.