REFLECTIONS:
INTASC I:
I entered Virginia Tech for the first time in the fall of 1999, as a freshman biology major. When I decided to come to Tech, it was because I had always loved Biology in high school, and growing up on a farm had given me a great respect for animals, as well as the natural world. Growing up, the only thing I had ever wanted to be was a veterinarian, and I was set on coming to Tech for my undergrad career, and then continuing at the Vet Med school. As it turned out, I fell in love with the biology program, but I realized after about a year or so that I no longer had a desire to be a vet. I decided I would rather work with people every day than animals. I had always tutored younger children when I was in high school and had found it to be a very rewarding experience, so I started to consider the possibility of teaching. Meanwhile, I stuck with the biology program and finished all of the course requirements because I couldn't imagine majoring in anything else, and it finally dawned on me my senior year of college that maybe teaching biology would be right for me.
One of my favorite aspects of the biology program was the exposure to different research opportunities. My first time doing real research was in the fall of 1999, when my Honors Biology lab focused on a DNA analysis of three different fish species. I had entered Tech with enough AP credits to allow me to skip freshman biology altogether, but my advisor suggested that I take the Honors section anyway, and it was one of the best decisions I could have made. The independent learning that was required for the class was something that occurred effortlessly and the lab that went along with it was amazing, and unlike anything I had experienced in high school. Our learning was entirely up to us; the professor and lab TA gave us so much freedom in class, and it allowed us to try things on our own, make mistakes, and learn through trial-and-error. The DNA analysis of the different fish species was the first time I had used current technology, like the kind I had seen on T. V. I couldn't believe I was getting to experience it, and I was only a freshman! Of course, the research paper that went along with it was also something I had never experienced before, and I struggled a great deal at first. But by the end of my first semester, I had learned a great deal about how to write like a scientist.
In the spring of 2000, my Honors Biology lab focused on designing a mesocosm from scratch. Students worked in groups, with very little help from the lab TA. Our job was to design a practical, feasible habitat that would support the animals we chose. Although it was a group project, the scope of it was so large that each group member was assigned a specific task to work on individually. My part of the project was to research and identify what fish and other macroinvertebrates were suitable to live in our chosen environment. Each organism had to be carefully chosen, and had to be appropriate for the habitat and temperature chosen and also had to be compatible with the other organisms. Every possible problem had to be identified, as well as the solutions to them. The purpose of designing a mesocosm was to study an organophosphate insecticide's effects on fish and other wildlife. It was a valuable experience and taught me a lot about working with others collaboratively. We did another project that involved a habitat analysis of Strouble's Creek and the Duck pond. The objective was to determine if the stream and the pond were healthy or not, which was indicated by the presence of certain organisms, and the absence of others. A statistical analysis was performed, and it was determined that the stream and pond were extremely polluted around Tech's campus, but became progressively healthier as one traveled farther away, toward Coal Hollow.
During my senior year, I took the Mammology course offered, which furthered my research experience. As an ongoing project the professor conducted with his students every fall, we traveled to Mountain Lake Biological Station to conduct a habitat analysis. We spent three days setting traps, recording catches, and taking account of all the different species' attributes, as well as measurements of the habitat which we later analyzed in the lab. It was a very rewarding experience, particularly because we traveled out of the lab and got actual field experience. I also got a lot of practice at statistical analysis, which was something I learned in my Biological statistics course, but had never been able to see for myself in a hands-on experience.
My research experience as an undergraduate taught me that science is a collaborative endeavor, something that I strive to show my students. Also, many times in scientific endeavors, success is the result of trial and error. You have to make mistakes and learn from them, and oftentimes you learn more from your mistakes than from your successes. I want my students to try new thing, without worrying about being wrong. In class, I gave my students a lot of freedom to try assignments on their own, before intervening to help. Many times, I had them work on computer labs and virtual simulations that required them to make decisions based on their own predictions, and they had to work together with their partner to determine the best way to go. If it was wrong, no big deal; they were able to try again with new ideas. Two assignments the students particularly enjoyed were a Karyotyping online activity, and a DNA fingerprinting computer lab, where the students were asked to solve a crime based on DNA evidence found at the scene. They also enjoyed an assignment where I had them do independent research on current uses of Genetic Engineering technology and create a poster. Most of my projects during my student-teaching were group-oriented. It was a rare day when the classroom was totally quiet, because students were always working together, trying to solve problems, or research a topic. Tenth graders are social kids; having them work together just made more sense to me than having them always taking notes or reading out of the textbooks.
My History of Science class taught me a great deal about the importance of the philosophy of science, and the unifying themes and concepts. By discussing the often controversial nature of science, it gave me a better understanding of how to incorporate those same themes into my lesson plans . In particular, the independent research I conducted on Barbara McClintock and her theory of "Jumping Genes" (along with a book review I wrote about her work) gave me a much deeper appreciation for the hardships that women scientists have faced in the past, and continue to face even today.
Students are just as interested in the controversies and ethics involved in scientific endeavors as adults, and by incorporating as many of those concepts as I could into my lessons, I was able to keep the students more engaged and involved in discussion. When discussing the discovery of the double-helix structure of DNA, the girls in my class became enraged when they learned of the role Rosalind Franklin played, and the amount of credit she received. I had my students use computers and their textbooks to look up the “main contributors” of this major breakthrough and all of them were able to identify Watson, Crick and Wilkins since they won the Nobel Prize for their work, but only a few students identified Franklin as playing a role, and they wanted to know more about her. It was the reaction I was hoping for, so I told them the story of the “race” for the double helix, and then showed them a video so they might understand better. I had them list several challenges that Franklin had to face as a female scientist, and then had them write a short reaction with their own opinion on what had happened. The class discussion that followed was quite animate and almost every student was desperate to be called on to express their views.
This same type of situation arose a few weeks later when discussing the Human Genome Project and Genetic Engineering. After discussing what this new technology could mean to our society, I had the students read and respond to an article about the genetic screening of newborns to check for problems. I asked my students, “Should genetic screening be mandatory or voluntary? Who should have access to a person’s genetic information? The individual, their family, their doctors? What about insurance companies and the government?” The range of opinions was enormous and every student wanted to be heard. I wish I could have spent more time on the subject, but I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the kids become so engaged in the discussion, especially the students who normally didn’t participate in class unless they were called upon to do so. Incorporating STS was relatively easy with my unit plan topic, and I hope that with my own classroom next year it will be possible to incorporate it into all of the different topics that must be covered.