Abstract
Students’ perceptions of bioscience research are influenced by their experiences in laboratories. For many students, whole-class laboratory sessions are their only exposure to practical bioscience. These can give a misleading impression of what bioscience research is like if they only involve following step-by-step instructions to achieve a ‘correct’ answer. One solution is to give students experimental design freedom, ownership of and a stake in their laboratory work, so that they can experience the creativity of research, and something of what it is like to be a bioscientist. Such opportunities allow our students legitimate peripheral participation in our bioscience research community of practice and help them acquire bioscience research identity.
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References
Wenger E (1999) Communities of practice: learning, meaning and identify. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Lave J, Wenger E (1991) Situated learning: legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Meyer JHF, Land R (2006) Overcoming barriers to student understanding: threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge. Routledge Falmer, London
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© 2012 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
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Saffell, J.L. (2012). Becoming a Bioscientist: Undergraduate Laboratory Experience as a Portal to Bioscience Identity. In: Castanho, M., Güner-Akdogan, G. (eds) The Researching, Teaching, and Learning Triangle. Mentoring in Academia and Industry, vol 10. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0568-9_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0568-9_1
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