“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) |
|---|---|
| Course Link | https://courses.ibiology.org/catalog/LE/SP/
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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| Playlist of Course Videos | View Playlist of Course Videos |
| 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 give your thoughts and feedback. Thank you!
