I've had the pleasure this past summer to run this neuroscience camp for students in grades 6-11 for three weeks! The daily schedule begins with some ice breakers each morning, before we delve into a short (yet interesting!) lesson on something related to the brain. We intersperse mindfulness breaks in between the blocks of time, and after lunch, we usually have a guest speaker come in and engage the students with their life stories and lessons. For two weeks, we also had the pleasure of collaborating with Summer Up, an initiative designed to bring Black youth into the science field.
To me, this is what school should be about. I loved seeing how excited the students were to learn about the brain; to ask questions that they may not have been able to ask in class, and to learn about topics that aren't readily covered in a biology course. Neuroscience has this "jargony" and "exclusive" atmosphere to it, such that many students had this misconception that it's only meant for the elite. Throughout the week, the students get to work in a group that shares a common research question and work together to deliver a stellar presentation to their parents/guardians, the instructors, their peers, as well as the principal of UTS (Bright Lights in the Lab is a UTS collaboration). It was amazing seeing the types of controls each group thought about and how to make their experiment more fair. These critical thinking skills are transferable to any experience in the real world too. What was once thought as "rigorous" school work and "homework" turned out to be a fascinating experience for the students where they get to take control of their own learning, design their own experiments, make mistakes, and know what science is really about. It's not about getting it perfect. It's not about scoring that next Nobel Prize. Science is messy; it's about investigating the unknown, and it all starts with a curious mind. When school typically attaches a grade to certain assignments, students can feel discouraged from trying something new and failing at it because they don't want a low grade. Here, students are only led by their imagination and creativity. Many presentations wowed even the most "sciency" of guests, only leaving much to be desired in the Q & A section. There was a guest speaker who delivered the take home message to never say "I don't know." No one knows the answer to everything, but it's important to give an answer based on what you do know. Who knows, you can be closer to the answer than you may think. Learning happens when there's a surprise factor and/or discrepancy between what you know, and what is learned, not when the brain is a blank slate and teachers fill it with content. This is how school should be, and it's something that we should nurture in our students. Lastly, I also learned how to tag-teach along with 3 other instructors. One other instructor was my colleague, while another was the camp director who has been with Bright Lights for 7 years, and the last was a recent teacher graduate. I loved working with teachers from all different backgrounds and seeing how we mesh together as a team. When one of us may have forgotten something, the ZOOM private chat feature is nice because it allows something to be clarified without addressing the entire audience. 4 brains work better than 1. The coordination was interesting to work out in the first week especially as we got used to each other's teaching styles. Pretty soon, I could predict what the actions of my teaching partner was such that I could help them out. For example, if the next activity was break out rooms, I could create that through ZOOM while they were teaching. It was also brilliant when my colleague was put on the spot and delivered a lesson using a slideshow I had put together. I think it takes neuron connectivity (pun intended ;)) to synchronize together. I can imagine that it really helps in the classroom as teachers can help each other with notes, lesson plans, homework, tests, and forgotten material. Triangulation of test marks, and effective pedagogy is really useful here. Since I didn't have an actual practicum, this really helps me feel like I'm teaching in a classroom with a community of teachers behind me. My solo lessons as the main teacher for each week were the "Learning and Memory" lesson as well as the "Anatomy of a Presentation." I really wanted to engage the students in each of the lessons that we had as they've had a year and a half of online education already such that they must be pretty used and even bored of lectures. I recently got a puppy (who loves to learn absolutely everything I teach him - must be the power of positive reinforcement!) and decided to use him as a live demonstration during the "Learning and Memory" lesson with classical conditioning. Pavlov's dogs were a classic such that I could easily turn it into something engaging and practical for the students. It's always easier to learn when the instructor is engaging and there are practical examples to follow. For the "Anatomy of a Presentation" lesson, this was where we show students how they can jazz up their presentations as by this point in the week (Thursday), students would have already have most of their slideshow done in terms of content and experimentation. To drive the point home, I showed the students a video of the "Worst Presentation Ever." I thought the actor in the video was quite comical and his presentation was so bad (long blocks of text, back faced the audience, monotonous voice, disorganized slides, slides he wasn't sure why they were there etc.) that the students also found it amusing because they gave me plenty of responses as to what a great presentation should entail. During this part of the lesson, I changed it up each week depending on the age group of the students. For the youngest age group (grades 6-7), I provided a brief overview of the different types of graphs (circle, picto, bar, line) and what we can learn from it. I encouraged them to use a bar graph (hand written or through Google Slides which an instructor walked them through it individually) to display their data if possible. For the oldest age group (grades 10-11), I provided a Google Sheets tutorial on how to make different types of graphs. As we live in a world of digital literacy, it is important for students to know how to use different types of technology and the appropriate method to display their findings. I loved how each student shined in their own unique way. Some were very outspoken and wanted to be interviewed by UTS, others clearly explored and did research on this topic immensely on their own time, and others excelled at presenting. Each group walked away with a certificate at the end of the presentation focusing on the six global competencies. This was the toughest part of the week; selecting which group should receive which prize as every group truly was phenomenal either through their slide show, their presentation skills, their collaboration skills and how they helped each other conquer challenges along the way, and/or their research design. Who says scientists belong in the lab only? Who says they are older people who have experience in research? As long as students are curious and are eager to learn (something we should do a better job of promoting in the classroom), the world is their oyster. Link to "Learning and Memory": https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1V7FyYeIwKR9uGo0LuxvGjX8GrMGZ1aVnjZEyUqVidbE/edit#slide=id.gde98051ef8_0_1867 Link to "Anatomy of a Presentation": https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1vqCMeaMzoWev7VFEBxULcP888R9zAEpga2vGCDGH0kw/edit#slide=id.g6bd56c9061_0_750 Link to "Intro to memory" lesson where I created the slide show but someone else taught: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1__gtCwx615c9a5eX7LhuX-yl1J21IHoHYvrW16LUig4/edit
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AuthorHi! Thanks for taking the time to read about my journey. I hope you can take something from my experiences and share yours in return. Don't be shy! Archives
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