Realizations while teaching Research

I'm pleased with the mid-year student evaluation for Research 2, the clinical and community research class I teach weekly in medical school. It's the most important feedback a teacher can possibly get: what, in the end, do the learners think of the course? 

My students rated the course as excellent, including the non-traditional teaching-learning activities. One particular activity, the peer-review, gives me satisfaction more than the others. I pair one group of students with another and instruct them to carefully study and critique the work assigned to them. In class, I listen to my students offering generous, well thought out, and considerate critiques. I learn a great deal from this exercise, too, and it frees me up from the task of doing the reviews all by myself. 

As the third quarter is unfolding, I have some realizations, especially as regards to my Research 2 class: 

Expect great things from, and think highly of, students. They live up to expectations, or will attempt to achieve lofty things. 

Allow creativity to flourish. This means creating certain allowances for unusual ideas and allowing them to explore unconventional research questions. 

Give them time to think. Setting aside dedicated study time, where they can work and meet with their groups, helps. Academic load in second year medical school is heavy and burdensome; their minds need space to think. 

Start with the capsule proposal before the full-length version. Capsule proposals are brief, concise, easy to read and critique, and force the students to distill the intricacies of methods and statistical analysis without being overwhelmed by length. Only when the capsule proposal is finalized can they expand it to create the final version. 

Use Google Documents! I can keep track of the evolving versions of the proposal, and my inbox is less cluttered.