Fairy wands and hypothesis slides; reflections on teaching MCB220L
By Dan Starr
The past three years I had the opportunity to teach the incoming BMCDB students in the rotation course. I was lucky to have great partners in this endeavor, Ted Powers for the first year, and Jodi Nunnari the past two years. The following are some of the highlights from my experience.
Far and away the best thing about teaching this course is the way I got to know the whole class, and watch them as they work hard to constantly improve their skills! I now know the students of these three classes better than any faculty member in BMCDB, and I can say with confidence, we have an awesome group of students!
We made some significant changes to the curriculum of MCB220L. I think the most important change was the requirement of writing an NSF-style grant proposal at the end of each rotation. This not only teaches the students how to write grants, but more importantly, gets them to think about the big picture before joining a lab. I feel this exercise was very successful. Especially to Amy, Nadia, and Alex, who turned their assignments into NSF fellowships—congrats you three! For all the other students, I think the assignment made you better scientists.
The second addition to the curriculum was the chalk talk. This is an important means of scientific communication that was completely new to the students. I hope that with the experience (and stress) of the chalk talks, now any of my students can give you a 5-10 minute version of their research at a chalkboard in a chance encounter in the hallway.
There were of course humorous moments to teaching the class—Ralph’s “pointer” comes immediately to mind. The other occurred at the MCB NIH training grant retreat at Fallen Leaf Lake when all the then second years cornered me after my talk. I still can’t believe I forgot the hypothesis slide!
In all, teaching MCB220L was one of the most rewarding things I have done as a professor! Watching my former students give a talk or hearing about them get a grant fills me with pride. We have an awesome group of students! I’m sure Bob, Elva, and Enoch will continue the high quality experiences of the class. Have fun!
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