Week 08 — Thursday Workshop: Project Progress, Peer Review & Method Justification
Week: 8
Topic: Project Progress, Peer Review & Method Justification
| Part | Activity | Time |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Weekly Self-Assessment | 10 min |
| 2 | Start / Extend Your Methods Section | 10 min |
| 3 | Peer Feedback | ~10 min |
| 4 | Method Justification — Written Exercise | 15 min |
| 5 | Assumption Check | 10 min |
| 6 | Reflective Activity | 10 min |
| 7 | Prepare for Next Week’s Presentation | 10 min |
| 8 | Project Work Time | remaining |
1 Part 1: Weekly Self-Assessment (10 min)
Open the Weekly Self-Assessment page and work through it now.
The short version:
- Open your project README and find your Expected Timeline.
- Reflect on what you planned to do last week and what you actually did.
- Pick your status: 🟢 On track · 🟡 Slightly behind · 🔴 Significantly behind
- If 🟡 or 🔴: write one concrete step you will take this week to catch up.
- Identify one specific thing you will finish by the end of this week.
- Share your status and your one goal with the person next to you.
Go to your GitHub repository and make sure your Expected Timeline is there. It doesn’t need to be perfect — it needs to exist and be honest about where you are.
2 Part 2: Peer Feedback — We will do this most weeks (5 min)
Pair with someone outside your immediate research area.
3 Talk about how your project is going
4 Part 3: Prepare for Next Week’s Presentation (10 min)
Next week during workshop time, each student will give a 3–5 minute progress update. This is informal, low-stakes, and require slides.
Read the Progress Presentation Instructions now.
Then, use the remaining time to:
⬜ Update your Expected Timeline in your README (even if nothing changed — confirm it)
⬜ Identify one specific thing you will show next week (a figure, table, output, or code chunk)
⬜ Write down one open question you want feedback on from your classmates
⬜ Push your latest work to GitHub
5 Part 4: Start Working on Your Methods (10 min)
In your project (RStudio, GitHub, or Word) open or create a Methods section. Write at least two sentences:
- I chose X methods because …
- A key limitation of my analysis is … so we …
- Write down a description of the analysis you will do, and start working on it! At this point you should start coding
If you already have this section, extend it. Add one more sentence about your data structure or your response variable distribution.
6 Part 5: Project Work Time (remaining time)
Use the rest of the session to make progress on your project. Suggested priorities:
- Run a preliminary model or analysis (even if rough)
- Generate at least one exploratory figure
- Continue writing your Methods section
- Clean or organize your data file