Other Neat Pedagogical Projects
Preparing Future Faculty
MEG FENCIL: Meg wanted to gain more experience with teaching and learning, especially at a liberal arts college. A 5th year Ph.D. student at the University of Texas, Austin, Meg studies how seagrasses influence juvenile stages of marine fisheries. After doing some web searching, Meg contacted me to serve as her mentor and we have been working together since August 2007. In Fall '07, Meg attended classes and helped design a fondue lab for the chocolate course. Her participation this Spring ('08) promotes more one-on-one interactions with students through teaching labs on marine invertebrates and helping me plan a field trip to her field site, Port Aransas. In addition, we are writing a "Fresh Perspectives" article for Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution about the benefits of this type of experience for both the future faculty and the mentor. Meg spends her Tuesdays at Southwestern so feel free to contact her.
SMArTeams as a Biology Capstone
VOLUNTEER GUIDE: Science and Math Achiever Teams actually started in the early '90s at Yale University under the inspiration of Rowan Lockwood. In 1993, I launched a chapter at Loyola University Chicago where SMArT ran for a number of years. Now a professor, I have initiated a new chapter at Southwestern with a Brown Grant for Innovative Teaching. The key now for SMArT will be transitioning to program to be student-run and developed. Senior Amanda Mohammed has stepped forward to use her outreach experience in a disciplinary context as her Capstone. We are currently examining language and inquiry at different levels with special regards to biology. We hope also to put together a pedagogical paper about outreach in the sciences.
Writing with Undergraduates
ABSTRACT: This August, I will give an invited oral presentation entitled "Who's on First? How to negotiate issues of authorship and writing abilities of undergraduates when writing papers for publication" at the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America in Milwaukee, WI.