Emily Jie-Ning Yang, Ph.D.

    As a scientist, I believe that teaching our next generation is our major responsibility for the society. In-depth, we should equip our next generation with abilities to identify interesting questions, know how and where to acquire information, and develop a reliable approach to answer your questions. 

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    In the classroom, I would like to convey an active and life-long learning attitude as the ultimate learning outcomes for my students. After all, the course material might not be actively practiced in their future life, but the learning attitudes and skills will be their valuable treasure to pursue answers for any question they may have. Moreover, I hope my teaching can inspire students’ curiosity for the world we live. To achieve these two goals, my course design includes many "flipped classroom" components, which require students reading assignments beforehand and involving in the in-class discussions (such as jigsaw style). After the discussion, the whole class will be gathered and students will share their conclusions/findings/questions for a reinforcement of the learning objective. This type of the flipped classroom techniques will improve students’ abilities in teamwork, presentation skills, responsibility, and self-confidence. An overview/blueprint of this type of learning activities will be explained at the beginning of the class to help students familiar with the concept and process, which will be reviewed again at the end of the class to emphasize the importance of active learning. I have utilized the Just-in-Time Teaching (JiTT), Immediate feedback assessment technique (IF-AT), and jigsaw activity for the laboratory class of molecular biology and the discussion section in cell and developmental biology courses. 

• JiTT was conducted by assigning internet-based or in-class quizzes, which is really effective for improving classroom involvement and students' comprehension. 

• IF-AT was implemented for further enhancing the learning experience. Students were grouped based on student’s background knowledge about biology. This method enhances student’s teamwork abilities, presentation, and explanation skills. 

• For the jigsaw activity, 15-17 students were assigned to different articles to read before the class, and then discuss the article they read with the “expert group” (all read the same article) before they join the “jigsaw group” to share the information in the article they read. In this activity, we discuss the ethical problems and concerns for a recently emerged genome editing tool, CRISPR. The in-class discussion was prosperous with many creative thoughts and feedback from students was really positive. 

I believe that by exposing these flipped classroom techniques, students can gradually build up an active learning attitude. The attitude will be the most important transferable skill for students to explore the world and upcoming challenges.

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    Though there are many teaching techniques to improve teaching theoretically, the actual learning efficiency might be different based on students’ demography and background knowledge level. My goal is to identify the best way to maximize the learning experience of students. In addition, a successful classroom relationship should include enough feedback for students to assess their own learning progress. I strive to provide different styles of informative assessments during the class to facilitate this goal. The informative assessments and feedbacks cards are essential for me to adjust the teaching strategies during the semester. I have tried to implement "2 minutes paper”, “clickers/poll everwhere”, “think-pair-share” in the class to gain instant information for student’s learning process, which can help me adjust the speed of the teaching and also the amount of the material. Moreover, I carefully prepare constructive questions to challenge them during the class, which is not only giving me information about their learning, but also help them to build up confidence for the course material. In addition, all the assignments (especially with short answer or essay style questions) will receive constructive comments to help student express their idea more scientifically and specifically. 

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    Communication should be two-way between a teacher and students. I believe that as a teacher, we have to put our feet into student’s shoes to guide them through the learning process. I always try to develop an encouraging environment for any questions from students. I want to let my student understand that there is no stupid question, and asking questions is the fastest way to learn new things. Hosting office hour/help desk is an effective way to encourage students seeking help when they feel struggle for the course material.

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    Design suitable assessments to evaluate students’ learning is essential for a good class. There is no perfect assessment for teaching but it all depends on the context. I am familiar with assessing both large gateway-level class (with 200-300 people) and small to medium class (with 20-50 people). For an entry level and big class, I utilize multiple responses with different themes. For an advanced level class, I prefer to use short-answer exam or assay to evaluate students’ learning. With carefully crafted questions, teachers should be able to assess wide-range of thinking levels. For any type of assessments, getting students ready for exams is important. I will provide enough practices for students to be familiar with the exam style, which should effectively relieve the anxiety level and also improve their performance in exams.

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    I believe that teaching is learning, which also benefits me while I am teaching my students. My commitment to education can be seen in various approaches that I did to improve the quality of my teaching. For example, I have taken multiple education classes to learn the fundamental of teaching and exemplified these techniques in my class. Moreover, I am actively involved in the undergraduate research program (HHMI Vertical Integrated Program and REU), which is mentoring undergraduates to gain research experience in the laboratory during summer. All of these activities are critical for my professional development and develop my teaching skills as a biology educator.