Wayne State University Teaching Portfolio Name: Office Address: Office Telephone: Email: Andrew L. Feig Chemistry Room 455 313-577-9229 [email protected] Department: College: Present Rank: Chemistry CLAS Associate Professor (since 2006) ______________________________________________________________________________ Table of Contents I. TEACHING OBJECTIVES AND STRATEGIES ............................................................................................... 2 II. TEACHING RESPONSIBILITIES (PAST 3 YEARS) ..................................................................................... 4 III. EVIDENCE OF TEACHING EFFECTIVENESS ............................................................................................. 7 IV. CONTRIBUTIONS TO COURSE AND CURRICULAR DEVELOPMENT .......................................... 10 V. EFFORTS TO IMPROVE TEACHING ............................................................................................................. 12 VI. TEACHING SERVICE AT THE UNIVERSITY AND AT THE NATIONAL LEVEL ........................... 12 1 I. Teaching Objectives and Strategies Overarching Goals Undergraduate education is not so much about learning facts as it is about providing the students with the tools they need to learn independently. In that way, we are teaching the students to think critically and to learn how to learn. Yes, the students acquire facts and skills along the way, but in my opinion, the big picture comes from changing how they approach the process of learning. Students who learn to take control of their own intellectual development become life-long achievers. The main task is to engage the students and vest them in the learning process. I strive to achieve this goal by providing challenging and thought provoking exercises for the students to think about in and outside of class. Students spend a lot of time looking at and analyzing biochemical data and participating in openended exercises as part of this curriculum. Approaches and Strategies As stated above, my goal is to enable students. While there is some factual knowledge they should learn during the course, I will have succeeded as an educator if I teach the students to think about the material in new ways and make new connections between what they see and read and what they “know”. Learning is not about having a fact at ready recall (although that is helpful sometimes) but about being able to put diverse pieces of information together and synthesize a cohesive scaffold of knowledge. For those students that truly take this message to heart, they learn to interpolate from the facts they know and fill in through logic to the information they do not have at their fingertips. This technique needs practice. Students are pressed not to recite and recall information, but to use the bits provided to them to think out the next step in the puzzle. Examples are given at each level of assessment. They see example problems in lecture. They are asked questions using a classroom response system to actively embrace a piece of material or solve a problem on their own or with their neighbors. They are then asked to do in-depth work on problem sets. These questions reinforce the concepts from class and make them put into context information from the textbook, from lectures and from biochemistry and bioinformatics web sites they are directed towards. In this way, they learn to develop a framework of knowledge within the field and use diverse information resources to tackle biochemical problems. Finding, Understanding and Making Use of Online Biochemical Data Resources Many students enter my class having never used the Internet for serious scientific work. Instead, they see it as a tool for recreation and finding cheap airline tickets. In this post-genomic era, computers are essential tools for studying biochemistry and I use my course as a vehicle for teaching them about the databases and resources that I use on a daily basis to do my research. Students learn not only where to find information, but also how to use the tools that parse and filter the flood of data and how to evaluate the significance of output that is returned from any database search. In the process, they also have to integrate concepts from various facets of the course to understand the bioinformatics projects. These projects promote open-ended inquiry and help the student place the course material into a broader context. 2 Evaluation of Student Learning As evidenced in my syllabi, a variety of means are used to evaluate student learning. The diversity of assessments is necessary to respect the differing strengths and weaknesses of individual students. By providing a range of graded exercises, this allows students to show their learning in different ways. My course include classic performance evaluations like timed exams and quizzes (approx. 65% of the grade), but also through open-ended exercises on problem sets (25%) and participation in classroom discussions (10%). The problem sets also provide an opportunity for creativity. The 4th problem set in CHM5600, for instance is quite different. It is based on an exercise Prof. John Woolford uses very effectively at Carnegie Mellon University where the students are challenged to represent a biochemical problem accurately in an artistic medium. In W2007, students worked on protein synthesis for this exercise. They were challenged to depict through art (broadly defined) the decoding of a messenger RNA into protein. The students wrote a short (max 1 page) description of how their work (sculpture, song, painting, video, etc.) represents the biological activity and where artistic license led them to deviate from strict scientific accuracy. The outcomes were superb including original songs, videos and multimedia projects. Many of the students posted their projects on-line including one now on YouTube. After reading the book Academically Adrift, I have begun incorporating more writing into my curricula. This year, in 6620 and 5600, students have done a project involving reading about biochemistry in the lay press. They were asked to find a specific newspaper article, or blog post, or in one case a product insert from a neutraceutical they were taking. They were asked to think about this article through the lens of the biochemistry course they had just taken and reflect on what they had learned over the semester that changed the way they read the article. While there was skepticism at first, the quality of most of the assignments showed a genuine effort on their part to apply what they had learned to a scenario we face constantly – evaluating information in a daily context and assessing whether it is accurate or inaccurate and judging whether what we read jives with our understanding of how the underlying science really works. 3 II. Teaching Responsibilities (Past 3 Years) Group lecture/lab courses: Term Course # W2009 CHM6635 F2009 W2010 2 x 1.5h lectures/week CHM6635/7635 2 x 1.5h lectures/week CHM6620/7620 CHM7740 Tools of Molecular Biology Biochemistry Seminar Coordinator Metabolism 3 x 1h lectures/week Responsible Conduct of Research 1 x 2h discussion/week W2011 Administration Director of Graduate Studies and Graduate Admissions F2011 CHM6620/7620 W2012 Course Format Tools of Molecular Biology Administration Director of Graduate Studies and Graduate Admissions CHM8840 F2010 Title Metabolism 3 x 1h lectures/week CHM7740 Responsible Conduct of Research 1 x 2h discussion/week CHM5600 Survey of Biochemistry 3 x 1h lectures/week CHM8840 Biochemistry Seminar Coordinator Individual study courses: F2008 – CHM 7990 – Directed Study W2009 – CHM 7990 – Directed Study 2009–present CHM 5999 Senior Research in Chemistry 2009–present CHM 5998 Honors Thesis Research 2009 – present CHM 8700 – Chemistry Graduate Research 2009–present CHM 9991-9994 Doctoral Candidacy Status Research and Direction I–IV, Dissertation Brief Course Descriptions CHM 5600 – Survey of Biochemistry CHM5600 is a one-semester biochemistry course similar to C483 described below. I taught the course for the first time in Winter 2007 to approximately 35 students. This course covers topics including: the structure and function of biological macromolecules, enzyme catalysis, metabolism and biological information transfer. The students use bioinformatics data mining projects to help integrate the course material. CHM 6620/7620 - Metabolism CHM6620 is the first semester of a 2-semester sequence required for majors in Biological Chemistry and Chemical Biology. It provides a survey of the structure and function of proteins and the way proteins work together to carry out metabolic transformations. The course focuses extensively on the mechanisms of these transformations, the manner in 4 which enzymes facilitate rate acceleration of these reactions and the way in which enzymes can be regulated to control the metabolic output of cells and/or organs. CHM 6635/7635 - Tools of Molecular Biology CHM6635 is a one-term biochemistry course focused on teaching students experimental design in biochemistry and molecular biology. It has been developed for the new Biochemistry and Chemical Biology Major to augment a laboratory that is still very recipe oriented. The ultimate goal is to use the understanding from this course to allow the laboratory curriculum to become more open-ended such that the students can put into practice the tools being taught here. The course focuses heavily on hands on design such that 1 or 2 breakout sessions occur during every class period to allow students to work together to carry out a design task. We then reconvene to discuss the results and the suggestions put forth by the groups to learn from both the successful proposals as well as those that might have had misconceptions that would have prevented the experiment from succeeding. CHM 7740 - Responsible Conduct of Research This course provides students with practice identifying and dealing with ethical issues that they may confront in their professional careers. The class sessions are structured around the discussion of case studies and deal with issues such as conflicts of interest, confidentiality, biological and chemical safety, data ownership and managing professional relationships such as those between mentors and mentees. The course also helps students talk through appropriate ways to report potential ethical issues that have been encountered and to think through the potential outcomes of action or inaction on all of the stakeholders. CHM 5998 – Honors Thesis Research in Chemistry Original research project and thesis required for a B.S. degree in chemistry with honors (2 students). CHM 5999 –Undergraduate Research in Chemistry Original research project and report required for a B.S. degree in chemistry (2 students). CHM 8840 – Biochemistry Seminar This is a weekly seminar series in biochemistry. Consists of a mixture of internal and external speakers. External speakers present work from their own lab. Internal speakers are 2nd and 4th year graduate students presenting literature topics as part of their Ph.D. requirements for public speaking. CHM 7990 – Directed Study in Biochemistry Oversaw lab rotations for biochemistry students who wished to spend 10-weeks doing short research projects in each of 3 laboratories during the advisor selection process. CHM 8700 – Graduate Research in Chemistry This is a placeholder for first and second year graduate students in the Chemistry Ph.D. program. Students perform original research as part of their dissertation work and this course represents the time they are working in the laboratory. Converts to CHM9991-9994 5 when the students become Ph.D. candidates following successful completion of their oral and written qualifying exams. CHM 9991-9994 – Ph.D. Dissertation Research in Chemistry Direction of dissertation research in semesters following advancement to candidacy (3–6 students) Undergraduate Research as Teaching (16 total, but in the past 3 years) Jane Phillip 2008 – 2012 (honors thesis) Anteo Pashaj 2009 Sonia Kumar 2010 – 2011 (honors thesis) Ahmad Mohammadieh 2010 – 2011 Cassandra Joiner 2011 – 2012 Tess Meklir 2012 – current Joe DeSautelle 2012 – current Graduate Student Mentoring and Advising Dr. Peter Mikulecky Dr. Amy Kerzmann Dr. Taewoo Lee Zhanetta Astakova Dr. Salim Nilshad Dr. Stephanie Kern Sanofar Abdeen Dandan Li Martha Mahaney Rebecca Swett Iresha Rathnayake Amit Kumar 2001 – Aug. 2005 - Thermodynamics of RNA Structural Changes 2002 – June. 2009 - Mechanistic Analysis of C. difficile Toxin A 2003 – Aug. 2008 – Studies on Hfq-Ribonucleoprotein Complexes 2006 departed after 1 term, no degree 2006 - 2011 2006 – 2012 2007 – present 2007 - present 2007 – present 2008 – present 2008 – present 2009 – present Mentoring of Post-doctoral Associates Dr. Sudeep Bhattacharyay Dr. Tuhina Banerjee Dr. Yutaka Komine 2000 – 2002 2006 – 2007 2006 - 2007 6 III. Evidence of Teaching Effectiveness i. Pre- and post-test comparisons to assess learning gains Most semesters, I administer a pre-test on the first day of class. Students are reassured that the placement quiz does not count and they are not necessarily expected to score well on the exercise. Unbeknownst to the students, the last quiz of the term is identical to the entry quiz and serves as a post-test. This allows me to assess the learning gains of my students over the course of the semester. Learning gains are calculated using eq. 1 where I is the improvement, Spost is the score on the post test and Spre is the score on the pre-test. 𝐼= !!"#$ !!!"# !!!!"# eq. 1 In 6620, the average learning gain over the 2 years I taught the course was 0.51. In the physics community, learning gains in traditional lecture courses are often around 0.23 ± 0.04 whereas active engagement courses score substantially higher, 0.48 ± 0.141. Thus, 0.51 fairs quite well relative to other courses. More importantly, however, this analysis allows me to break down the information more finely, looking at individual questions and topics to determine which units were more or less effective than others. Knowing where I am being effective as an educator is quite important as it allows me to adjust my teaching methods the next time I teach the course. ii. Dissertation/Theses & Placement of Graduates: 1. Amy Kerzmann, Ph.D. Mechanistic Analysis of Clostridium difficile Toxin A, 2009 2. Iresha Rathnayake, M.S. Role of RhlE and Hfq in sRNA-dependent Gene Regulation, 2010 3. Nilshad Salim, Ph.D. Modes and Mechanisms of Hfq Mediated Gene Regulation in Bacteria, 2011. 4. Stephanie Kern, Ph.D. Development of a Cargo Delivery System and Inhibition Studies Focused on Clostridium Difficile Toxin A, 2012. iii. Awards Won by Students Under My Direction: 1. Jane Philip – 2009 Merck and Company Award in Biochemistry 2. Nilshad Salim – 2009, Best Poster at the MI RNA Meeting 3. Dandan Li – 2011/2012 A. Paul and Carol C. Schaap Distinguished Graduate Stipend 4. Nilshad Salim – 2011 Heller Award for Best Biochemistry Graduate Student in the Chemistry Department 5. Rebecca Swett, 2011 Graduate School Citation for Excellence in Teaching 1 R.R. Hake, "Interactive-engagement vs traditional methods: A six-thousand-student survey of mechanics test data for introductory physics courses," Am. J. Phys. 66, 64- 74 (1998) 7 6. Dandan Li 2011 Departmental Citation for Excellence in Teaching Service 7. Rebecca Swett – 2011/2012 Rumble Fellow 8. Dandan Li –2012 Herbert K. Livingston Award for Excellence in Teaching 9. Martha Faner, 2012 Graduate School Citation for Excellence in Teaching 10. Rebecca Swett, 2012/2013 Rumble Fellow 11. Martha Faner, 2012 Eli Lilly Travel Award iv. Student Publications (students and postdoctoral researchers of Andrew Feig indicated in bold font, Undergraduates in italics): 1. Sweet, RJ, Cisneros, GA, Feig, AL. (2012) Conformational Analysis of Clostridium difficile Toxin B and its Implications for Substrate Recognition PLOS One. Submitted for Publication 2. Salim, NN, Faner, MA, Philip, J and Feig, AL (2012) Requirement of Upstream Hfq Binding (ARN)x Elements in glmS and the Hfq C-Terminal Region for GlmS Upregulation by sRNAs GlmZ and GlmY. Nucl. Acids Res. In Press. 3. Salim, N. Lamichhane, Zhao, R. Banerjee, T. R. Philip, J, Rueda, D and Feig, AL. Thermodynamic and Kinetic Analysis of an RNA Kissing Interaction and its Resolution into an Extended Duplex. (2012) Biophys. J. In press. doi:10.1016/j.bpj.2011.12.052 4. Kern, SM and Feig, AL. (2011) Adaptation of Clostridium difficile toxin A for use as a protein translocation system. Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun.405(4) 570-574. doi:10.1016/j.bbrc.2011.01.070. 5. Abdeen, SJ, Swett, RJ, and Feig, AL. (2010) Peptide inhibitors targeting Clostridium difficile toxins A and B, ACS Chem Biol 5, 1097-1103. 6. Salim NN, Feig AL. (2010) An upstream Hfq binding site in the fhlA mRNA leader region facilitates the OxyS-fhlA interaction. PLoS One. 2010 Sep 28;5(9). pii: e13028. PMID: 20927406 7. Salim, NN and Feig, AL. Isothermal Titration Calorimetry of RNA. (2009) Methods. 47, 198-205. iv. Student Presentations at Regional and National Conferences (students and postdoctoral researchers of Andrew Feig indicated in bold font, undergraduate students in italic font, presenter underlined): 1. Nilshad Salim, Jane Philip and Andrew Feig. An Upstream Hfq Binding Site in the fhlA mRNA Leader Region Facilitates the OxyS-fhlA Interaction 14th RNA Society Meeting, Madison, WI, May 2009 (Talk) 8 2. Dandan Li and Andrew L. Feig RNA-directed DNA methylation regulates gene expression during cold shock in bacteria Michigan RNA Society Meeting, East Lansing, MI, March 2010 (Poster) 3. Martha Faner*, Rebecca Swett, and Andrew Feig. Investigating a Putative Hfq Binding Site in the 5’UTR of mRNAs in E. coli. Michigan RNA Society Meeting, East Lansing, MI, March 2010 (Poster) 4. Dandan Li and Andrew L. Feig* Does RNA Directed DNA Methylation Occur in Bacterial Systems? DNA Methylation 16th RNA Society Meeting, Kyoto, Japan, June 2011 (Poster) 5. Martha Faner, Nilshad Salim, Rebecca Swett and Andrew L. Feig* Ubiquity of Hfq Binding Sites Within the mRNA 5’UTRs of Regulated mRNAs, 16th RNA Society Meeting, Kyoto, Japan, June 2011 (Talk) 6. Rebecca Swett, G. Andres Cisneros and Andrew L. Feig Computational investigations into the flexibility and molecular motions of Clostridium difficile Toxin B. National ACS Meeting, San Diego, CA, March, 2012 (poster) 7. Rebecca Swett, Sanofar Abdeen, G. Andres Cisneros and Andrew L. Feig Investigation of peptide inhibitors of Clostridium Difficile Toxin B: Differentiating between mechanisms by computational methods National ACS Meeting, San Diego, CA, March, 2012 (poster) 8. Martha Faner, Rebecca Swett, Amit Kumar, Cassandra Joiner and Andrew L. Feig. Presence of Hfq Binding Site Facilitates Identification of Functionally Important mRNA Targets 17th RNA Society Meeting, Ann Arbor, MI, May 2012 9 IV. Contributions to Course and Curricular Development Research Ethics (CHM7740) For many years, I have had annual research ethics discussions during group meeting. At these sessions, we worked on case studies and used it as an opportunity to have frank discussions on expectations and standards within the lab. These discussions provide students and post-docs with a framework regarding how to approach ethically gray situations and how to think about stakeholders and potential actions in response to situations they might encounter. Starting in F2008, we took this to a wider audience and I moderated a discussion of this type at the department level. Using a biochemistry research seminar slot, we invited all of the biochemistry lab groups as well as any additional labs that wanted to join us for a discussion of 4 ethics case studies. The cases were provided in advance and the discussions were animated and seemingly quite successful. We will continue to have these sessions annually to ensure all new students are exposed to our expectations and to foster continued discussion at the department wide level of proper comportment within laboratories and research groups. This has now developed into a new curriculum component based on CHM7740 (described above), which is a new course, all graduate students in the WSU chemistry department are required to take. CHM6635 – Tools of Molecular Biology When I first taught CHM6635 in 2009, it was an original course developed for the new Biochemistry and Chemical Biology Major offered through the chemistry department. This course accompanies the laboratory curriculum but has somewhat different aims. In its current incarnation, the biochemistry lab provides relatively canned experimental experiences. The laboratories are designed in advanced and students can carryout the exercises by simply following the step-by-step experimental procedures provided. While the lab curriculum offers the students the opportunity to try things with their hands, it has little opportunity for inquiry-based experiences and does not require the students to actual design experiments to test hypotheses the way they would have to in a research lab. The goal of CHM6635 is to help bridge this divide and teach students to develop their experimental design skills. The course revolves around design of biochemical experiments. Exercises challenge the students to think about real experiences that they might encounter in the laboratory and then design the experiment from ground zero. While they don’t have to actually perform the experiments with their hands, they get graded on whether their design is likely to achieve the stated aim. It forces them to think about the minute details required to properly plan a complex experiment (such as purification of a protein or amplification of a specific gene from the human genome) and make experimental decisions regarding the best approach to achieve a particular experimental aim. Class time is broken into segments where teams of students actually work on design problems and then the class reconvenes to discuss the approaches used by the different groups. Students are also taught to use product literature and research articles to evaluate procedures and use this information to assist them in designing experimental protocols. 10 Examples of breakout sessions in 6635: • • • • • Designing of PCR primers to amplify the coding sequence of Green Fluorescent protein. Designing site-directed mutagenesis primers to convert GFP into Yellow Fluorescent protein (YFP). Executing and interpreting BLAST and CLUSTAL alignments (done in a computer lab) Molecular visualization of proteins using JMOL. Designing FRET Experiments Examples of breakout sessions in 6620 and 5600 • • • • Exploring Watson-Crick and non-Watson-Crick base pairing using nucleotides printed on transparencies to discover the origin of the major and minor grooves Exploration of how proteins interact with the Hoogstein Face of DNAs via major groove interactions Exploration of TCA cycle reactions using colored paper clips (4 red clips representing oxaloacetate and 2 silver clips to represent Acetyl-CoA) to trace the carbons through the chemical reactions Assessing the importance and function of Telomeres in the end-replication problem Examples of Student work from CHM5600 Creative Projects When I have taught CHM5600, I usually use a creative project as the capstone assignment to the course. In Winter 2007, students were asked to represent the process of translation in a creative medium. They then had to write a one page essay to accompany the work, explaining it (if not immediately obvious) and describing where creative license was taken such that what was shown was not completely accurate. Students were allowed to work in small groups on more complicated projects. I received several songs, several videos as well as a number of multimedia pieces. The folder labeled Appendix F contains 3 of the songs that were recorded by my students as part of this project. The song by John DeVries was particularly well done. One of the groups posted their video on YouTube. It can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XV3H71ygUi0. 11 V. Efforts to Improve Teaching Annual Cottrell Conference I participate in the annual Cottrell Conference in Tucson, Arizona. This conference attracts chemists, physicists and astronomers, all teacher scholars and all current or former recipients of the Cottrell Scholars Award. This 3-day conference involves active workshops on new pedagogies and initiatives aimed at transforming STEM education through research based teaching practices. It also brings to the table many of the stakeholders from non-profit organizations spearheading education initiatives to provide an active discussion on how we can work together toward achieving our common goals. Recent reading on STEM teaching and pedagogy: Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses. Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2011 Student Engagement Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty. Elizabeth Barkley, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 2009 The Formation of Scholars: Rethinking Doctoral Education for the Twenty-First Century, George Walker, Chris M. Golde, Laura Jones, Andrea Conklin Bueschel, Pat Hutchings. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 2008. Envisioning the Future of Doctoral Education: Preparing Stewards of the Discipline Carnegie Essays on the Doctorate. Chris Golde (Editor), George Walker (Editor) Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 2006. Bio2010: Transforming Undergraduate Education for Future Research Biologists. National Academy of Sciences Press, 2003 VI. Teaching Service at the University and at the National Level A. Teaching Service: Departmental, College, and University • Worked with CLAS faculty committee to select standard clicker systems on campus • Microteaching Group Leader for new graduate students • Advisory Board Member, WSU Office of Post-doctoral Affairs B. Teaching Service: Community Outreach • Demonstrations for the Novi Community Schools 2009, 2010 • Intel International Science and Engineer Fair, Grand Prize Judge, 2012 C. Teaching Service: National Programs • Pedagogical Publications and Presentations I have published two pedagogical papers (see attached Bibliography). The first describes the incorporation of bioinformatics in the undergraduate curriculum and the 12 second focuses on observations regarding inquiry–based methods in the classroom. I have also presented 7 talks at national meetings on the topic of inquiry–based teaching and assessment of curricular reform projects and was presented the Keynote Lecture at the 2004 Great Lakes Colleges Association Workshop on Bioinformatics. • Pedagogical Development Projects While at Indiana University, I served as co–PI on a 4–year grant funded by HHMI to implement experimental curriculum in life–sciences education. I had two main responsibilities in this program. I helped develop the Integrated Freshman Learning Environment (IFLE) curriculum that replaced introductory courses with an interdisciplinary inquiry–based 2–term sequence that taught students basic topics through experimental design and problem solving. The curriculum addressed common problems in biology at the levels of subcellular biochemistry, cell/molecular biology and systems biology. I also oversaw the Biochemistry CAPSTONE program that encouraged undergraduate research and provided monetary support for students during their Jr. and Sr. years. • New Faculty Workshops in Chemistry Together with Prof. Rory Waterman at University of Vermont, I have been awarded a grant from Research Corporation for Science Advancement to start new faculty development workshops to help young faculty develop as Teacher-Scholars. These workshops have garnered additional support from the Education Division of the American Chemical Society. Modeled after the AAPT New Faculty program for Physicists and Astronomers, this program will focus heavily on training new faculty from across the country on how to implement interactive pedagogies and scientific teaching in their own classrooms. The first workshop will take place in Washington, D.C. on Aug. 8-10, 2012. For more information on this program, see the website for this workshop, which can be found at: http://csc.rescorp.org/facultyworkshop/index.html. 13
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