Monthly Archives: September 2012

“There’s no ‘I’ in ‘team’, Dr. J.”  At least one student offers me this comment every semester I teach in SCALE-UP. Most of the students, especially the athletes, are sincere, but often, there is a hint of sarcasm dished up with the mantra.

Boston Red Sox team photo at 1912 World Series

Teamwork. It’s one of the fundamental learning outcomes for this course. We draw upon loads of psychological and educational research to create the best possible opportunity for functional team experiences. Teams of three works best, or so I’m told. The tables must be exactly seven feet in diameter. Any smaller, the students will get crowded and crabby. Any larger, the distance across the table will feel too far for intimate discussion. Just give them one networked laptop. Then they will have to work together. The approach to teaching teamwork is all very scientific. I like that. I’m a scientist after all.

A scientist. “Scientists are team players”, I tell my students. “We have to be, especially in the 21st century where solving the ‘big’ problems in the world –  related to hunger, water, disease, energy – will require multidisciplinary approaches.” Sounds great. But does the culture of science truly embrace teamwork? Do I?

What has me wondering and worrying about teamwork is this post by Maria Popova in her Brain Pickings blog. Popova reminds us what talents from Steve Wozniak to Stephen King have reminded us: that the creative process requires significant amounts of solitude.

I cannot argue with that view.  My Myers-Briggs profile:  INFJ, emphasis on the I. Like Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Ghandi and Hitler. Notable people to be sure, but not exactly team players.

sunrise runs… just me and the cattle

I cherish alone time – to think, to dream and to write. I run and cycle for hours at a time, bringing myself as remote as I dare, almost hoping to get lost, out of cell phone range and thus truly unreachable for a spell that never feels quite long enough. I’ll wake up at 5, 4:30 even 4 in the morning to catch the stillest of hours, when even my dog cannot be bothered to bother me. I love staying in hotel rooms in unfamiliar towns, where nobody knows my name, and still, I might hide in the bathroom to work.

I love my family, my colleagues, and people and dogs in general. And undoubtedly, my best ideas about cell biology, education and a host of other subjects were not developed in a vacuum. SCALE-UP, blogging, and Course Networking were not my inventions, although I hope that I can bring something original to their application. Like many scientists, I am fascinated by complex problems and understand that the solutions are beyond my grasp or that of any individual. I love learning from people whose domain knowledge exceeds mine on just about any topic from physics to art to poetry. And I love sharing my own expertise with anyone who truly cares. More than just about anything, I love synchronicity, which happens with far greater frequency when I spend time with diverse and interesting people.

But I also need time alone. Time for my neurons to arrange all the disparate puzzle pieces gathered from social, multi-disciplinary endeavors into a construction that has meaning  and matters to me. Time to create something of value to share with my colleagues, my teammates. Ironically, blogging, a medium that could hardly be any more public, has become that opportunity for solitude and deep introspection.

So to my students: while I don’t apologize for making you work in teams, I do understand how difficult it can be. I’m happy to talk with you about this anytime. Just come to my office, up on the top floor of Derring,  way down the hall, nestled all the way in the back, where it’s nice and quiet and you’ll likely find me all by myself.

In just about every relevant context, I’ve always maintained that it’s the people who matter, not the place. A vibrant religious community depends upon the faith and character of its members, not upon the grandness of its temple. And I’ve always felt that learning communities should be able to thrive in any place where two or more curious individuals with sufficient freedom or courage find one another. There are so many examples where this is true.

I don’t what these Sudanese girls are studying, but sign me up!

Regardless of the subject and whether we are fully aware of this or not, we as learners shape not only the context in which we learn but also the very content. If I were ever to re-take a class in Western literature, I’d like to take it with Azar Nafisi.

I’ve probably read The Great Gatsby a dozen times, but I’m certain that I would find new meaning in just about every page if I were to gather with Nafisi’s students in her living room, shades drawn, and read Fitzgerald through their eyes.

Certainly people shape the leaning experience and culture shapes people, but what about the physical environs? If I try to solve quadratic equations sitting in my office or Starbucks or a crowded terminal at Dulles International Airport, will I be equally successful? For me, I’ve always felt the answer was yes. When I’ve got work to do, I focus, hyper-focus actually, and become oblivious to my surroundings. Remember the 5.8 earthquake we had in Virginia last August? I don’t.

Even after building the SCALE-UP classroom and witnessing for two-going-on-three years the almost miraculous transformation in attitude and aptitude for learning that takes place in this setting, I remain a skeptic that it is the place that makes the difference.  To be honest, I’ve come to take this amazing learning space for granted – until now- when I may actually have to go back.

Back to a conventional classroom – a lecture hall – where every student faces forward – all eyes on the teacher – on me – expecting me to do something brilliant – or at the very least entertaining.

Next semester, after I’ve transitioned from associate dean who can teach whatever I want, wherever I want, to a rank-and-file professor who teaches what I am asked, I may not have SCALE-UP at my disposal. I’ve been asked to teach Cancer Biology, and I’m thrilled with the subject and the potential of teaching students in a 4000-level course with whom I’ve worked before in my 2000-level class. I’ve been told to expect 100 to 120 students. That’s great, except that we don’t have a SCALE-UP class that large. And I won’t be associate dean anymore. I may not be able to make a few phone calls and score one of the few flexible large classrooms on campus.  Maybe they’ll put me in McBryde 100.

Oh no! McBryde 100.

Maybe space does matter, at least in part. But people matter more. Of that I am certain. Perhaps my students, the ones with whom I am sharing time and space in SCALE-UP this fall, can help me figure out the what, how, and where for creating an equally vibrant learning experience for Cancer Biology class next spring.