Scientists as Teachers

by Karen Young Kreeger

SO YOU LOVE to teach. Now that the school year is in full swing, are you wondering how you can contribute more to the next generation, keep your interest in teach ing alive and well, or enhance the peda gogical portion of your resume? "Scientists need to share the wealth of their knowledge and their perspective of the way the world works," says Bassam Shakhashiri, a professor of chemistry at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. For 30 years he has been taking his love and enthusiasm for science to the public via lectures and demonstrations; television and radio shows; and now the Web, among other venues. Shakhashiri and others cite a long list of ways that researchers can reach out: giving talks to community groups, working with students and teachers in local schools and museums, interacting with reporters and legislators, and serving on school boards, to name a few.

Some investigators have even opted to leave the bench and teach in high school science classrooms. A recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, "Attracting Science and Mathematics Ph.D.s to Secondary School Education," (National Academy Press, 2000) explores this very subject. In fact, middle school and high school are the most important times in which to catch and keep a child's interest in science. This is the age at which negative attitudes toward science start to creep into the psyche, warns Shakhashiri. And, he adds, scientists can play an important role in helping to stem this tide of negativity by volunteering in the classroom, running workshops for teachers, developing curricula, or teaching kids themselves.

These activities are not limited to those in academia; researchers in government and industry also participate in such outreach programs. Another group of scientists seek more teaching experience to make themselves more competitive in today's tight job market, as well as to sustain their love of teaching. Some hold teaching postdocs, while others are adjunct professors or team-teach classes at nearby institutions.

Teaching Postdocs

For newly minted Ph.D.s who want to gain more classroom hours, a number of relatively new and uncommon positions called teaching postdoctoral fellowships have been created. Brian Coppola, associate professor of chemistry at the University of Michigan, says that the teaching postdoc concept has been around for a while. Some formal programs in chemistry are available, especially for Ph.D.s interested in teaching at institutions with a strong tradition of undergraduate research.

At Michigan, Coppola has worked with two teaching postdocs. During their first semester, the postdocs were instructors in training, much like teaching assistants but with more responsibility. During the second term they implemented what they had learned, and during the summer session they were fully responsible for teaching a course. Both postdocs were recommended by their research directors - they had no teaching experience and wanted to go into academia, but they needed the year of teaching to be competitive.

Gordon E. Uno, chairman of the department of botany and microbiology at the University of Oklahoma, just created two teaching postdocs, which are funded in part by his department. "These will provide young Ph.D.s the opportunity to teach their own classes during their transition to faculty positions."

Brad Elder, one of the teaching postdocs in Uno's department, says that this two-year position "will help me be more competitive in the job market for the four-year private undergraduate institutions I will be applying to." In this postdoc he's teaching an introductory botany class and integrating computers into the class's lab. Elder also was a teaching assistant while working on his Ph.D. He has taught at the Konza Prairie Biological Station near Manhattan, Kan., and has tutored Boy Scouts seeking mammalogy, astronomy, and herpetology merit badges.

Tamara Marsh, the other postdoc in Uno's department, is teaching the first introductory microbiology lab for majors and updating and overhauling the class's lab. "I knew as an undergrad that I wanted to teach science at a higher education level, so I knew what I needed as far as experience was concerned." She also hopes that this teaching postdoc will make her more competitive in the job market.

The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, offers a postdoctoral training program called Seeding Postdoctoral Innovators in Research and Education, or SPIRE for short. SPIRE offers postdoctoral fellows training in basic scientific research, as well as hands-on teaching experience and other professional skills. Each fellowship takes a minimum of three years. Postdocs perform bench research during the first two years and attend workshops and seminars on science education. During the third year, each fellow teaches a core biology course to undergraduate students at one of seven smaller, teaching-intensive universities in North Carolina.

The National Institutes of Health also supports a teaching postdoc through the National Institute for General Medical Sciences (NIGMS). Major research universities that are partnered with minority-serving institutions are eligible. Postdocs hold regular research positions but also teach at the minority-serving institutions. These Institutional Research and Academic Career Development Awards are described in the minority programs section of the NIGMS Web site.

Connie Noguchi, dean of the NIH graduate school, says that many scientists teach for NIH's Foundation for Advanced Education. The foundation is looking particularly for younger scientists to participate in the instruction of classes held there. NIH invites postdocs to organize courses, especially in new techniques such as microarraying.

Out in the Community

Plenty of opportunities exist for scientists to get out and shout about their love of science to kids and the public at large, says Andrea D. Wolfe, an assistant professor in the department of evolution, ecology, and organismal biology at Ohio State University. In fact, she put together a symposium for last month's meeting of the Botanical Society of America titled "Scientific Outreach for the Next Millennium" to share her experiences with her colleagues.

"I have kids, so it's easy to get involved," explains Wolfe. "Teachers are always looking for volunteers, and once they find out you're a scientist, especially a natural scientist, you've got an in. They'll find a way to weave you into their classwork."

One of Wolfe's favorite educational projects was her monthlong daily E-mail correspondence with her son's fourth grade class last fall. While she was doing fieldwork in South Africa on the country's botanical biodiversity, she E-mailed reports on what she and her grad students were finding and sent digital images of the landscape. It eventually became a schoolwide project, with notebooks of E-mail and image printouts passed around for all to read. "I think it had a big impact on the students and the teachers," she recalls. "It put a human face on doing science."

Wolfe also volunteers with scout groups, at day camps (where she also gets her grad students involved), and at garden and plant enthusiast clubs. Echoing Shakhashiri, Wolfe says, "It's a matter of taking the time to get involved, and in schools the main theme is to catch [the students] young."

Irene Eckstrand, a health science administrator at NIGMS, has always been interested in education, but her job as a grant administrator doesn't directly include educational activities. She began to "get involved" in the late 1980s when she put together a program to get NIH scientists involved in the local schools. Now the focus of her efforts is advising the Montgomery County, Maryland public school system on revising its science curriculum. In the same vein, she is joint chair of the education committee of the Society for the Study of Evolution and the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution. She also speaks about science and evolution to such community gatherings as church groups, retirement homes, and teacher groups.

Francis Waller, a senior research associate at Air Products and Chemicals Inc. in Allentown, Pa., is a good example of a scientist who has rolled up his sleeves and entered the classroom enthusiastically. For eight years he's been demystifying science for elementary school students in classroom demonstrations of simple chemistry principles and helping teachers develop units on such subjects as electricity and magnetism.

He also serves as a mentor during a 10-week summer intern program at Air Products for college and high school students. At the graduate level, he team-teaches a class on organic synthesis and teaches both a two-credit course on the organic chemical industry and a three-credit course on polymer science, all at Lehigh University, where he's an adjunct professor. He's also an instructor for internal classes for Air Products employees. In addition to passing on his enthusiasm for his discipline, Waller says that teaching keeps him on top of his field: "You don't realize how much there is to know about chemistry until you have to explain it to others, especially if it's something you've done all of your life."

Eckstrand and others say that finding the right kind of teaching fit depends on your goals. If your goal is to teach full time, consider going back to the classroom, as the recent NAS report suggests. If you want to be involved for your own interest and enjoyment, then speaking to community groups is a good idea. But if your goal is to make a difference in educating the next generation, you might want to get involved in your school system by serving on the school board or participating in teacher training workshops. If your interests are at the university level, you can help train K-12 education majors. And, if your passion for education takes a more national scope, you might consider opportunities with professional societies.