A chance for students to give you feedback or input on the first day. Start with more limited frameworks and move to more open-ended activities. The students choose what muscle they want to test and what the conditions are. I teach them statistical tests to use in drawing the comparisons. Reading primary articles gives students ideas about how experiments can be designed.
Students can write research proposals.
Teach techniques explicitly just before students need to use them. Have students do successively more complex experiments Read primary literature for technical background. Require a draft Methods section to check for understanding Employ peer teaching through small-group work. It's important to supply plenty of time and structural support for reading the first primary article they encounter. Have students write summaries of articles and also of previous student papers.