Subgroup Meetings

Everyone attends a weekly subgroup and gives an update of their research progress and goals and sometimes a fun presentation on non-research topics.

Meet: Weekly, always
Updates due: weekly in summer, biweekly in fall and spring
Note: Subgroup scheduling should have a priority level over conducting research/soft commitments

Format your updates as described here
Upload your updates to your subgroup’s folder **as a Google slides presentation**
File Name (Fall): FA25_SubgroupName_yourfirstandlastname
File Name (Spring): SP25_SubgroupName_yourfirstandlastname
File Name (Summer): SU25_SubgroupName_yourfirstandlastname

What is subgroup?

Weekly 1-ish-hour meetings with peers and a Team SyBBURE member, your group selects the time and location. You will give regular updates of your research progress. Talk with your subgroup leader for more details.

Purpose

Encourage project progress

  1. Help students establish & achieve goals

  2. Presentation practice

  3. Provide an environment to develop a sense of community

  4. Support collaborative sparks

*You’re encouraged to message or meet with your subgroup leader if you need individual guidance!

Expectations

Pay attention to and respond on Slack

  • Show up (on time and for the entire time)

  • Need to miss? give leader 24 hour advance notice (or ASAP for emergencies)

  • Engage with the group

  • Give input on what your want your subgroup to be like

  • Focus during subgroup time instead of working on other things

  • Be respectful of other subgroup members (i.e., don’t show up late and expect everyone to listen to you and give you feedback when you weren’t there to do the same for them)

  • Stay off your phone and computer while people are talking

  • Make goal and update slides using the provided template (linked at the top of this page)

  • Follow the presentation schedule for your group

  • Present research updates every week in the summer, biweekly in the fall or spring

  • Save your update in your subgroup Box folder

  • Keep slides in 1 file with newest slides first

  • Name your file as described at the top of this page

  • Present in a way that encourages discussion and collaboration

  • Participate in discussion

  • Ask questions

  • Give [constructive] feedback

Information for Student Co-Leaders

Senior SyBBURites can gain leadership experience by opting to co-lead a subgroup. This is primarily for seniors, but juniors can let Team SyBBURE know if they want to be considered.

Subgroup Leader Tasks

Setup duties:

  1. picking a meeting time

  2. adding the time to the SyBBURE Google calendar

  3. booking a room

  4. creating a subgroup slack channel

  5. welcome message giving time, dates, and location

  6. making sure everyone responds that they can make the time

  7. message of what to prepare for the first subgroup meeting

  8. asking and tracking who wants a longer presentation or if anyone has a planned absence

  9. setting up a presentation schedule for the semester, asking if they want to give pop science presentations, journal article reviews…

  10. setting up the weekly attendance/evaluation sheet (this is a tab in a shared sheet with the rest of Team SyBBURE)

  11. presenting subgroup expectations slide deck at the first meeting

Weekly duties:

  1. messaging a few days in advance to remind who will present what

  2. running the meetings (keeping everyone on time and keeping the conversation going)

  3. bringing a laptop to connect to the projector

  4. taking attendance in the shared sheet

  5. taking notes on performance to refer to during evaluations in the shared sheet

  6. being point of contact for students when they will be late or absent or unprepared

  7. brief report to Team SyBBURE supervisor including concerns, praise, or information that needs to go to the rest of Team SyBBURE

Once-a-semester duties:

  1. mid-semester evaluations of subgroup performance and research progress

  2. end-semester evaluations of subgroup performance and research progress

  3. meeting with students who received 2s on their evaluations

  4. hosting feedback discussion (at the last meeting of the term, to ask what they liked or disliked about subgroup and the SyBBURE program)

Communication Examples/Templates:

Welcome message from student subgroup leader to subgroup members:

Welcome to subgroup Tennessine! (our subgroup naming theme is elements but we definitely have the coolest name) I’ll be your subgroup leader this semester. @Katie Leaptrot will be supervising our group behind the scenes, but you should contact me directly with any questions or issues regarding subgroup. Please let me know if your calendars are at all inaccurate/have changed since registration so we can pick the best meeting time for us! Stay posted for that day and time.

Our first meeting will be in the third full week of classes (week of January 23). For our first subgroup, we will review the subgroup expectations and get to know each other. Please prepare the following 4 slides and expect to have the floor for ~10 minutes each (I will present my research as well):

1 slide with some fun pictures/words/whatever you want to introduce yourself,1 slide to introduce your research (visual abstract style would be great, just focus on explaining the high-level background/motivation of your project),1 slide research update (just to let us know what you’ve started working on this semester or your short term plans if you haven’t gotten the time to start anything yet),1 slide setting your goals for the term

At the end of the meeting, we’ll chat about what kind of presentations everyone wants to give/hear (we can even throw in a few off-topic / ‘fun’ ones if ya want).
Let me know if you have any questions or comments before our meeting next Tuesday. Excited to see a few people that I’ve met before, as well as meet those who I haven’t!

Information for Team SyBBURE Subgroup Leaders

Team SyBBURE has started utilizing some Team SyBBURE members as subgroup leader supervisors. This means that one Team SyBBURE member supervises two or more exceptional students as subgroup leaders. The information below includes duties and template communication for those Team SyBBURE supervisors.

Subgroup Supervisor Tasks

Setup duties:

  1. start a slack channel with your student subgroup leaders

  2. do or delegate the setup duties described above for student leaders. most likely a Team member will have to at minimum do these:

    • draft subgroup members

    • set up attendance sheets and share access with your student leaders

    • add the meeting time and location to the SyBBURE Google calendar

  3. communicate what you have done and what your leaders need to do, then follow up to make sure all tasks get done

  4. Attend the first subgroup meeting for each supervised group

Weekly duties:

  1. stay in open communication with subgroup leaders including

    • receive feedback from subgroup leaders and report it at the Team SyBBURE meetings

    • communicate information from Team SyBBURE to subgroup leaders, as needed

  2. keep an eye on subgroup slack channels

Once-a-semester duties:

  1. Attend one mid-semester subgroup meeting for each supervised group

    1. Attend the final subgroup meeting for each supervised group

Communication Examples/Templates:

Welcome message from supervisor to student subgroup leaders:

Good morning, my exceptional subgroup leaders! Rather than leading one subgroup, I will be supervising 2 subgroups this semester. These subgroups will be led by the best of the best (that’s you)! This channel will be for just us to discuss how things are going in the subgroups. You can make the Slack channels for your subgroups and keep your members in line there. Below, I’ll share the task list that details everything a subgroup leader needs to take care of throughout the semester. This same task list and an example welcome message you can refer to are now on the SyBBURE wiki subgroup page.

*Add info regarding any setup duties that are already completed. Common things include drafted members, meeting time, booked room, link to attendance tracker.*

I will attend all of your subgroups the first week (and a couple times through the semester), but YOU are the leaders. I will just listen and participate. 

Thank you all the great work I know you’ll do this term!

Message at mid-semester/mid-summer eval time:

Here is the link to the mid-semester eval form. Please have your comments/scores in by DATE. As subgroup leaders, you should fill out the Subgroup tab and Research tab. I added you all to access it. Annie says these are due DATE at TIME, but I would appreciate you finishing them on DATE so I can look over them DATE. You should:

  1. Review your subgroup members’ self-scores and justifications.

  2. Enter a score for them in the “Final Score (overall)” column.

  3. Enter a positive comment in next column and some constructive feedback in the third column. Please use their name in both entries, ex. “Joyce knows how to engage his students in meaningful discussions.” “Pax knows how to support, encourage, and connect with his subgroup members.”

  4. Let me know you’ve completed both tabs by messaging back in this Slack channel.

Additional instructions
Subgroup:

  • Only you guys get a 5 in subgroup, since you are leading. Please give yourselves 5s and say you are awesome, because you all did awesome and that’s what I would write there.

  • Only give 4s for someone who has shown up on time, prepared, and been engaged in every meeting.

  • Everybody else gets 3s unless they never show up and need intervention, then give them a 2 and be sure to message me with details so I know why and can communicate that with Team SyBBURE.

Research

  • A 5 would be reserved for someone who published a paper in the last few weeks, presented at a conference, or did something else amazing IN ADDITION to making significant progress in the lab.

  • A 4 is someone who did a portion of the explanation for a 5 above.

  • A 3 is someone making steady progress in lab or toward their research goals.

  • A 2 would be for someone who has not communicated any semblance of progress, perhaps presenting old data and requesting not to present due to lack of progress.

@channel Please remember that, as subgroup leaders, you have access to some Team SyBBURE materials that should not be shared with SyBBURE students. The feedback form is one of those materials. This is for your eyes only. Do not share the form. Do not leave it open on your computer. Do not fill it out while other students (SyBBURE or not) are able to see it. Do not talk about the contents with anyone who is not on Team SyBBURE. Thank you!