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The Life Science Representatives (LSR), the student body of the GSLS, has developed the brand-new ‘Bidirectional Assessment Tool’ to help you to take more control over your learning process and the contents of your research project. As this tool is now being piloted by the GSLS, we talked to Inez van Miltenburg, LSR member and co-creator of the tool.

Because GSLS Master’s programmes consist at least of 70% practical experience in the form of research projects, these projects largely dictate your overall experience and take-away knowledge after the Master’s. Inez tells us that there are a lot of differences between students, because research projects are handled very differently between hosting institutions or lab groups. “We found it peculiar that the GSLS gives students such little structure in such a crucial part of the Master’s, so we decided to provide some structure ourselves with the SEED Tool”.

Additionally, Inez states that student well-being is something that should be addressed more in research projects: “the most stressful factors in student’s research projects are confusion about expectations and communication with their supervisor, according to an LSR evaluation, so these were factors that we wanted to offer students some support with too”. 

These are all things the SEED Tool addresses. “We created the tool to stimulate good communication with your supervisor from the very beginning of your project. It encourages you to talk openly about your and your supervisor’s expectations, to reflect on your progress regularly and to consciously help you deepen your learning process. This way, the tool changes the existing uni-directional interim assessment into a bi-directional process and makes that 70% of practical experience as valuable as possible, regardless your project and internship location”.

Do you want to take more control over your own project too? Learn more about the SEED Tool .