The second GEBIN Educational Short Course in Bayreuth was attended by 16 students. As planned, and according to the suggestions of the participants to the first course, we restricted the number of students and accepted only those in the last semester at the University or doing their Diplomarbeit. The answers provided by the participating students to the questionnaire distributed at the end of this short course are summarized below.
How did you find...
|
|
Excellent |
Very good |
Good |
Regular |
Bad |
Very bad |
|
Program |
10 % |
90 % |
- |
- |
- |
- |
|
Content of the course |
10 % |
90 % |
- |
- |
- |
- |
|
Time schedule |
- |
9 % |
27% |
54 % |
9 % |
|
|
Teachers |
18 % |
64 % |
18 % |
- |
- |
- |
|
Atmosphere |
27 % |
46 % |
27 % |
- |
- |
- |
The level of this lecture was for me:
|
|
Too advanced |
Appropriate |
Too basic |
|
Immunology |
- |
67 % |
33 % |
|
Nervous system |
- |
50 % |
50 % |
|
Psychology |
- |
100 % |
- |
|
Long-loop INEI |
- |
100 % |
- |
|
Peripheral INEI |
- |
100% |
- |
|
Central INEI |
18 % |
82 % |
- |
|
Stress INEI |
- |
100 % |
- |
|
Conditioning INEI |
27% |
73% |
- |
Should this type of course be repeated?
Yes (100%)
Comments/suggestions
- More breaks, longer course
- Focus on an special issue (e.g. Treg cells in Neuroimmunomodulation)
- I have learnt a lot
- Make a longer course!
- I have found the hand-outs very helpful
- The best was to update the knowledge and review the basis in a short time
- The best was the interdisciplinary nature of the course
- Make more breaks!
- Three lectures in a row are too much to pay attention all the time
- The best was the overview about the different working groups and the different subjects
- The best were the lectures on Peripheral PNI, Pyschology, and Stress
- The best was the lecture on Central INEI
- The lecture on Central INEI was difficult to understand, but may be it was because it was the last on the first day!
- The lecture Refreshing the central nervous system was too basic
- The Conditioning lecture should be more basic
- It was so interesting and I learnt a lot. The course should be longer.
-The best was to learn basic concepts in this field
- Leave more time at the end of each presentation for discussion
- It was a good "refreshing" and introduction to the field
- The time was too short
- The best was the nice atmosphere
-The best was the teacher-student interaction
- The room was too cold!
- I would not change anything for the next course!
- In some aspects it was too basic
- I would recommend to check the student's education level in each field before preparing the lectures
- Buffer the time schedule a bit more
-The best thing was the general overview of the field that was provided by the course
A few personal comments:
1) The evaluation of the program, content, teachers, and atmosphere in the course was very satisfactory. We got the "worst" score in the item "time schedule". Most of the students who judged the "time schedule" as "regular" would have liked "more time for this course", or "more breaks", or "more time for discussion". This is rather difficult to achieve in the limited time that we have available for this type of course, but I'll do my best to improve it for the next course.
2) The restriction to accept "only advanced students" for participation was in my view correct. The majority judged the level of the lectures as "appropriate". Of course, we cannot make everybody happy. For example, those lectures considered by some students as being "too basic" were the same lectures considered as "very good since they refreshed my knowledge on the subject…." by others. This was also the case of the lectures considered as "too advanced" by 2-3 students: they were considered the "best lecture" by others…
3) Following the proposal after the first course, this time we provided hand-outs of the lectures. This was highly appreciated by the students.
4) I'll try to take into account the suggestions of the students for the next course. However, although some might be appropriated, I believe they are practically not possible. For example, one student who considered that some aspects of the course were too basic recommends "to check the students' education level in each field before preparing the lectures". This would be ideal, but extremely difficult to put into practice….
5) I particularly enjoyed the informal final half-an-hour teachers-students talk (What are the students doing). I think I am going to include this part next time also, may be with some modifications.
In summary, we (and as judged by their comments, also the students) are quite satisfied with the course. I profit to thank all the participating teachers for their cooperation, especially those who, with a very short notice, accepted to replace two colleagues who could not come to Bayreuth for personal reasons.
The third GEBIN Educational Course will take place in Freiburg in 2007!
Prof. Dr. Adriana del Rey, Dept. Immunophysiology, Inst. of Normal and Pathological Physiology., Deutschhausstrasse 2, 35037 Marburg, Germany
Rainer H. Straub, 18.10.2005