Discussion sessions
TA Joshua White
uniq 51030 T9-10 RAS 211B
uniq 51035 T10-11 WAG 208
uniq 51040 M3-4 PAR 310
uniq 51045 M4-5 PAR 105
Discussion sections will be used to discuss papers that are directly relevant to the lecture materials. Each discussion section will be divided into small groups (3-5 per group, 4-6 groups per discussion section). You are going to study 2 papers each 4 week period. One of these papers you will study yourself and the other one will be taught to you by a sister group.
If there are 4 groups in your discussion section then there will be 2 group A's and 2 group B's. The Group A will read and study the Group A paper. The Group B will read and study the Group B paper. You will stay in the same groups and study the same paper for 4 consecutive weeks.
Week 1 Print out the paper. Read the abstract and introduction. Bring it to the discussion section. Discuss figures with your group.
Week 2 Discuss the figures. Discuss the methods. Identify problems in your understanding of the paper. You may need to look something up outside of class to resolve the problem.
What will your TA do during week 1 and 2? (S)he will be eavesdropping. The role of the TA is to help you when you get stuck. They may answer questions and they may ask questions. They are not supposed to explain everything to you. I want your group to figure out the papers.
Between week 1 and 2. Meet with your group outside of class to construct a poster. The poster should be one piece of poster board with the title and authors and HAND DRAWN figures. Draw figures that represent the data. Draw a figure at the end summarizes the conclusions and interpretation of the data. THE POSTER SHOULD BE THOUGHTFULLY-ORGANIZED. You should be able to read it from about 4 feet away.
Week 3 Put the poster up. Posters do not have to be elaborate, a title, reference, authors, hand made drawings with a sharpie will be fine. Both Group A's will put up their poster. Both Group B's will put up their posters.
One member of Group A will stand by the poster for about 20 minutes and explain it to Group B members. Similarly, one member of Group B will stand by the poster for about 20 minutes and explain it to Group A members.
Then a second Group A member and a second Group B member will present the poster for the next 20 minutes. If your discussion has 4 groups (two A and two B) then there will be 4 posters on the walls.
Week 4 At the beginning of class you turn in a 500 word to one page description of your paper. THESE MUST BE TYPED!!!
Answer these questions:
1. What is the question being addressed?
2. Why is the question important?
3. Describe how the experiments answer/address the question.
4. What was the key experiment?
5. What are the conclusions?
6. What do you think would be an interesting next question?
You must write this. It must not be copied from the article. You must not plagiarize other members of the group or any published source.
The Professor or TA will present a condensed presentation of the key parts of the paper. Raucous and heated discussions will ensure ;)
At the end, you will understand both papers because you will have studied one of them and you will have learned the other paper from the opposing group.
If will be much easier for you to learn the poster from your sister group than to study the paper yourself.
It is your job to obtains the papers.
You can use UT's Find a Journal service to download the paper. You can download papers from most scientific journals using this service.
To find other papers on a topic you should use Pubmed.
Bring a printed copy of your paper to the Discussion section.
How are these sessions graded?
There are 4 discussion sessions meetings for exam 1, for exam 2, and for exam 3.
For each one you received 0.5 points for attendance, 1 point for participation, 2 points for the quality of your poster and 3 points for your summary. On each exam there will be a question from each paper which are worth 2 points.
attendance 0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5
participation 1+1+1
poster 2 points
summary 3
Exam questions specifically from the paper 2
Sum 12 points
NOTE: Some of these papers are also covered in class and these poster sessions may help you with those questions.
Discussion Sections and predicted activities
Bio344
1)Tuesday1/20/08
2)Thursday1/22/09
M&T Discussion #1Discuss first set of papers
3)Tuesday1/27/09
4)Thursday1/29/09
M&T Discussion #2Discuss first set of papers
5)Tuesday2/3/09
6)Thursday2/5/09
M&T Discussion #3Poster session
7)Tuesday2/10/09
8)Thursday2/12/09
M&T Discussion #4Turn in 500 words to 1 page summary
Prof or TA presents papers
9)Tuesday2/17/09
10)Thursday2/19/09EXAM 1
M&T Discussion #5Discuss second set of papers
11)Tuesday2/24/09
12)Thursday2/26/09
M&T Discussion #6Discuss second set of papers
13)Tuesday3/3/09
14)Thursday3/5/09 DC
M&T Discussion #7Poster session, turn in 500 words to 1 page summary
15)Tuesday3/10/09
16)Thursday3/12/09
Tuesday3/17/09 Spring Break
Thursday3/19/09 Spring Break
M&T Discussion #8Turn in 500 words to 1 page summary
Prof or TA presents papers
17)Tuesday3/24/09
18)Thursday3/26/09Exam 2
M&T Discussion #9Discuss third set of papers
19)Tuesday3/31/09
20)Thursday4/2/09
M&T Discussion #10Discuss third set of papers
21)Tuesday4/7/09
22)Thursday4/9/09
M&T Discussion #11Poster session, turn in 500 words to 1 page summary
23)Tuesday4/14/09
24)Thursday4/16/09
M&T Discussion #12Turn in 500 words to 1 page summary
Prof or TA presents papers
25)Tuesday4/21/09
26)Thursday4/23/09
M&T Discussion #13
27)Tuesday4/28/09
28)Thursday4/30/09Exam 3
M&T Discussion #14
29)Tuesday5/5/09
30)Thursday5/7/09 Last class day
Information for the first poster session.
Group A's paper Flanagan, P. M., Kelleher, R. J. r., Sayre, M. H., Tschochner, H., & Kornberg, R. D. (1991). A mediator required for activation of RNA polymerase II transcription in vitro. Nature, 350(6317), 436-438.
Group B's paper White, R. J., & Jackson, S. P. (1992). Mechanism of TATA-binding protein recruitment to a TATA-less class III promoter. Cell, 71(6), 1041-1053.
Information for the second poster session.
Group A's paper Kozak, M. (1986). Point mutations define a sequence flanking the AUG initiator codon that modulates translation by eukaryotic ribosomes. Cell, 44(2), 283-292.
This seems like an old paper but it was a very important step in eukaryotic molecular biology. PDF
Read the abstract and introduction and discussion of this paper. Kozak, M (1995) Adherence to the first-AUG rule when a second AUG codon follows closely upon the first. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 92:2662–2666.
Group B's paper Systemic RNAi in C. elegans Requires the Putative Transmembrane Protein SID-1 William M. Winston et al. Science 295 , 2456-2459 (2002)
Information for the third poster session.
Group A's paper Weaver, I. C., D'Alessio, A. C., Brown, S. E., Hellstrom, I. C., Dymov, S., Sharma, S. et al. (2007). The transcription factor nerve growth factor-inducible protein a mediates epigenetic programming: altering epigenetic marks by immediate-early genes. Journal of Neuroscience, 27(7), 1756-1768.
Group B's paper Zeng, C. & Berget, S. M. (2000). Participation of the C-terminal domain of RNA polymerase II in exon definition during pre-mRNA splicing. Molecular and Cellular Biology, 20(21), 8290-8301.
Please find and download the PDFs for both of these. Bring them to your next discussion section. UT's Find a Journal service
