教育進步基金聚光燈：“通過社區參與地球和環境科學學習
莉莉克拉·羅漢地球和環境科學的主要高級講師最近告訴過我們關於她的教育進步基金的補助金。
你能告訴我們你的項目，並激勵你做什麼嗎？
我的項目專注於在Vanderbilt的地球和環境科學部門創造社區參與科學。Specifically, this grant focuses in on a new courseI’m co-teaching this spring with Dr. Jessica Oster called Community-Engaged Science in which we’re really working to help students collaborate with community members to do science together, addressing real, authentic environmental problems. I was inspired to do this in a couple of ways. Our students do amazing science in our program and have for a long time, but they’re very often doing science that is far away in some remote place and is wonderful and exciting and beautiful, but not much like the work they’ll likely do after they leave Vanderbilt. And they’re often doing it just with scientists, which is also not like the work they will likely do when they leave Vanderbilt. I wanted to help them grow the capacity to work with diverse groups of people do science that has immediate impacts on society in ways that they find valuable. This kind of work has been shown to help recruit and retain folks from underrepresented and marginalized groups in our field of geosciences, which is also something that’s very important to me. The second source of inspiration was an environmental disaster that occurred a year ago here in Nashville. A flood caused a restaurant supply warehouse to be washed out into one of our urban streams and brought a lot of attention to the stream. I live in the watershed, and so it seemed like an excellent opportunity to start to connect our students with a real environmental problem where they could have an immediate impact while working with the impacted community.
這項項目對學生和範德比爾特社區的預期影響是什麼？
令人著大的，我認為對我們學生的影響將越來越大行為公民參與的能力：道德，周到，與與他們不同的社區的反思性合作。我預計它也會增長他們的關係溝通技巧。這些是我們在很多課程中沒有專注的兩件事。我們專注於科學溝通，因為我們要求學生練習向其他科學家練習科學，但並不與學術界外部的其他人交談。所以，我認為它會增長那些技能。We also hope it impacts our recruitment and retention of folks from underrepresented groups in our undergraduate program, partly by celebrating a greater diversity of kinds of science.We’re also going to use some of the funds to support growing the capacity of our department to do this kind of work beyond just this class. We’re bringing in seminar speakers that’ll talk to our whole department about community engaged science. Just
最近，我們還開始與在工程學院和Peabody學院藝術學院以外的人員合作，他們正在進行溪流中的科學，並希望利用與社區聯係起來的越來越多的能力。所以，我希望這種工作可以在大學中更加普遍，並幫助我們的範德比爾科學家進入納什維爾，在需要它需要的地方做科學。
我喜歡它，絕對愛你在做什麼。您可以向正在考慮申請這些內部教學贈款之一的人提供哪些建議？
I think that having a village is great, so if you have an idea that’s exciting, even if it’s not something that’s normally in your wheelhouse, don’t be afraid to reach out and find people who are willing to jump into it with you and try it out.That’s one of the great things about having access to the Center for Teaching:it supports folks in doing things that seem a little risky but provides the scaffolding and support that are needed to be able to doit well. I mean, I’m a volcanologist,I study volcanoes, and yet here I am out in Nashville, standing in a stream with a bunch of students and scientists. I think these kinds of grants and the learning communities that form around them at the Center for Teaching make these challenges safe and doable. So,I would just say: don’t be afraid to try something new, because this kind of support is there for it.
在一兩句話中得出結論，您如何捕捉您的教學哲學？
I think the core of my teaching philosophy is to be brave and to tailor my classes to meet student needs: I am willing to try the things that it seems like the students need the most, even if they’re very different than what I’ve done or seen in the classroom before.
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