Princeton Weekly Bulletin April 19, 1999
"I really want to do both well"
Program helps postdoctoral fellows in science, engineering develop skills in teaching as well as research
By Caroline Moseley
The Science and Technology Council's new Postdoctoral Teaching Program is a program with a difference.
Launched last year, it aims "to attract to Princeton postdoctoral fellows in science and engineering who wish to develop skills that will allow them to pursue careers in both research and teaching," according to Council Chair Shirley Tilghman. The seven fellows, here for terms of up to three years, conduct research in the lab of a faculty member and also work with a teaching mentor, who may or may not be the research mentor.
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STC fellows Matt Trawick (l), Alex
Bradley, Melissa Hughes, Sonia Altizer, Cindy Benedict,
Rob Nelson |
"We believe there is nationally a great need to train scientists to be good teachers," says Tilghman, who is also Howard A. Prior Professor in the Life Sciences. "Our second motivation is very Princeton-centric. We suspect these fellows will invigorate and enrich our own teaching of science."
Balancing two activities
Fellow Matt Trawick, who earned his PhD at Ohio State, says the STC fellowship differs from most other postdoctoral opportunities. "I don't know of any other program where postdocs are brought in both for teaching and for research," he says. "In many cases, teaching is actually frowned on professionally. You know: 'Shouldn't you be concentrating on your research?'
"This fellowship encourages me to be seriously interested in teaching and seriously interested in research. All academics struggle with balancing those two activities. I really want to do both, and to do both well." Currently, Trawick estimates that he spends "about 120 percent of my time in the lab and 140 percent teaching."
His research mentor is Professor of Physics Paul Chaikin, in whose lab he pursues research on polymers. His teaching mentor is David Wilkinson, Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics.
As a teacher in General Physics, Trawick says, "One thing I've learned is that the attention span of even a dedicated listener, someone who really wants to be there and learn, is not typically 50 minutes. So I try to stop and make students think about something very specific, ask them a question, about every 10 minutes."
The "little tricks" he uses in class, he says, "are not my idea. I stole them fair and square -- some from Dave, some from books in physics education Dave steered me to."
Beneficial to institution, fellows
Melissa Hughes, a fellow in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, has "been interested in teaching for years," she says. Hughes, whose research mentor is EEB chair Daniel Rubenstein, has previously studied "how birds learn to sing," but she wanted "to focus more on questions related to population biology and behavioral ecology." She feels the STC fellowship is "an opportunity to develop my skills as a teacher and to take my research in a direction I want to go."
Rubenstein is also Hughes's teaching mentor. "Actually, I could say he's my teaching mentor again. Almost 10 years ago I was a TA for a course he taught at Duke University," where she received her PhD. Last semester, Hughes taught a new course, Animal Communication, with Research Associate Mace Hack.
"There are other so-called 'teaching postdocs' out there," Hughes says, "but they require that the recipient teach two or three courses a semester. That's certainly teaching experience, but doesn't leave much time or energy for research. Or for developing new approaches to teaching, for that matter."
She believes it's beneficial to both institution and fellows to "bring new people into departments at a stage in their careers when they're developing new ideas about their research and are excited about teaching interesting new courses."
"X" for "experimental"
As another example of "the kind of experience we'd like to ensure for our fellows and our faculty," Tilghman points to the collaboration between STC fellow Alex Bradley, whose PhD is from the University of New Hampshire, and David B. Jones Professor of Chemistry Maitland Jones.
Bradley and Jones developed a variation of Organic Chemistry they called 303-304X -- "X" for "experimental." Says Bradley, "We abandoned traditional lectures in favor of cooperative learning, a focus on problemsolving and small group learning." Jones taught the standard Organic Chemistry course as well, and students in both sections took the same exams (and received comparable grades).
According to a report on 304X submitted to the council by Jones, Bradley and TA Scott Ulrich, "The experimental problem-centered method and the traditional lecture format" are both effective teaching methods. However, "The former is likely to be more interesting and more fun, for both students and faculty, and such advantages seem sure to translate into better overall, long-term learning."
"Alex worked closely with Mait to develop a new way to teach organic chemistry," Tilghman observes. "He learned a lot from teaching with a master teacher like Mait, so there's the benefit to Alex. And Mait couldn't have done it without Alex, so there's the benefit to Princeton."
Jones agrees that the fellowship program "has let me try out my teaching ideas." While uncomfortable with being styled a "master teacher" ("I deny everything," he declares), he believes, "This postdoc program is a very good idea in teaching terms."
Not just talk
The council was inundated with applications for the program, more than 100 the first year. Determined to find just the right fellows, Tilghman says, "First of all we vet them for scientific record; we don't think it's beneficial to bring people here without scientific accomplishments." All potential fellows must first contact a Princeton faculty member in whose lab they would like to work, she says. Applicants must also "show that that teaching is something they are serious about." The program, she notes, is funded by the Council on Science and Technology, the Beck Foundation and the Shell Corp.
What does the future hold for the first crop of STC postdoc fellows? "We hope they'll be very well prepared to take up faculty appointments at a variety of educational institutions, from small liberal arts colleges to research universities," says Tilghman.
In the meantime, says Bradley, "This program affirms and reaffirms Princeton's dedication to undergraduate education.
"It's not just talk, it's true."