Your Guide to Methodology of Science - Biology from the Peer Tutors

This article was part of a series by the Board of Student Academic Support Services (SASS) that interviewed OHS course peer tutors about the courses they tutor. You can book an appointment with these peer tutors through the OHS Writing Center, which can be found on the OHS Gateway site. 

SASS: What did you enjoy about MSB?

Grace Sewell (‘18): I first recognized the importance of MSB when I started to be able to critically analyze the studies that define my perceptions of political, public, and personal life. MSB is a rewarding course. You will find yourself questioning the rigor of research practices and results in entirely new ways. It is a class that develops skills of ethical inquiry and scientific accountability. You will undoubtedly become more proficient at reacting appropriately to research of all kinds. 

Katherine Davis (‘20): This is a hard question since I enjoyed almost everything about MSB! My favorite part was probably the academic challenges it presented me. MSB forced me to not just understand the material, but to be able to use my knowledge of the material and apply it to new things. Every quiz question and writing assignment prompt was like a puzzle that I had to figure out, and it was so satisfying when I managed to get all the pieces to fit together!

SASS: What challenged you the most in MSB? How did you overcome those challenges?

Grace: MSB requires students to be able to synthesize a lot of information in complex and unexpected situations. I think that the open-note format of exams speaks to this challenge. The difficult part of MSB does not have to do with memorizing formulas or biological concepts. Instead, students must learn how to critically think about how statistics and biology interact with each other and apply to real-world situations. I found that watching all of the lectures, attending office hours, and practicing previous skills frequently helped me to retain information learned in the course and relate it to new material. 

Katherine: The hardest challenge for me was coming to an understanding about what the course really was. The year I took MSB was my first year at SOHS, so I had never taken a core class before. MSB isn’t just statistics and biology; it's so much more. The course helped me to have a much better understanding of how the scientific method works, and it taught me to always ask questions about the statistics I see. In the first few weeks of MSB, I failed to understand that this was not a normal science course, but once I got that, everything about it seemed to make more sense.

SASS: What tips do you have that could be useful to students taking MSB?

Grace: Believe in the relevance of this course before you start taking it. Regardless of whether you think that you like statistics and/or biology, MSB is *not* a simple statistics or biology course. More importantly, it uses components of statistics and biology to teach students how to interpret and create data. So, the best advice that I have to offer is to think about the ways in which MSB can connect to your own interests and life outside of the classroom.

Katherine: Take notes in class! I made the mistake of not doing this at the beginning of the year, and my quiz grades reflected that. MSB isn’t one of those classes where you can get away with not taking notes in discussion sections. MSB uses class time to build on the material, so even if you completely understood the lecture you still need to take notes in class. And the second, but more general, tip is to go to office hours. Office hours are extremely useful when you are drafting your WAs and for general questions. I also used office hours to go over what I did wrong on my WAs after I got my grade back, and this helped me to not make the same mistake twice!

SASS: About how much time did you spend a week working on assignments and preparing for discussion sessions in MSB?

Grace: I usually had a weekly Skype call with other students to review the material for the weekly quiz. This generally took about an hour. The lectures filled a few hours per week. I almost never referred to the textbook unless I was trying to remember formulas (in other words, the lectures were sufficient). Although I started writing assignments early, they took a few hours per week during the weeks when they were assigned. Stay on top of your work, or it will pile up. 

Katherine Davis: I probably spent about 1-3 hours reviewing for the quiz and taking it, 9-12 hours on writing assignments and 1-2 hours preparing for the class sections.

SASS: What was your favorite topic covered in MSB?

Grace: It’s hard for me to identify a specific ‘favorite’ topic since the units of the course work well together. I generally liked learning about statistics since I had no previous exposure to the subject. Although it was challenging, statistics provided me with a new approach to important issues and broader questions.

Katherine: I loved them all! Behavioral ecology and genetics were probably my favorite biological topics since I find them so fascinating. My favorite statistical topics were the normal distribution and the confidence interval.

SASS: What assignments did you enjoy doing in MSB?

Grace: I really appreciated the MSB writing assignments. Although they took a lot of time, they allowed me to push my understanding of the material. MSB writing assignments also provide students with an opportunity to learn how to write differently than in other courses. 

Katherine: Again, I loved them all! Writing Assignments are nice because you get to explain your thought process on the topic and describing something always makes it easier to remember. Quizzes are quite challenging, but thankfully, they are open note and have no time limit! The final project, which is in the spring semester, is probably one of my favorite school projects ever. Performing statistical tests on data you’ve collected yourself is really fun!

SASS: Did you have any experiences with MSB that could encourage those who are uncertain of the course to want to take it? 

Grace: I emphatically do not consider myself to be a ‘science’ person. I have always loved the humanities and tend to avoid science and math classes. That being said, I could not be more grateful for the lessons that I learned in MSB. During my recent college interviews, people often asked about the classes that have most significantly impacted my life. I consistently named MSB as one of these courses. The understanding of how statistics informs our understanding of the world around us is relevant to every discipline of study. I believe that this class is one of the most important courses that the OHS offers. MSB encourages the development of responsible citizens and honest researchers who challenge the validity of their work and the work of others. It is a demanding course, but students exit the class with the skills needed to responsibly process the information around them.

Katherine: As I said before, MSB isn’t just a statistics and biology course. It taught me skills that will be useful throughout all of my academic career and probably even throughout my life. After taking MSB, I am able to describe my thought processes or bring up a point in class much more clearly than I ever was before. The quizzes also made me a much better test taker as well since I got a lot of practice in thinking through complicated questions. If you are worried about taking MSB because of how hard it is, just remember that the main point of the class isn’t for you to get perfect grades, its about wanting to learn. If you go into the class wanting to learn and make the most out of MSB as you can, then you will do great!

SASS: Why do you think MSB is a core course instead of just a science course? What academic skills did MSB help you improve?

Grace: As I have said above, MSB is truly interdisciplinary. The scientific reasoning skills that it teaches will be relevant to your work in many classes and activities to come. MSB taught me how to view science through the lens of philosophy and philosophy through the lens of science; which is something that OHS core does in general. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to take this class.

Katherine: MSB covers so much more than statistics and biology. It helped me to be able to reason more and to describe my thought process better. MSB taught me to never be too trusting of statistics and scientific studies that I see in the news, and it helped me to gain a much deeper understanding of how present-day scientists obtain knowledge.