Feedback

Activity 1 | Week 1 | Feedback

Here is some feedback related to Week 1, from the mentors, Ryan and myself.

What we appreciated

You brought energy, shared ideas, and spotted potential problems before they affected your measurements. These are excellent foundations for scientific work.

What to strengthen

1. Prepare: Skim the notes and make sure your group understands the purpose of the experiment. A few minutes of preparation can save a great deal of time.

2. Observe: Watch the whole experiment, not just the stopwatch. Small clues(e.g. asymmetrical swings) can reveal important problems.
   You must consciously cultivate this awareness; it won’t happen automatically.

3. Iterate: Trying to get everything perfect from the get-go often takes a significant chunk of time, for a small amount of gain. Start simple, run a short trial, and improve what matters. Pause occasionally and ask: Does this still make sense? Do not become so focused on completing a task that you forget to question it.

4. Include everyone: Make space for every voice. Listen carefully and actively invite everyone into the discussion. Your teammates bring valuable perspectives, and good teamwork leads to better science.

Prepare, observe, iterate, include everyone.

What we liked:

1. There was a lot of enthusiams and energy in that you brought into tje session.
2. A loy of you talked with each other.
3. You were thoughtful to flagging out potential issues before they negatively affect your experiment!

Things you need to pay attention to

1. Look at the notes: Quickly go through the notes before class. If you don’t have the time to go through everything, then split the effort amongst a bunch of friends so that each of you can update each other about the highlights of their sections. It will also help save time (e.g. several groups measured periods of 30, 40 which was not necessary).

2. Learn to notice: There are many simple indicatoins (e.g. the string moving to and away from the tabel edge) of things going well or away if only you pay attention. Developing this awareness is one of the most useful things that you can do for yourselves.

3. Task fixation: It is easy to get carried away when you are excited about doing something and you might be doing something that is unnecessary. So, ever so often stop and ask your friends if things make sense.

4. Ocama’s Razor: Start simple and complicate things only if you have need for it. The mroe complications you add in, the more ways your experimntt can go wrong. Ask if the gains are consumeratre to the costs.

5. Experimenting first, then optimizing later is also another way of approaching problems. While getting the initial setup is important, trying to get everything perfect from the get-go often takes a significant chunk of time, for a small amount of gain. Experiment, find issues, optimize, repeat.

6. Pay attention to you team mates: This is an opportunity for you to practive your leadership and interpersonal skills. Remember that your reamates are a resource and your relationships with them is more important than the experiment. So, pay attention to them and make an effort to include wven the quite ones into the discussion.