College of Education Assistant Professor Jessica White leads a graduate student seminar on teaching for TAs. Students from left, Ian Pfingsten, Catherine Searle and Evan Bing-Sawyer look on. Date: Feb. 15, 2010 (photo: Theresa Hogue)

Oregon State University graduate students teaching introductory biology labs are now being taught how to be more effective teachers, engage their students in critical thinking, and even craft their own curriculum.

The students are part of a Graduate Teacher Training Program supported by a portion of a four-year Howard Hughes Medical Institute grant the university has received. The training program is operated by members of the Biology Program and the College of Education.

When Bob Mason was a graduate student, he remembers being assigned to teach a course with no preparation.

“They said, ‘Here’s your section, knock ‘em dead,’” he recalled. “That’s not really an exaggeration.”

Now chair of the Biology Program in OSU’s College of Science, he recognized a strong need to better prepare graduate students who are teaching a class or leading a lab section for the first time.

“Not just anybody can get up in front of a class and teach effectively,” he said. And better preparing graduate students to be TAs doesn’t just benefit the graduates. It also benefits the undergraduate students, many of whom are not science majors but are taking introductory courses because they’re part of the baccalaureate core requirements.

Students Mattie Squire, left, Gwen Bury, center, and Sarah Moore discuss teaching techniques in a seminar aimed at helping TAs become better teachers. Date: Feb. 15, 2010 (photo: Theresa Hogue)

Mason said that across the country, interest in pursuing science as a career is lagging. He suggested that students who are taught by innovative, enthusiastic TAs might encourage more of them to become interested in science.

For the last five years, College of Education assistant professor Jessica White has been looking at the graduate student experience, and more specifically, what keeps some students in their graduate programs while others leave.

“There’s a much lower persistence to degree completion rate among graduate students than there is among undergraduates,” White said.

Part of the research involved interviewing graduate students at OSU and MIT about their assistantship experience, whether it be research or teaching. White said it appeared that being a TA both helps and hinders graduate student retention. It helps because students reinforce their own learning through teaching, but it can also add a lot of stress and strain to their lives.

“I had students in my office crying and telling me how woefully unprepared they felt and they felt they weren’t delivering the student experience they wanted to,” White said.

So when Mason approached her about helping craft a TA training program for graduate students, she was excited to participate.

College of Education Assistant Professor Jessica White leads a graduate student seminar on teaching for TAs. Date: Feb. 15, 2010 (photo: Theresa Hogue)

“It was a great dovetail to the research I’d already done, and took one vein of what we’d found and allowed me to go into greater depth about what the TA experience is like,” she said. “This allowed me to take it from the theoretical into practice, and that’s really exciting.”

After two years of planning, in Fall 2008 they launched the pilot TA training program. Each term, approximately 30 graduate TAs who teach introductory biology labs attend a weekly Monday night seminar. The graduate students come from the departments of zoology, botany and plant pathology, microbiology, molecular and cellular biology, biochemistry and biophysics and environmental science.

Additionally, a number of undergraduate teaching interns in biology take the seminar. The undergraduates either want to become teachers, or plan on going to graduate school and recognize they could benefit from the program.

White teaches the one-hour seminar, with assistance from two experienced mentor TAs. The topics include anything from creating a good syllabus to how to work with a student who has a disability, to how to deal with issues of academic dishonesty. In addition to the nuts and bolts, graduate students also learn pedagogy, including how to probe critical thinking and engage students in collaborative learning.

“They’re very practical and they very much want to see an application they can implement that week,” White said. “We may present some theory but always with an eye in mind toward effecting change or improving their daily work in the classroom.”

Graduate student Sarah Eddy participated in the program as a mentor TA, having had three experiences teaching in the introductory biology series. When she first began teaching, her nerves often got the better of her.

“I was self deprecating and obviously nervous while presenting to the students, I would defer to the other TA in the room, even though I was supposed to be the lead TA, and didn’t know how to write effective quizzes or grade student papers efficiently,” she said. “I definitely did not think about important components of teaching such as setting the tone in the classroom, developing a syllabus, being explicit in my expectations, etc.”

Mattie Squire examines a worksheet in a graduate student seminar on teaching for TAs. Date: Feb. 15, 2010 (photo: Theresa Hogue)

Although she had years of experience by the time she took the seminar, Eddy said she has benefited in a number of ways from the training program.

“I’ve learned that students generally do not learn best by passively listening to lectures. Instead they need opportunities to engage with and test their knowledge of the concepts pertinent to theirs labs,” she said. “With this knowledge, I have begun designing activities to incorporate into my introductions that allow students to apply the concepts I’ve introduced before they even begin the hands-on portion of the lab.”

Eddy’s experience with the program has already provided her with tangible benefits. She won the 2009 OSU Frolander Outstanding GTA award, and directly credits the program for her win.

For White, one of the most satisfying parts of the program is watching the students take hold of new ideas and learn how to apply them to their teaching experience.

“They really want to be good teachers,” she said. “They’re incredibly engaged in this experience. The classes are a whirlwind of participation and ideas.”

Former OSU graduate student Anthony Graziani is now a faculty member at Santa Rosa Junior College, and said the time he spent in the TA training program at OSU has helped him in his new position.

“The TA training program was an extremely worthwhile experience,” he said. “Not only did it serve its immediate purpose, making me and other TAs more effective in the classroom, but the skills and knowledge obtained were extremely valuable as I prepared and proceeded through the academic interview process and now as I face the challenges of my new position.”

Graziani said learning how to write syllabi, developing a good rapport with students and accurately assessing student learning was a daunting task, but the program helped him become more confident in his own teaching, as well as helping him become aware of areas where he needed improvement.

“I find myself continually referring back to the notebook I kept for ideas about learning activities, writing exams, and “shrinking” large classrooms just to name a few,” he said.

Mason said the Hughes grant runs out this academic year, but the university has applied for a renewal. The grant renewal application will include a curriculum design piece that would allow graduate students to redesign the introductory biology series with more inquiry-based, hands-on investigations, and would give undergraduates the chance to do real research.

He said the graduate TAs have already demonstrated they’re capable of creating exciting new approaches to undergraduate teaching, and he’s excited to move forward.

“It’s one of the best projects I’ve been involved with in my life.”

~ Theresa Hogue

Oregon State University freshmen Katlyn Taylor, left, and Roopa Sriram, right, test the phages they've been researching in a special biology lab, supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The freshmen have the unique opportunity to do research that will be published. (photo by Theresa Hogue)

Magnified, they look a bit like robots that NASA would send to explore distant planets, but phages – also known as bacteriophages – are actually tiny viruses that infect and destroy bacteria. For the last two years, Oregon State University freshmen in a unique biology lab have been researching and documenting phages, and their work is contributing to a Howard Hughes Medical Institute project.

In fact, a phage discovered at OSU – and named “Colbert,” after Comedy Central satirist Stephen Colbert – could hold the key to treating tuberculosis. That phage, along with others with names like Noggin and Ostrich, are being archived for later use by scientists with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Phages are the perfect research subject. Not only are they incredibly common and easy to find, but some of them may help battle bacteria that sicken and kill humans. OSU is one of 12 universities around the country selected by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to create an undergraduate genomics lab for freshmen and sophomore students that specifically researches and catalogues phage DNA. This three-year genome research project provides undergraduates with the opportunity to do research that is published and could be used by other researchers to develop treatments for tuberculosis.

“This is one of the first national projects to change the way undergraduates experience biology labs,” said co-instructor Barbara Taylor, a professor of zoology, who co-leads the lab along with Dee Denver, an associate professor of zoology, and graduate teaching assistant Christine Schnitzler. Students are taking the phage lab in place of a traditional lab associated with an introductory biology course, and must apply to be in the special lab.

“This is inquiry-based learning, and it has really positive outcomes in terms of grades,” Denver said. Not only do the students score better in their regular biology courses after participating in the lab, but they are more likely to view a career in science as a positive possibility.

“It has a big effect on confidence,” Denver said. The students are in charge of their research, he added, and although they have the support of their co-instructors and several undergraduate helpers, they are expected to work fairly independently.

While each student gathers, identifies and researches their own phage, they also work in teams, meaning that there is a lot of interaction and cooperation in the lab, an important skill set to have if they pursue work in labs later. Several of last year’s students, like Daryl Khaw of Portland, have found work in OSU labs, based in part on their experience in the biology lab.

“It’s a great experience you can’t get in a regular lab,” Khaw said. He enjoyed his time so much that he’s returned to help out this year’s crop of students. “I know last year was a big learning experience and I needed a lot of help,” so he decided he’d be part of the support staff for this year’s group of students.

Freshman Katlyn Taylor decided to apply for the special lab because she felt it would be challenging, and wouldn’t repeat the information she’d already learned in her high school advanced placement science courses in Oregon City.

“I like that (the lab) is small and the teachers are excited about what we’re learning,” Taylor said. “And you get to be a published scientist.”

Taylor has named her phage “Darth Phager.” Her teammate, Roopa Sriram, is an Honors College freshman from Beaverton, who also feels the lab provides an exciting challenge.

“Initially I thought this was going to be awesome and it’s turning out to be exactly that,” she said. She likes how the research keeps students thinking on their feet, and how much of their work is done independently.

“There’s a certain amount of autonomy,” in the lab, she said. And working with “Phagebacca” as she’s named her phage, has given her the chance to work in a lab setting not unlike she’d experience as a medical student.

“I want to be a doctor,” she said, “and research is a huge part of that.”

Once the phage-sequencing project is complete, the Joint Genome Institute will examine the student’s work, and the most promising of the complete samples will be sequenced and then sent on for research purposes. Last year’s selected phage was Colbert, but this year’s most successful phage has yet to be determined.

To view the lab Web site, see http://biology.science.oregonstate.edu/courses/genomics-lab/

To see the 2007-2008 student blog, go here http://osugenomicslaboratory.blogspot.com/

Freshman Emily Pickering is currently in the Bahamas studying lionfish with an OSU research team. She is the only freshman ever allowed on the trip, led by Mark Hixon. (photo: Theresa Hogue)

Pickering, a University Honors College student and biology major, is the first freshman ever to accompany Hixon and his group to tiny Lee Stocking Island, where they will spend much of their summer underwater, surveying the invasive lionfish, which decimate other tropical fish populations and threaten coral reefs.

“As a long-time SCUBA diver, Emily is extremely enthusiastic to apply her underwater skills to studying coral reefs,” says Hixon.

Pickering will be heading to the Bahamas with grant money from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), which funds undergraduate research. “I was ecstatic when I got the grant,” Pickering says. “Writing it was an amazing experience. I felt so proud of the work I’d done.”

The first time Pickering heard about Hixon’s research at a lecture for incoming Honors students – she thought, “Wow, that could be me.”

From there, it was all about the legwork.

Pickering contacted Megan Cook, an undergraduate who had accompanied Hixon to Lee Stocking Island the year before. She spoke with biochemistry professor and HHMI Director Kevin Ahern, who mentored her throughout the grant process and gave her confidence that she had something to offer Hixon – despite her lack of lab experience and freshman status. And most importantly, Pickering contacted Hixon on her own.

“It was a little intimidating to approach Mark Hixon and say, ‘Hey, I want to work for you,’ but he quickly responded to my calls, and before I knew it, I was in his office talking about his work and being a part of his research team,” says Pickering. Hixon sent Pickering to graduate zoology student Mark Albins, who helped her with the HHMI grant proposal.

“I wrote my version of the proposal and sent it to Mark (Albins). It came back smothered in red ink. But it didn’t matter – I learned so much from the process and from the people I talked to that actually getting the grant almost seemed like an added bonus. It felt good to produce something I had put everything into and that I knew was my best work,”

During her three months on Lee Stocking Island, Pickering will be spending her days helping Albins survey lionfish and with his research on population dynamics. In the free time she has, Pickering will run her own experiments – she’ll be studying lionfish prey preference and digestion.

She will also be blogging about her experiences in the Bahamas, so that readers and students get an idea of what day-to-day life at a research station is like.

To read Pickering’s blog, go to http://blogs.oregonstate.edu/bahamas/

~ Celene Carillo

Many undergraduates working on research projects this summer

Many Oregon State University undergraduates will be spending time in the field this summer, working on research projects as varied and as important as many that their graduate student counterparts will be exploring during the break.

The stories of a handful of those undergraduate researchers will be shared in the summer edition of Terra research magazine, which you can find at http://oregonstate.edu/terra:

Here is a sample of some of the people featured in Terra.

Who: Ishan Patel, first year student in bioengineering and the University Honors College
What: Johnson Scholarship to work on an experimental model to simulate pressure drive bleeding at Oregon Health Science University.
What else: At OHSU, Patel will work with Owen J. T. McCarty, an expert in cell transport in arteries. Medical researchers have had limited success in simulating arterial bleeding, says Patel.

Who: Alexa Carey, sophomore in business, speech communications and the University Honors College.
What: Project manager for the annual Young Entrepreneurs Business Week summer camp, July 19-25 at OSU.
What else: Along with three friends, Carey has created Project Earth, a program to teach children how to run a business and create a marketable product and a set of long-term goals. They’ve already taken the project to Gold Beach, and hope to one day take it to Brazil.

Who: Shalynn Pack, junior in zoology
What: This summer she’ll work at Lake Nakuru National Park in Kenya with the Kenyan Wildlife Service on protecting threatened wildlife.
What else: At OSU, Pack has studied molecular genetics in salamanders, served as a mentor in a science education program and volunteered for the Homeless Gardens Project.

~ Nick Houtman