Building the 'How' of Science: A MonksHillLab Skill Development Session Series for Early-Career Researchers

Building the ‘How’ of Science: A MonksHillLab Skill Development Session Series for Early-Career Researchers Authors: Mathias Hoffmann, Maren Dubbert Contact: [email protected] Date: November 2025 License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY 4.0) Version: 1.4 Building the ‘How’ of Science: Skill Development for ECR 2 Table of Contents 1. Introduction 2. Sessions 2.1 Session 1 : Expectations 2.1.1 Purpose 2.1.2 Materials needed 2.1.3 Session Workflow 2.2 Session 2: Supervisory Meetings 2.2.1 Purpose 2.2.2 Materials needed 2.2.3 Session Workflow 2.3 Session 3: Scientific Writing 2.3.1 Purpose 2.3.2 Materials needed 2.3.3 Session Workflow 2.4 Session 4: Scientific Figures 2.4.1 Purpose 2.4.2 Materials needed 2.4.3 Session Workflow 2.5 Session 5: Work Organization 2.5.1 Purpose 2.5.2 Materials needed 2.5.3 Session Workflow 2.6 Session 6: Scientific Presentations 2.6.1 Purpose 2.6.2 Materials needed 2.6.3 Session Workflow Appendix - Slide Show Presentations Building the ‘How’ of Science: Skill Development for ECR 3 Building the ‘How’ of Science: Skill Development for ECR 4 1. Introduction This living document serves as a guiding framework for a series of skill development sessions designed to build foundational competencies in communication, problem-solving, and scientific ownership for early career researchers. It was used as such within the Working Group for Ecophysiology and Matter Cycling of the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Research (ZALF). Its core philosophy is that scientific expertise is not just about what you know, but how you operate. The primary goal of this session series is hence to cultivate the habits of mind essential for ownership and impact, empowering early career researchers to take full responsibility for their scientific journey. Each session is built around a core element we call the "Engagement Starter Task"—a lowstakes, high-engagement task that serves multiple critical purposes:  Immediate Engagement: It pulls participants out of a passive listening mode and into an active, collaborative mindset from the first minute.  Pressure-Testing Core Competencies: The starter acts as a practical simulation, directly testing the very skills the session aims to teach.  Creating a Shared Experience: It generates a common, memorable reference point that makes the subsequent theoretical discussion tangible and relatable.  Fostering a Growth Mindset: By being challenging yet achievable, it builds confidence and prepares the group to engage deeply with the main content. The remainder of each session uses this shared experience as a foundation. It debrief the starter to harvest insights, then introduce simple, powerful conceptual frameworks that participants can immediately integrate into their daily practice. This method ensures that the lessons are not just theoretical but are embodied, applicable, and lasting. Building the ‘How’ of Science: Skill Development for ECR 5 2. Sessions 2.1 Session 1: Expectations 2.1.1 Purpose To establish a shared understanding of the supervisor-PhD student relationship as a two-way partnership. This session uses two experiential exercises to define the pillars of successful collaboration: the supervisor's responsibility to provide clear, empowering guidance (a "Stone House"), and the PhD student's responsibility to uphold accountability and reliability. The goal is to create a foundation of mutual respect and shared ownership from day one. 2.1.2 Materials needed The following minimal materials are required to facilitate the practical starter and subsequent discussion:  Beamer and computer for slide show  Whiteboard or flip chart  Markers  One six-sided die  (Optional) Printouts of the "Three Houses" visual framework for the debrief. 2.1.3 Session Workflow This session uses two consecutive starter tasks to explore both sides of the supervisory partnership: 1.) The Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf and 2.) Snow White and the 3 Dwarfs. For the first starter task participants are divided into three roles (pigs) for a quick drawing task (e.g., "draw a tree"):  Pig 1 (Vague Instruction): The instructor gives a vague command ("Draw") and then criticizes the unexpected result.  Pig 2 (Micromanagement): The instructor gives a command but immediately takes over the task, forcing the participant to just follow lines.  Pig 3 (Empowerment): The instructor gives a clear, specific command ("Draw a tree with two branches and a thick trunk"). Building the ‘How’ of Science: Skill Development for ECR 6 Debrief Focus: How did each style feel? This introduces the "Three Houses" framework (Vague, Micromanaging, and Empowering) as a metaphor for supervisory communication. For the second starter task participants collaboratively brainstorms and lists all components needed to write a paper (data, figures, draft, etc.). A die is rolled; any participant with a roll under 4 must remove a critical component from the list. Debrief Focus: What are we left with, and is it still a paper? This makes the PhD student's responsibility for accountability, reliability, and meeting deadlines tangible. In a final synthesis the insights from both starter tasks and debrief discussions are merged into a joint agreement on how to improve. 2.2 Session 2: Supervisory Meeting 2.2.1 Purpose To empower ECR (and especially PhD students) to take initiative and get the most out of supervisory meetings, regardless whether it is a full day annual meeting or 15 min floor talk. This session addresses the common communication failure of presenting a problem ad-hoc and without context or a proposed solution ("it's not working, what shall I do?"). The goal is to equip ECR with a proactive framework that shifts their role from a passive passenger to an active driver of their academic journey (“being the CEO of their thesis/project/ect.”), thus ensuring on their own that they receive the best possible guidance/advice they can get from their supervisors. 2.2.2 Materials needed The following minimal materials are required to facilitate the practical starter and subsequent discussion:  Beamer and computer for slide show 2.2.3 Session Workflow This session uses its starter task (The non-working Coffee Machine Diagnosis) to train the core of the scientific method: formulating a hypothesis, testing it, and drawing a conclusion/propose solutions. The goal is to make EXR proactive in applying this rigorous Building the ‘How’ of Science: Skill Development for ECR 7 framework to everyday problems. It teaches them to report this diagnostic process to their supervisor, not just the existence, thus asking for advice on their own thinking not a blueprint solution. For the starter task the participants are presented with the following scenario: the lab coffee machine is not working, and only the session leader knows the cause. The core rule is that participants cannot ask direct questions (e.g., "Is it unplugged?"). Instead, they must:  State a clear hypothesis (e.g., "I hypothesize there is no water in the tank.").  Describe the experiment to test it (e.g., "I will open the water tank and check the water level."). The session leader then provides the resulting data (e.g., "You observe the tank is full."), allowing the group to confirm or reject the hypothesis and iterate until the root cause is found. Debrief focus: The discussion connects the exercise directly to supervisory meetings: a supervisor, like the session leader, holds key information, but the student must diagnose the situation through structured, proactive inquiry. The starter task also helps to introduce the 3-Act Communication Framework for meeting preparation and execution, which consists of:  The BRIEF: Concisely state the current status and the specific issue. ("What is the topic?")  The DIAGNOSIS: Present your analysis of the core problem or key question. ("What do I think is the cause or the central challenge?")  The PROPOSAL: Offer potential solutions or specific next steps, and state what you need from your supervisor. ("What do I suggest we do, and what advice do I need?") The session ends with practical tips for implementation, such as sending this 3-act agenda to the supervisor 1-3 days prior to the meeting and following up with a summary. This structure prevents vague problems and avoids low-quality, ad-hoc advice, ensuring the supervisor's input is focused and valuable. 2.3 Session 3: Scientific writing 2.3.1 Purpose The primary objective of this session is to teach the principle of unambiguous communication in scientific writing. This is tried to be achieved by compose every text from the perspective Building the ‘How’ of Science: Skill Development for ECR 8 of a uninformed reader as an effective scientific writing strategy. Together with the use of a clear internal structure/logical flow of thoughts, and correct formalia, a precise and unambiguous language generates a level of clarity that avoids any misinterpretation, thereby "taking the reader by the hand and leading him/her through the paper, proposal, or thesis”. 2.3.2 Materials needed The following minimal materials are required to facilitate the practical starter and subsequent discussion:  Pre-submitted 0.5 pages long methods sections from all participants (e.g., study site description, central measurement/analyses/sampling description)  Beamer and computer for slide show  One coffee maker, filters, ground coffee, a mug, and a water source. 2.3.3 Session Workflow The session is structured in two integrated parts: 1.) an engaging, principle-discovery starter task followed by a detailed debrief on why internal structure, unambiguous language/precision in language and formalia matters and 2.) a practical application of the learned. For the first part, a volunteer participant provides verbal instructions to the session leader on how to make a cup of coffee. The leader executes the instructions literally and in bad faith, deliberately exploiting any ambiguity, vagueness, or missing steps (e.g., using hands to "add water" if no container is specified, adding brewed coffee (“add coffee to container”) instead of coffee beans to container if not specified that beans have to be used). This exercise creates a visual, shared understanding of how linguistic imprecision leads to catastrophic communication failure, mirroring the potential for misinterpretation in scientific texts. The second part contains the evaluation of short methods sections written by the particiapants in preparation of the session, thus acting as a practical application. It is ex3ecuted as follows:  Prior to the session, each participant submitted a methods section from their own work.  The submitted texts are anonymized and redistributed by the session leader. Building the ‘How’ of Science: Skill Development for ECR 9  Each participant critically evaluates another participant's text using the following criteria: 1.) internal structure/logical flow of thoughts, 2.) unambiguous/precise language, 3.) formalia.  The groups add to the individual evaluations through discussion of single examples for found issues in tests  The session leader concludes this phase by consolidating the group's criteria and providing targeted, expert feedback, reinforcing key concepts and offering refined solutions to common problems. The session ends with a detailed debrief showing that ambiguity arises from three primary areas, forming a critical triptych for self-evaluation:  Internal Structure: The logical flow of information. Is the narrative of the method clear? Does each sentence follow logically from the previous one?  Language & Precision: The specific word choice and technical accuracy. Are verbs active and precise? Are quantities, temperatures, and conditions explicitly defined? Is jargon used appropriately and explained if necessary?  Formalia: The adherence to standardized conventions (e.g., citation style, figure labeling, terminology). While sometimes perceived as minor, inconsistencies here directly undermine credibility and clarity. Effective writing is constructed as a series of unambiguous steps that guide the reader. Participants conclude the session with a reviewed section of their own work, a clear, selfgenerated set of evaluative criteria structured around this triptych, and direct experience in the dual roles of a critical reader and a vulnerable writer. 2.4 Session 4: Scientific figures 2.4.1 Purpose The primary objective of this session is to teach the principle of scientific figure is as a visual argument. The goal is to design figures that are self-sufficient, and guide the viewer to an unambiguous conclusion, substantiating the text of a paper/thesis/poster. A figure must be a curated visual experience that is both pleasing to the eye and easy to understand/digest.