Good science and good science mentoring:
Making the connection online
Claire Hemingway
Education Director, Botanical Society of America
Outcomes for you
•Explore/discuss scenarios and mentoring
strategies
•Introduction to mentoring in the BSA-led science
inquiry and mentorship program
•Invitation to join
What “burning questions”
did you bring?
Poll Question
My interest in plant science was
influenced by interactions with a key
individual (mentor) ?
YES
NO
Guiding Questions
•How did you learn to do good science?
•How can we as scientists help students learn to
do good science?
Brainstorm Activity I
What are some of the ways you learn
best now as a scientist?
Brainstorm Activity II
What are some of the ways you have
been mentored?
Effective ways
Ineffective ways
A perspective on mentoring
“Effective mentoring can be learned, but not
taught. Good mentors discover their own
objectives, methods, and styles by
mentoring. And mentoring. And mentoring
some more. Most faculty learn to mentor by
experimenting and analyzing success and
failure, and many say the process of
developing a effective methods of mentoring
takes years.”
Handelsman, J. et al. 2005 Entering Mentoring
Mentoring in the BSA-led inquiry and
mentorship program
Coming this fall
as…
Inquiry and Mentorship Program
Classrooms (middle school through college) nationwide
are linked via the web to explore a common topic
 Educators guide classroom component
 Students work in teams during ~2-week-long
experiments; post journal and results online
 Scientists and students engage in scientific dialogue
online
Observe
and explore
Ask more
questions
Reflect
on study
Ask
questions
Ask a question to answer
through investigation
Observe and
experiment
What is inquiry-based learning?
Less empha sis on
More empha sis on
Activities that demonstrate and verify science
content
Investigations competed in one class period
Process skills out of context
Getting an answer
Activities that investigate and analyze
Concluding inquiries with the result of the
experiment
Providing answers to questions about science
content
Private communication of student ideas and
conclusions to teacher
Investigations over extended periods
Process skills in context
Using evidence and strategies for developing
or revising an explanation
Applying the results of experiments to
scientific arguments and explanations
Communicating science explanations
Public communication of student ideas and
work to classmates
National Research Council 1996. National Science Education Standards. Washington DC.,
National Academy Press
Scientists helping students make
connections
How do experts differ from novices? Experts…
 Notice features and meaningful patterns
 Have acquired a great deal of content knowledge that
is organized in ways that reflect deep understanding
 Are able to flexibly retrieve important aspects of their
knowledge with little attentional effort
 Have knowledge that cannot be reduced to sets of
isolated facts
From NRC. (2000) How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and
School
What mentoring in this program is
NOT
Playing the role of
the
Classroom teacher
Ask the expert
What scientist mentors do
Make science relevant and exciting!
Effective mentors are motivated by the
desire to help students understand,
appreciate, and enjoy the subject matter
Talking with teams, scientists…
•encourage and confirm.
•respond to inquiry teams’ questions.
•provide advice about new experiments.
•suggest that students get more information.
•encourage scientific thinking.
•provide information about their science.
•embed factual information.
•embed information about the ways scientists do their
work.
•reveal information about the history and details of
scientific discovery.
(more info in the 2:45 pm Educator-Scientist
Mentoring Scenarios & Strategies
Consider how you would respond to students
Think/Pair/Share
Seed germination and seedling growth
inquiry
Scenario I:
What feedback would you give this high school research team
on their research question and prediction?
How would this response differ for
middle school / high school / college?
Popular but problematic questions
and experimental set ups
If students see a difference in germination and growth, how
will they identify which of the ingredients caused the change?
Scenario II:
How might you encourage the students to reveal what they
are observing, doing, and thinking? To elaborate why they
think nitrogen, phosphate, and potash are important to
Probing questions
•What do you see? What else do you see?
•What do you want to find out?
•Is this the most important question, or is
there an underlying question that is the real
issue?
•You seem to be inferring … Why do think the
inference holds up?
•What other information do you need?
•What from
effect
would
have
onthinking:
your results?
Adapted
Richard
Paulxxx
1993.
Critical
How to
prepare students for a rapidly changing world.
Common misconceptions 1. What
do students “know” about plants?
Food for a plant is either fertilizer or other plants
Plants get food from soil and water
Plants (like people) get food from many sources
Food is anything that helps an organism live or
is taken into the body
Sunlight is helpful to plant growth, but not
critical
Oxygen and carbon dioxide help plants breathe
Trees and grass are not plants
From Barman et al. (2006) American Biology Teacher 68(2): 73
II. What do educated adults
“know” about plants?
“Many mosses and fungi are also present in
Down House and the surrounding area. As a
replica of Darwin’s survey, scientists
deliberately left them out.
‘We didn’t include for instance mosses,’ said Gill
Stevens. ‘We actually followed Darwin’s
interests and it is just flowers, plants and
grasses.’”
From “Darwin’s steps map flower changes” BBC online
News
Brainstorm Activity III
Do you have a written statement on your
teaching philosophy?
Your mentoring philosophy?
Jot down 3 key points you might include.
How has your perception of mentoring
changed with experience, with reflection?
Challenges and tips for online
mentoring
•Asynchronous online format
-Send messages regularly, even if they do not
respond
-Respond promptly to mentee’s messages
-Be yourself
•Getting students to reveal their thinking
clearly/respond
-Ask only 1-2 questions at a time
-Be persistent, but gentle
Challenges and tips continued
•Working with young learners
-Avoid jargon
-Have realistic expectations for middle school,
high school, and college students
-Communicate with teachers about students
background knowledge and skill level
Concerns and Issues
Anything that we haven’t talked
about that you would like to?
Any “burning questions” you brought
with you that we haven’t addressed?
Resources
Using Sip3 Effectively to Mentor K-16 Students Online
www.plantbiology.org --click on scientists
Handelsman, J. et al. (2005) Entering Mentoring
www.hhmi.org/grants/pdf/labmanangement/entering_mentorin
g.pdf
Merkel, C.A. and S. M. Baker (2002) How to Mentor
Undergraduate Researchers.
www.cur.org
National Academy of Sciences (1997) Advisor, Teacher, Role
Model, Friend: On Being a Mentor to Students in Science and
Engineering
www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/mentor
2 ways to volunteer
•Scientist Mentor
•mentor 2-3 teams per session
•Master Plant Science Mentor
Team
•Mentor ~7 teams each in fall and
spring session (~2 hrs per week)
•Receive free BSA membership for
the year, 50% off meeting
registration, training in online
mentoring
Inquiry sessions last 2-4
weeks
Get your
PlantingScienc
e
T-shirt Now!
Master Plant Science
Mentor Team
To apply, please describe in a
personal statement (~2 paragraphs):
•Your interest/reason for wanting
to participate in the mentorship
team
•Your science mentorship and
outreach experience
Direct your applications or questions to:
Claire Hemingway, Education Director
Botanical Society of America
chemingway@botany.org
562-433-4057
We
encourage
graduate
students,
post-docs,
and
professors
emeriti to
join.
Questions | Comments | Want to know more?
Please contact:
Claire Hemingway,
Education Director
chemingway@botany.org
562-433-4047
And visit
www.plantbiology.org
www.plantingscience.org