“Let’s Experiment: A Guide for Scientists Working at the Bench” (LE) is a free 6-week online course designed to help guide participants through the process of planning and executing experiments in biology. In the online course, scientists from a variety of backgrounds give concrete steps and advice to help participants build a framework for how to design experiments. Through the course, participants develop a general approach to experimental design and understand what they are getting into before they begin.
Here is a high level description of what participants learn in this course:
- The elements of a well-designed experiment, including variables, controls, sample size and replication.
- An introduction to experimental variability, sample size estimation, data analysis, and p-values, and how to seek help when needed.
- Insights into their potential bias as an experimenter, how that affects reproducibility, and how to prevent it from impacting the design and execution of an experiment.
- Experimental tips and best practices on reagent authentication, keeping a good laboratory notebook, and getting an experiment to work.
This page is for educators to access the whole or parts of the course to use in their own teaching.
| Course | Let’s Experiment: A Guide for Scientists Working at the Bench (Self-Paced) |
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| Course Link | https://courses.ibiology.org/courses/course-v1:iBiology+LE+SP/about We encourage all educators to register for the online course and review it in the online platform to read the full course text and see the course components in context. |
| Syllabus | Download Syllabus
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| Educator Guide | Download Educator Guide
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| Full Course Content Document | Download Full Course Content
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| Assessment-Only Document | Download Assessment Document
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| Course Level | Course content is for life science undergraduate and graduate students needing training in experimental design. |
| Educator Audience | Faculty, administrators, laboratory PIs, and research mentors looking for resources to help teach life science trainees rigorous, reproducible and transparent experimental design. |
| Preliminary Data |
Let’s Experiment Poster
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Tell us what you think…
We have put together these resources in an attempt to be helpful, so we very much would like to know what you think, and/or how you might be using them. We would also like to know what you think is missing or what could be better. Please reach out to us at courses@ibiology.org and gives your thoughts and feedback. Thank you!
