Blogging on the Brain

Today is a big day for me. No, I didn’t defend my dissertation, nor did I land a job.

I applied for my first post-doc.

I’ve been a wreck the last few days, all jumpy, nervous,  excited, and possibly bordering on a bit psychotic. But I did it. After tons of revisions of my teaching and research statements I applied for what would literally be my dream post-doc.

As I started searching through job posts, I never really thought I’d find something *perfect* and that was pretty true at first. I looked through at least a dozen jobs that I thought “sure, I could see myself doing this.” But then I found a job listing that actually made me gasp a little bit – 60% teaching, 40% research, and I’d get to work on developing new courses and labs for an undergraduate neuroscience program! Amazing. Oh, and did I mention funding for two conferences a year – one scientific and one educational? AND it’s in a city that I love? Win.

It’s just a shame that it’s my first job app, and I’m afraid I’m going to be crushed if/when I don’t get the position, but I guess it’s all good practice. Keeping my fingers crossed for this one though!

Okay. At Gardner’s suggestion, I’m going to post my teaching statement. Please please please criticize it!

Throughout my time as a graduate student, I have gained much more teaching experience than I had expected. Even more surprising, I found I enjoyed teaching as much, and sometimes even more, than research. After receiving my masters degree in December of 2007, I began teaching classes for Tarleton State University (part of the Texas A&M system). The first semester I taught Animal Behavior, a senior-level psychology course. I had never taken a formal animal behavior course before, and I was given no materials for the course other than a textbook. It was bumpy at first, as I had never designed a course or written real lectures or exams before. Surprisingly, however, about halfway through the semester, I realized that I loved teaching. It was far more stressful than working with animals in my lab, but I found it to be incredibly rewarding and fulfilling.

During my time with Tarleton State I was approached by Dr. Gardner Campbell, the director of Baylor University’s Academy for Teaching and Learning (ATL), who invited me to become the first Graduate Fellow for the ATL. I jumped at the chance to work with Dr. Campbell, as it promised a unique opportunity to focus on my burgeoning love of teaching. My responsibilities at the ATL have included blogging about neuroscience, teaching, and learning (www.hillaryblakeley.net), giving Seminars for Excellence in Teaching, consulting with other departments regarding improvement of courses, and collaborating with other graduate students around the University. Largely due to these experiences, I began to refine my “teaching philosophy.”

Among my favorite aspects of teaching college classes is that I can treat my students as adults. Students seem to respond well when treated with respect, and in my experience, they tend to rise to whatever standard the instructor has established. In a discipline like neuroscience, where there is still so much to discover, it seems important to initiate undergraduate students into the field by sharing our questions with them and inviting them to think creatively about problems they may one day solve. It seems more important to engage students in the mystery of the unknown than to maintain a false semblance of omniscience.

I have become increasingly convinced that use of emerging technology has the potential to transform higher education. Students are already actively creating content online; they are active participants in a virtual community, as evidenced by the fact that some of the most visited sites on the internet, like YouTube, Facebook, and Wikipedia, are entirely comprised of user-generated content. I believe it would be a tragic loss to overlook the possibilities inherent for deeper student involvement through use of these tools. These technologies can be used in any number of ways: I have set up a wiki page for a reading group, attended a conference in SecondLife, and I plan to start a Facebook group for students in my lab course this semester.  As I mentioned earlier, I have also been blogging for almost two years, and my blog has become an incredibly useful record of my thoughts, experiences, and activities during that time. Blogging can be a useful way for students to keep a course journal, can also encourage students to process course material outside of the classroom, and can facilitate out-of-class discussions between students.

Participation in the learning process is also important in my teaching philosophy. Cognitive neuroscience tells us that passive listening is far less effective for long-term learning than meaningful engagement with information. Whenever possible, I try to engage students in group work, class discussion, or projects. I give my Adaptive Psychology students a project early in the semester that requires them to apply the principles we are learning to everyday life. They go somewhere to observe people, like a coffee shop, bar, or playground and note behaviors applicable to principles learned in class. They always come back brimming with excitement, saying that they watched two women fighting over a man at a bar (intrasexual aggression), or simply saw jealousy induction in a sit-com. There is nothing like the feeling of transferring passion for your subject to a student.

My ultimate goal as a teacher is not only to impart information, but also to help students manipulate it in such a way that they can carry that content with them outside of the classroom. I am lucky to teach such a fascinating subject, and I want my students to be as excited about neuroscience as I am. There is still so much we have yet to learn about the brain, and I am invested in both researching it myself and also helping to bring up the next generation of scientists.

So one of today’s projects was to get drafts written of my teaching and research statements for those job applications that are supposed to be going out soon. These “statements” sound deceivingly simple – one page each, just write about your teaching philosophy and your research focus and goals. No big deal, right? Ha.

The teaching statement only took me a couple of hours. The problem is that it still doesn’t say what I want it to. The research statement isn’t done yet. In fact, I’m blogging right now to avoid it. Is that bad? I keep just wanting to say “I love the brain. There are very few things that I wouldn’t love to research. Please give me a job. The end.” Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s going to cut it. Luckily I’m just looking for a postdoc, so it’s not like I necessarily have to have my own line of funded research up and going, but I’m still struggling to say what I mean without sounding flaky.

Anybody have any experience with this? I’ll gladly take any help I can get!

So as it turns out, scientists can put their egos aside and collaborate! I came across this article in the New York Times last week, and I almost couldn’t believe what I read – multiple research groups, including the NIH, FDA, and several other medical companies, decided that it would be beneficial to (gasp) share data. This is not something that happens often in the sciences (I can’t speak for other disciplines). There is a general culture of rigorously guarding one’ s data and experiments until releasing them into the world as a publication. One of the researchers, Dr. John Q. Trojanowski, at University of Pennsylvania, is quoted in the article:

“It’s not science the way most of us have practiced it in our careers. But we all realized that we would never get biomarkers unless all of us parked our egos and intellectual-property noses outside the door and agreed that all of our data would be public immediately.”

And their data is public immediately. Any researcher can download the entire data set after a simple request form and agreement to terms of use – which openly allows publication of their data. Turns out our kindergarten teachers were right – it’s nice to share, and two heads are, in fact, better than one.

The organization of this group, called ADNI (Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative) is like nothing I’ve ever heard of before – essentially the NIH is taking lead and acting as a mediator between academia and pharmaceuticals, a relationship that is usually less than amicable. Funding has come from the National Institute on Aging, and more than *20* other institutes, companies, and nonprofits, giving ADNI a budget to get up and running for the first six years. There is already talk of renewing for five additional years.

I think this is extraordinary. Already there’s been progress on identifying biomarkers of Alzheimer’s based on imaging and other methods. People involved in Parkinson’s Disease research, specifically the Michael J. Fox foundation, are already talking about applying this model to Parkinson’s research as well. I would like to give a huge round of virtual applause to the individuals who came up with and were able to implement this plan. Could you imagine what we’d be capable of if this was the norm and not the exception? This is what science should be.

So it’s August. Not entirely sure how that happened…or how so much time passed without any blogging. Let’s chalk it up to summer traveling and heat exhaustion or something. I’ve had a pretty slow summer here in lab, I always think summers are going to be these amazing marathons of data collection and productivity. But who am I kidding? The heat index is in the mid-100’s, and if I never have to venture outside my house in that heat, well, I won’t.

I do, however, have a reason to get out of the house and back to lab – I am planning to graduate in May. Which means I have until about Christmas to finish collecting data. An even more pressing concern is that I now have to start the hunt for a grown-up job. This is a daunting task. I’ve stayed in the sheltered world of the student for as long as I’m allowed, and in a few more months, I’ll be kicked out, and my jeans-and-t-shirt days will be over. My biggest issues right now are:

(1) I don’t really know what direction I want to go from here. I basically have three options: postdoc (most common choice and probably the easiest to find), teaching (most likely at a small liberal arts or community college because of my lack of experience), or industry (where I would make zillions more than in academia, but may or may not still possess my soul when my early retirement starts). I know I really like teaching, but I also happened to be trained in a fairly marketable (and also cool) technique, and I don’t really want to throw that training away. I figure I should just apply to everything I can, and hopefully I’ll only end up with a couple of options. At least it’ll put off the moment of decision for a little while longer.

(2) There’s no really good centralized place to search. I’ve been looking a lot at NeuroJobs (job listings provided by and for members of Society for Neuroscience), which seems pretty good, but I don’t think it covers the full spectrum, especially when it comes to exclusively teaching positions. I’ve also tried using the job search on The Chronicle of Higher Education website, but it didn’t pull much up  – whether that’s due to a poor website or not many jobs being available, I have no idea. Anyone out there have better/other sources for job listings in the neuroscience area? Clearly I could use the help.

(3) The timeline on which things happen is, well, vague at best. Some current listings are postdocs that are wanted to start immediately, some in January, some next fall. As I understand it, faculty positions for next fall are generally advertised around now but aren’t decided on until sometime (?) in the Spring.

So that’s what I’m up to for now. Hopefully the more time I spend working on the job stuff, the more I’ll figure out the pace at which these things happen. Hopefully I’ll also have time to finish that dissertation thing too…

I recently had the pleasure of attending a session of Baylor’s Summer Faculty Institute, a program dedicated to the discussion and improvement of teaching practices at Baylor. This particular day, we heard Gardner Campbell speak about Information Communication Technologies (ICT) including the iphone, web2.0, delicious, twitter, blogging, kindles, ipads, etc. For those of you who may know Gardner, it was, as would be expected, a delightful look at the possiblities these technologies hold for us as teachers (and continual learners, for that matter). It was, however, very interesting to be in this room as at least some of the SFI participants were hearing about and seeing these things for the first time.

I was recently in their position; I had never used twitter or blogged before I began to work with the ATL, and just like my experience, there was quite a variety of  reactions. The position I resonated the most with was one that at least a couple of people spoke up about in the room – pretty strong skepticism. Before I got to know these technologies, I was pretty skeptical about their use for me personally as well as in the classroom (”don’t let kids have their laptops – or, God forbid, phones out during class, they’ll just mess around!”). Over the last year and a half, though, I’ve come to look at things very differently. While some may argue that the fast-paced nature of the internet/texting/etc. keeps you from slowing down or reflecting, I would argue that I’ve never reflected so much on anything as I have since I started blogging. As far as isolation, I actually came across a quote today (thank you, google quote-of-the day) that I think makes a pretty valid point about internet use:

“The Internet is like alcohol in some sense. It accentuates what you would do anyway. If you want to be a loner, you can be more alone. If you want to connect, it makes it easier to connect.” ~Esther Dyson

While it was a little hard to hold my tongue when people flatly objected to the use of these new technologies, I think that if they at least give these tools a chance and really look at the potential good they could accomplish, they’ll come around eventually. I think Gardner gave us a beautiful example of what the internet can provide when he showed us a youtube video of a “virtual choir” – 185 participants from 12 countries all made videos of themselves singing their part in the same piece of music while watching a video of the director. The videos were then all compiled to make the final product – a tribute, I think, to the incredible power that the internet has to bring us closer together and allow people to participate in something beautiful that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise.

My husband recently sent me a link to a very thought-provoking review of an article about college students struggling with an “addiction” to the internet (I’ll admit to having not read the actual research article yet, just this review of it). Apparently in this study, students gave up all forms of media (TV, internet, phones, etc.) for 24 hours. Many of these students (not very surprisingly) reported feelings like cravings and anxiety in the absence of their most common link to the outside world, as well as most of their entertainment.

To some, this reaction suggests that we should begin to think of internet overuse as a diagnosable disorder, something like drug or alcohol addictions. I think, however, this overlooks maybe the most fundamental part of the definition of an addiction: something that is significantly disruptive to your life, and negatively impacts quality of life. Now, just like most other things (food, alcohol, etc.) of course there’s something to be said for moderation, and I think in some cases, people probably rely on the internet/cell phones too much, but overall, I think you could argue for media – especially through the internet – improving subjective quality of life.

That being said, I do find it a tiny bit worrisome that these kids couldn’t go a day without media. I mean, if you can’t take a 24-hour time-out and go for a walk or read a book, that’s probably not so good either.

Well, today was my “Seminar for Excellence in Teaching” for this semester. The last couple semesters I’ve given talks on neuroscience and learning, but this semester I put together a presentation on learning disabilities in higher education, which was really, really interesting, but also a lot of work, as it’s significantly outside my area of expertise.

So I went about researching this topic pretty heavily the last month or so, and spent a lot of time putting together a presentation that I thought really got at the aspects of LDs that grad students and faculty would be interested in, and I was getting excited to give the presentation and interact and get feedback and all of that…and then two people showed up. There were 13 registered and two showed up.

Now, the two people that showed up were lovely people and engaged and discussed as we went through the presentation, but it was just one of those times that it felt like such a let-down to have worked so hard for what ended up being a fairly inconsequential event. Granted, I’ll most likely be giving this seminar again, so I guess I could think of it as something like a dry-run, but honestly, I’m disappointed. I don’t know if people forgot or just didn’t care to begin with – and it probably doesn’t help that I’ve been having serious attendance issues in the reading group I tried to start this semester too. I just feel like I haven’t had a “win” in a while now. Maybe that’s just what the end of the semester feels like.

Oh well. On the plus side, at least I got all the leftover pizza.

The end of a semester always brings on a lot of crazy times – students studying everywhere, faculty writing and grading finals frantically, and everything seems to reach sort of a fever pitch before dissipating for the summer. Another phenomenon we see as teachers is general student desperation on the rise. Whether in the form of round-the-clock studying, begging for extra credit opportunities, or your basic psychotic break, the students are freaking out. Unfortunately, I recently saw this take the form of cheating.

Now, I’m very, very solidly anti-cheating. I am, however, even more solidly against stupid cheating. I won’t go into details, as I don’t think I’m allowed to, but seriously, kids, give us instructors a little bit of credit – we do actually read your assignments and papers, and we absolutely will notice if you copy and paste another person’s work and hand it in as your own.

In addition to the frustration/irritation of the whole ordeal, we now have to 1. decide what to do with the students (fail them from the lab? give them zeros on the assignments in question? and 2. report them. As graduate students, however, we’re apparently not allowed to report these ourselves, even though we’re the teachers of record for the lab (I have no idea how this makes any sense). So now we have to work through the instructor for the lecture course that goes with the lab course, and the whole thing is turning into a giant time-suck (which is leading me closer and closer to the psychotic break option listed above).

Sigh. At least this round’s almost over.

Well, I think I may have found a new role model in Maxine Greene. Seriously, what a lady. Born in 1917, Greene managed to get  a BA in American history and philosophy in 1938 (not super common for women back then), and went on to get a masters, then PhD in the male-dominated field of educational psychology from NYU in 1955. Among other things, she was the first female president of the Philosophy of Education Society, and the first woman to preside over the American Educational Research Association. She has taught social philosophy, philosophy and history of education, literature, writing, and aesthetics. She now heads the Maxine Greene Foundation to support the arts and education.

Of the many, many ideas and philosophies Dr. Greene has developed in her career, I’d like to focus on just two. These are the two that struck me most as I read about her, so please don’t consider this in any way a thorough account of her work.

The first idea that I loved was that of one of her books, Teacher as Stranger (1973). The main idea, according to Greene is to “suggest that the stranger’s vision brought a kind of acuity unlikely to be found in a person whose vision was dulled by familiarity. In effect, I was asking the teacher to take the view of the critical onlooker, someone attentive to inequities, false pieties, groundless promises.” Basically, she challenged teachers to continually question the material they taught, and to keep themselves from becoming dulled to the information they imparted. I love this idea, that we as teachers should remain almost uncomfortable with the material in order to always look at it critically and with fresh eyes.

This leads me to the second idea that I loved – the role of the teacher in cultivating what Greene calls “wide-awakeness” in students. Part of our job is to teach our students that the possibility of learning is everywhere and that we have only to engage fully in the world and in our interactions with others to start seeing it. I only hope that I can someday cultivate that in my students!

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