BAE 775 Professional Practices Seminar (3.0 Credit Hours)

Course Description

The course is designed for BAE graduate students and is a required course.  Four themes cover: 1) framing your research and technical writing; 2) proposal development and mock review panel; 3) tools for successful research; and 4) multimodal communication and teaching skills. The students are expected to accomplish: prepare professional-quality tables and graphs to summarize scientific data; peer-review a scientific article; prepare a research proposal by working with the advisor, deliver an oral scientific presentation to include supporting visual aids, present scientific studies using poster format, communicate scientific information using outreach methods, demonstrate familiarity with university-level instructional techniques, and market individual experiences and qualifications through curriculum vitae and interviews.  

Prerequisites:  Graduate standing.

Course Learning Outcomes:  At the conclusion of this course, students should be able to:

1.      Prepare professional-quality tables and graphs to summarize scientific data.

2.  Peer-review a scientific article.

3.  Deliver an oral scientific presentation to include supporting visual aids.

4.  Present scientific studies using poster format.

5.  Communicate scientific information using adult outreach methods.

6.  Demonstrate familiarity with university-level instructional techniques (PhD students).

7.  Market individual experiences and qualifications through curriculum vitae and interviews.

8.  Develop a research proposal

Topics Outline

Theme 1) Framing your research and technical writing.

Week 1               Keys for successful research

Week 2               Literature review

Week 3-4            Technical writing

Theme 2) Proposal development and mock review panel.

Week 6-7           Proposal writing tips

Week 8               Education and outreach component

Week 9               Mock review panel

Theme 3) Tools for successful research.

Week 9              Experimental design

Week 10        Data analysis and visualization

Week 11        Electronic lab notebook & Citation management

Theme 4) Multimodal communication and teaching skills.   

Week 12        Multimodal communication

Week 13            Presentation essentials

Week 14        Develop a teaching module with assignment/quiz

Week 15-16   Final projects