Aranda Slabbekoorn’s blog

GENO’s first week was at St. Joseph High School.  A lot was learned on all sides: the teachers, the facilitating graduate students, and the high school students.  But one thing was a common denominator to all – interest.  Everyone was happy to learn and see good experiments with good results.  A reporter from the South Bend Tribune was also present to witness the event and write up an article that described our project and efforts of bringing GENO to local high schools.

One of the girls mentioned in the report, Ashleigh, was particularly interested in the science and asked very good, thought provoking scientific questions during class.  As she and I conversed, I found that she is interested in pursuing genetics and she had a lot of questions concerning college, graduate school, and career prospects.  The end result is that she is now connected to professors on campus with whose research Ashleigh would be interested.  Ashleigh now comes to the Goodson lab (my lab) once a week after school to participate in research with me and my labmates.  Ashleigh is showing incredible interest, potential, and insight — pretty soon I am going to give her a research project of her own!

It is wonderful to see us reach our goals.  We have brought current science into the high school classroom and have connected a student to the university and its research.

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So my labmate, Jill, a NDeRC cohort I fellow, has a little bendable green monkey.  She wrote on his belly “You’re a fantastic labmate!”  The little green monkey’s new role in life is to travel around to different lab members when they do something helpful to the lab or someone.

Today, Jill passed me the green monkey ;o)  Thanks Jill!

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This year I have made extra efforts to remembering all of the 120-ish names of Mark’s students.  I am managing to do it!  I was handing back papers today, walking around the room and personally handing back the graded homework.  A few of the students told me ‘how do you know my name?’ or something similar.  They were surprised that I both knew and remembered each one.

So, knowing all their names does make a difference.  They notice whether you know or not.  Last year, I didn’t do so well at this and it showed and those students didn’t respond to me well at times.  By knowing their names, I can address each student personally, whether it is helping them, just chatting, or correcting them.  I feel I can make a lot bigger difference in these students lives b/c I can make a more personal connection with them.

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I am writing this during our biweekly meeting b/c we should blog and Tom wants us to blog!!!  AAAHHH!!!!

(sorry, felt like being random silly)

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Perfect example of teaching science to younger and younger groups of people:

I was assisting Anita with BioEyes with a large combined class of third graders. Of course it was lively and the children were very excited. When Anita was teaching them the techniques they had to use to take care of their embryos and to clean the water, she held up a “petri dish” and a plastic “pipette” to demonstrate. The students had just had the words ‘petri dish’ and ‘pipette’ in their spelling lists the week before!

Even teaching the vocabulary to children is a good start to make science a part of “normal” thinking while a person is growing up. Yes, science can still seem like a foreign language, but this is a perfect example of making it less foreign, more common, and more widely received when it comes time to hands-on application, whether in 3rd grade or in high school or college.

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I hope everyone is thoroughly enjoying their week long institutes. I personally had a really great time heading up the Modern Lab section from BioEyes week. Interacting with the teachers was very fun. Everyone’s excitement was very evident. At the beginning of each day, I opened with mini-lectures into what we were doing. This helped explain what was really going on in those little tubes of 10 uL clear solutions of enzymes and DNA. I learned that I was both doing a good job of teaching and still had room to grow b/c some of the teachers had light bulbs going off in their heads with understanding that would literally light up their faces, while others still found the concept a bit overwhelming.

One particular piece of feedback from an elementary school teacher was pretty cool. She explained that when they had received the packet of information in their mailboxes a week prior to the institute, the modern lab section looked very intimidating and teachers were coming in with a scared, “I can’t do this” mindset. But on the first day, I had specifically opened my introductions and greetings by reinforcing their identities — they are teachers AND scientists. I explained that though the modern lab section *could* be brought to the classroom, the purpose for us that week was to update them as teachers and scientists with modern techniques used in lots of biologically-based research. THIS WAS A TREAT TO THEMSELVES!

This teacher told me that seeing the modern lab section as a treat to herself entirely changed her perspective! She was excited and she was teachable. She was receptive, responsive, active, and learning and doing so much!

Overall, all the teachers really enjoyed the project which built up great intensity and expectation to visibly see their results on Thursday. Everyone was very excited and involved.

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Want an ultimate example of science community? I was in the middle of transferring my laundry from the washer to the dryer at the laundromat the other day. A man walks in to do the same, sees me, we exchange casual smiles, and then he kinda starts hanging around like he wants to start a conversation….awkward. Finally he decides to ask “What school do you go to?”

Umm… how does he know I’m a student? I don’t think I look that young anymore for an undergrad, which is what most people would assume! Upon further questions and conversation I find that he had immediately assumed I was a grad student just by looking at me >.<”

Irregardless of all that, this man is a professor at IUSB, Dr. Nair. He is a computational biologist who is super excited about his field: “Biology is the most exciting field to be in! The applications are amazing!” (paraphrasing) Dr. Nair is searching for creative ways to get his students excited for and engaged in the materials they are learning/using. He invited me to come speak in his classroom in the fall to represent a graduate student in the sciences with the purpose of relating to the students what is available in the field, what a graduate student does, etc.

I will also be emailing him about Dr. Eric Mazur who gave the peer-teaching workshop a little while ago at ND. That was an awesome workshop to attend! It was extremely engaging and he had data from multiple courses of his own at Harvard to signify the effects of peer-based teaching.

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On May 24th, I passed the oral candidacy exam ) I then ran away to Orlando for a week and am now back, diving into lab.

Thank you all for your words of encouragement!

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Remember all that discussion about connecting college (grad students) to high schoolers, then high schoolers to middle schoolers, …. etc etc etc???

Imagine skipping the intermediate?! CHECK THIS OUT!!! :

http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/education/university/article_a9c3e1b0-524f-11df-a0cc-001cc4c002e0.html

so cute…

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My labmate and former NDeRC fellow, Jill  and my advisor and I have written an article that is published in the April 2010 ASCB newsletter. The subject matter relates the importance of bringing a closer connection between universities and high schools in the area of science. We highlight the importance of showing high schoolers what real world science looks like and the benefits graduate students also get from in-classroom experiences. The article gives resources and references to how faculty and graduate students can participate over any range of time and commitment services.

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