Terrible and good

I spent a heartbreaking morning sharing hugs with friends at a funeral.  This was awful, in a way that made me so grateful for my friends, and grateful that my friends also have such good friends in each other.  Does that make sense?  But, as much as it made me feel very close to this group I've been with all these years, seeing my coworker's family grieving together made me really want to be closer to my family for some non-mourning activities.  It was a very sad funeral because this guy was such a spark of life for so many people. Sigh.  For some reason I didn't think this would be such a tough day for me, but seeing some of my other students from bioethics in such a state of grief really ripped me up.  I do feel better after the service, though.

And of course, the rest of my life in in a giant shake up right now, as always.  Dr. Rockstar offered me a 6-month post-doc position in his lab (too late, I'm not tempted, but it did make me feel nice).  In other awesome news, I got a major title promotion at the Science Center.  I am to be the first ever Scientist in Residence at the Science Center, which they are hoping to make a more accessible position to bring in collaborative interactions with the local professional community.  This is great for me, clearly, but I think it will be a really good move for the science center.  One of the things that sold the Director on the title was the fact that I have provided them with access to my professional network.  Need volunteers, or info, or to borrow some equipment?  Everyone I know here is a scientist, so that hasn't been a problem for me to find these things.  We'll be hashing out a description for this title this week in order to provide a framework for recruiting other Resident Scientists for relevant volunteer work and interactions.  Hooray, I am valuable!

Bioethics- the movie

This is the video I made to show my students in class, summarizing our time together. It is laced with reference, from the total meltdown my students had about the Personal Genomics Contest that declared Migraines the "winning" disease for more research, their resentment money (and the public) interfering with science, and perhaps even the super abrupt way I tend to start and end my class. I guess what I am trying to say is if you don't think it is interesting- that's way. They giggled and then politely clapped. What darlings.

Here is the video- BIOSCI1590, as retold by robots.

Survived first teaching!

Oh man was it a long day. But I made it, and had the foresight to leave myself some rice crispy treats to great me at home. It started off terrible : burned my breakfast, computer refused to start, lost my bus pass, wore a hole in my food to get a replacement bus pass... Any other day I might have called a truce and gone back to bed. But today was my first day of class, so no 11 am naps for me. I spent the rest of the afternoon avoiding karma and trying to get my head on straight for teaching. Time well spent.

I just made up my mind about what to in class today, so I was a little nervous about how to do it. I wanted to go through the syllabus, breaking it up to talk with the students as much as possible, and then give them a taste of what the rest of the class will be like with some case studies- based on a photocopied reading, and a YouTube video.

The talking about the syllabus part was dull- as expected, and so I was slightly nervous about the first case study. But, they got talking, they had really different view points, and they were all VERY civil. Phew. My YouTube video slightly failed, as I hadn't considered how to project the sound, but they seemed to glean enough information off my computer's speaker to power another 45 minutes of discussion about "professional guinea pigs." The awesome part was that MANY of them had participated in trials, so were not as ignorant on the subject as a predicted. We did slightly veer out of control as we tottered into areas where no one seemed to quite now how things worked (wait, why is it unhealthy to donate your eggs? How much due diligence is done before a Phase 1 clinical trial?), but I am optimistic that with a bit more time (for them) to prepare, this could be avoided. It is a good group, they seem to be able to listen to each other, and I suspect will prove to be good thinkers as course progresses.

Next week we can skip the awkward start, and jump right into the interesting discussion. Hoorah! I'm confident the rest of the semester will come together well, and hopefully the students will enjoy it.

Panic at the Start of the Semester

I'm sure I've mentioned before (a lot, maybe too much), that I am teaching a course in bioethics. In the past, I've been called in to give short workshops on these topics for a group of student researchers. This helped me develop my approach and some of the material I am using this semester, but is my no means equivalent to ACTUALLY teaching this class. The two big differences I see are 1) I have to give them grades, and 2) We will be enduring 14 weeks of eachother's company. These two differences result in a lot more, well, time being put into the effort. And obsessively re-writing my syllabus.

Although I've had a pretty good idea of what I want students to get out of this course for a long time, trying to define that in terms of a syllabus, gradable assignments, specific readings etc has proven to be challenging. Every few days, I'll get some other insight to how I want the course to go, or what the students should do/ get out of the experience, and I re-write the syllabus, re-tool the schedule and start writing new course documents. There is a lot to keep on balance. I want to have a lot of the structure for the course laid out, but still leave a lot of flexibility to cater to the interests of the students. I want to take on challenging subjects, but I don't my students to get incensed with eachother. And then there are my knowledge gaps. Besides the obvious fact that I have no formal training in bioethics, philosophy or social sciences, I am supposed to help my students with their writing, learning how to structure arguments, and I am totally dreading the big Environmental Ethics question.

We are a broad bio department, which means we graduate microbiologists ans ecologists side by side. I felt compelled to include an environmental ethics topics to include these students, and also because it is an important issue that future scientists ought to know about. I was waffling about picking some specific topic (Round-up ready plants, or mining issues), but after some soul searching and talking to Noel, I realized that I need to do for environmental ethics what I did for the other topics. Read up a whole lot, subscribe to blogs, and see what presents itself. And once I started in to that, I realized that I should just do the Big Environmental ethics topic (re-arrange syllabus, again). At the moment, I am thinking about environmental ethics is terms of "What happens when science and politics/economics disagree?" as a kind of capstone case study. I don't have a reading picked, and I don't know if my students will be up to this, but I think we will all benefit from the challenge.

Classes start Aug 30, and mine meets Tuesday nights. One way or another, I need to stop fussing with the syllabus and present it to my 8(! yes, I got an extra!) students. It's so soon!
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The news round-up: summer drags along in a steamy haze. Matt and I went to Kennywood last weekend and rode on the NEW rollercoaster, compliments of our friend J. Tonight we are going to a fundraiser/beer tasting even at the zoo, which promises to be a blast. Matt's back has been troubling him most of the week, so he's been trying to be stoically low key. I'll probably send him to the doctor's next week, he is not a very patient patient. I am currently enjoying the juicy sweetness of a yellow seedless watermelon I bought at a farmer's market- awesome. Also, we are out of Q-tips. We are out of Q-tips because my crazy cat figured out how to get into the closet, so he can get himself Q-tips to chase around the house anytime he likes. Which is often.

Next Lesson

Summer brings in a new batch of HHMI fellow- the top notch research students I worked with during the school year- which means, they need to talk about ethics! And, weirdly, no one else volunteers to talk with undergrads about this stuff. It was a good chance to get some more course material for the fall, and try some new things before I commit them to my syllabus. Registration for the real class in the fall is still open- someone withdrew (aw, man!), but I have 6 students to work with.

We did a couple small case studies, and then talked about an article detailing a longer (very difficult) case of scientific misconduct. The short case studies were good ice breakers- but next time, I wouldn't do more then one at once. And for the most part, they seemed to get the points raised by the longer case study. It was a really sad case about how scientific misconduct (by a boss) ruined a bunch of student's prospects- ugh. When we finished, I immediately thought "That went awesome!" but I think I need to come up with a better metric for success then "No one cried or quit science."

It's getting easier- disarming the awkward silence, redirecting the errant conversation, getting to the point without rushing past it. I still feel like I talk too much- but, well, no one cried or quit science, so I must have been a success!

In which I admit I enjoy working with students

This week wraps up the HHMI undergraduate research fellows academic year program, and the last round of students presented their research for the department on Friday. It is such a pleasure to see the culmination of a year of work for these students- these are the students I had the chance to practice my bioethics lessons on, and I would attend their meetings otherwise just to hear what they were up to. I definitely developed an affectionate bias towards them, and I enjoyed sharing in their moment of recognition. The graduating seniors had put together an impressive amount of work, and gave half hours talks summarizing their research career. Two students from our lab gave talks, and fielded their questions really expertly. I got an extra hat tip from a couple of them, because of *wild waggling of eyebrows and shrugging* my work with HHMI.

While I was listening, I was also reflecting on how much I've enjoyed being able to work with these students. Of course, they are a very high performing group, and were very supportive of my efforts to get my class in shape. But I've also enjoyed having the opportunity to advise and mentor some of them, and I wish I had more time for those activities. And that's when it occurred to me that although I am looking forward to being done with benchwork after I graduate, I wouldn't mind working on a college campus. Y'know, career advising, or outreach or something- I am not so sure about teaching and grading and writing syllabuses and stuff yet.

This is in the light of last week's revelation to Mom, that I could be happy doing a lot of different things, as long I was doing them in Seattle. Don't read to much into it.

Registration begins

This is the second semester (ever) that Pitt has done online registration. This means I am in a unique position to cyberstalk my own class, not patiently waiting for students to register for it. (This is because I don't have any fancy instructor access- I am just pretending like I might want to register myself) Today was the first day of registration and I don't have a single student yet! Tomorrow is another day, for future seniors to get their act together, and juniors pile on next week. This was my primary target group- but they've got all weekend to decide what they'll be taking, and little fear of being beat out of the required courses. My undergrad still hasn't decided what he is going to take- why should anyone else?

I highly doubt that my boss obsesses over how many students are enrolled in his biochem lectures- but there is no chance that his class would get canceled on account of low enrollment. I, on the other hand, need 14 live ones to get the go ahead.

To kill time while I wait, I've got an appointment to give blood this weekend, and may be instigating a wine tasting. We are also on pins and needles for the final return of our favorite soldier. He's back in TX at the moment, no firm date on his return to Pittsburgh yet.

It's official, I'm sick

Last week I came down with a sort of cold thing, very whine-about-able but I was pretty confident it would clear up if I could get some rest. Ample rest was applied to no avail, and today I went to the doc's to get a full service collection of meds. It was a bit reaffirming, I'm not being a baby, even the doctor thought I needed a get healthy gift bag. I told my boss (since I have been getting zero work done with the constant kleenex breaks) and he told me to take it easy, and put off science for a bit. Wow. I am trying to be optimistic about it- I still feel pretty crummy, but now that might stop eventually.

I haven't managed to do much in all this time (ergo, no blog updates). I did get in for another bioethics discussion. It went, um, Ok. I had been worried no one would have anything to say (I should have known better), they had lots to say, and were reasonably articulate. And then we started talking about eugenics- the rules of online civility hold in the classroom, when you start comparing people (even distant, hypothetical future people) to Nazis, you are going to start a flame war- and we got a bit derailed.

However, the critical moment for me was the end of the session, I was supposed to collect their discussion questions for what they wanted to talk about next time- I collect the questions, they do the research, we all discuss. They had really good questions, the next discussion should be interesting and productive. I am grateful to be piloting this with these students- I am learning a lot about how to do this. I haven't figured out how I should act as the discussion leader- totally neutral or being a good example of sharing my biased but well informed opinions? Currently I am shooting for neutral but having a hard time biting my tongue- so neutral is with limited success. I am also having a hard time knowing when to correct my students. The right answer is probably "anytime they are wrong," but it is hard to be tactful. and confident. I am learning a lot, and not wasting anyone's tuition collars to do it- phew! The follow-up is in two weeks, and then after that I get to survey them about how they think the class went. Eek!

Best Case vs Fears and Anxieties

The 'modern' thinking in course design is to think backwards- how do you get students to become inspired innovators for the 21st century? Or more likely, what do do students need to know before they can be expected to adequately describe the foodchain? As a student, I didn't realize that all classes weren't designed this way, but in retrospect, it does explain a lot of things.

Currently, I am reflecting on what I want my outcomes to be. In my dreamland, I inspire a generation of scientifically trained silver tongued mediators who descend on humanity to clarify the confusion surrounding modern bioethical debates. I am recruited to be a White House adviser, helping politicians understand science before they pass policy. More realistic though- especially for this first pass-, my pilot class is meeting from 3-5 on Friday afternoons. Ideally, they'll talk about it after we wrap up. Maybe some of them will sign up to take the real course. I won't have to do most of the talking (aha! I need more questions to ask, less 'things to tell them'). While my murky idea of success is marinating, I tried contrasting that to my worst case. No one does the reading. Not a soul talks, I say things that are embarrassingly wrong to fill the silence, debate gets too heated, students spend all weekend talking about the meltdown that resulted in f-bombs, tears or other unsuitable classroom material.

What I want is to filet the material, leave it out for the students to examine as raw as they can. At some point I am going to be asked to 'assess' this (what, give grades? Ack!), which means I do need to clarify what we are ALL getting out of the experience. There is a personal aspect to ethics, and bioethics is murky only in that it mixes the black and white of science with the personal and political. Not that it is too complex for undergrads to understand. I hope.

My first 'pilot' is set to be Oct 22. !! We are going to talk about Research Integrity- easily the MOST boring subject to tackle. This is the basic stuff of 'don't lie about your results' something that is not too distant from the 'don't cheat on your exams' stuff students get anyway, but something that is rarely explicitly stated in research. So, it must be done. I am going to take Noel's approach- try to help them understand that the public will believe them, as scientists, and that this gives them an onus to be responsible with the public trust. At the moment, what I mostly do is day dream and blog about it, but I like to imagine this is an essential component of the creative process.

Career path?

Sandlin, this is a very interesting idea. I would agree that bioethics will be an increasingly urgent need as our ability to manipulate genetic markers or just use them to predict potential outcomes gets more and more powerful. Not to mention the biological impact of climate change, altering brain chemistry with microchips or designer drugs . . or on and on . . .

As to a career path . . . I suspect there will be more opportunities to work on this within academia, or even government, than you might suspect, but you could always Google "Natalie Angier" or "Gina Kolata" for a possible plan B.

Bioethics- because someone should care

Based on some recent intense and precipitous conversations with various members of the department, I have decided to develop and teach a seminar in our department on bioethics. I wanted to share this for several reasons- 1) it is something I am suddenly thinking about a LOT, bigger 2) I chose to do this as a way of nucleating a new career path for myself. My teaching experience in the fall was very valuable, but got me thinking that I might not actually enjoy teaching in a classroom. But I enjoy being around people who learn things. The latest idea I have been toying with is to get involved in science policy making. Keep that in mind as I get back to point 1.

Last week, there was a seminar by an invited ethicist that I really enjoyed. She confirmed for me the idea that if scientists fail to engage the public in dialogue about the impacts of advances in technology, it will inevitably be mis-understood and legislation created to prevent/hinder it. Case in point- stem cells. I have long felt that there is a lot of mis-informed policy regarding science, and that this could largely be overcome if we had a more science literate public, which we can only get if scientists can be willing to talk about science at a level the public would enjoy. (How you get employed to make this happen is something I am still working on) The undergrads I work with felt very strongly after this seminar that the ethical ramifications and justifications of their research is something they should be talking about, and weren't. I figured, this is something I am interested in, would be good for me to get experience with and would be of value to a lot of people- I should lead this seminar.

So I sat down and wrote out a syllabus. This has been passed around to a few various faculty with lots of feedback and support... long story short, I am planning to get on the course schedule for Fall of 2010. In the meantime, I'll have time to gather materials and pilot units with a group of undergraduate fellows, so maybe by the time 2010 rolls around I'll be prepared to lead some contentious debate.

I am starting to get over giddy excitement and feel a bit of anxiety. I didn't really think I would make it this far without someone saying "that is ridiculous, no grad student in our department has ever proposed and taught their own class!" or "preposterous, you have almost no teaching experience!" or even "don't you have research you ought to get back to?" But no one has said that. Everyone has been universally supportive of this idea- faculty have proposed such a class be taught, but no one wanted to step up and do it. I have received lots of materials and ideas, and a lot of suggestions to make the course into something I am way less interested in teaching. In the meantime I am sifting through ideas of topics, formats and content that would be of interest to ~15 biology majors from a not exclusively medical standpoint, and of value to the community at large.

I need your help! If you happen to run across any good articles that you think might be of interest, I am on the look out for case studies to use in class. I am also really interested to know what kinds of things non-biologists would like biologists to start thinking about (personal genomics, a new food pyramid, defining Theory for the public?), since I am in a unique position to jump start the dialogue in the department. THANKS!