Teaching Philosophy Tim H. Lindblom

Biology is unique to no-one. The principles of biology apply to each person’s life and affect virtually every decision that person makes throughout his/her life. Therefore, much of my teaching philosophy stems from my desire to provide students with the intellectual tools to critically evaluate the oftentimes overwhelming wealth of information available today. I believe that these skills are important not only for those students who will pursue biology after graduation but also for those who pursue other disciplines. Additionally, I feel that the best way to fight the ever growing knowledge gap between the leading edge of science and society is education. The students we teach today will have a dramatic affect on science through their scientific awareness, allocation of donations, and impact on legislatures and science funding subcommittees. For these reasons, I am very interested in teaching and motivating not only the next generation of scientists and health professionals, but also future businesspeople, educators, writers, philosophers, and artists.

I believe that all students should become self regulated, autonomous learners. Factual presentation of data is an inherent and necessary component of any successful biology course. However, if a student is to get the best possible exposure to biology, he or she must seek out and obtain the answers to their own questions. To achieve this goal, I seek to motivate students through a variety of teaching methods. I have found that my most powerful tool as an educator is a personal enthusiasm for the subject material. As a scientist, I have a natural curiosity about the nature of biological systems. I try to pass this curiosity on to my students by showing them the relevance of the subject material. Oftentimes, this is straightforward, as I find students are easily engaged in the workings of the human body. In other situations, this may be more difficult. For example, not all students are readily engaged in thinking about cell division in early embryos, therefore, I demonstrate the relevance by starting this lecture with a discussion of the ethics of cloning humans. Once students see that the biology of the early embryo helps them understand and substantiate their own beliefs about human cloning, they become interesting in not only learning, but also understanding the fundamental cell biology of embryos. Hopefully, the skills that students acquire during this process will give them a desire and a means to seek out biological information and critically evaluate its fidelity and relevance after they leave my classroom.

Biology is not a stagnant pool of information from which students drink knowledge. Biology is dynamic and our ideas about biology are perpetually challenged and reinterpreted. A truly successful biology course reflects this vigorous discipline. When students become aware of unanswered questions and conflicting data, they will be engaged in the field and become active participants in biological dialogue. This is not to say that all students will become biologists, but that all students are already capable biologists; each exploring and evaluating their own environment from a variety of perspectives. Once students acknowledge their own inherent abilities and contributions, the study of biology will become an interesting and necessary part of their education. Once their own ideas of biological investigation begin to form, the use of inquiry based education becomes greatly facilitated. For example, once students begin to think of experimentation as a tool they can use to answer biological questions, laboratory courses become more meaningful experiences. I believe that coupled with excellent classroom information transfer, the laboratory is among the most powerful teaching tools available to biology educators.

Another method I use to teach students critical thinking skills is promoting their evaluation of the current biology literature. As a both an undergraduate and a graduate student, I was exposed to the current literature in an environment that expected personal evaluation and critique of the data and ideas presented by the authors. My teaching experiences thus far have not allowed me to utilize this technique in the classroom but I have successfully demonstrated this important skill to the undergraduates I have supervised in the laboratory in both Athens and Madison. I plan to adapt this teaching tool to the classroom environment so that students will be able to think critically about the literature presented in both peer reviewed journals and the popular literature. To accomplish this goal, I intend to require students to prepare reports on biologically related subjects of their choosing. I will encourage students to start with an article from the popular literature such as the New York Times science pages and then pursue the primary literature from which the article is written. In this way, students will recognize the strengths and weaknesses of both types of information sources and will learn to trust their own assessment of the presented data and ideas. This will equip both future biologists with a critical skill and non-scientists with the tools to make more educated choices about their own health care issues and societal concerns.

I consider writing skills to be an important part of a student’s biological training. As biologists, writing skills are vital for success in both obtaining research funding and also presenting discoveries and theories. Effective biology writing also demands a more intimate knowledge of the subject matter. By combining both writing and testing in my evaluation of a student’s performance, I can more accurately determine that student’s breadth of knowledge. Furthermore, this combined assessment allows students to communicate their knowledge in a variety of forms; both those that they are comfortable with and those that offer a more significant challenge. Finally, it is my hope that writing about biology will help students better evaluate what they read.

Although these pedagogical techniques are not the extent of the methods I intend to employ during my tenure as an educator, they are those that I feel most strongly about. By motivating students to personally engage biology, demonstrating that biology is a dynamic discipline with conclusions that are open for interpretation, requiring critical interpretations of the literature, and incorporating a heavy writing component in my teaching, I hope to train students to become intelligent, independent thinkers capable of adapting their thinking the ever-changing face of science.

Philosophically, I am aligned with smaller institutions where a personal investment in each individual student is not only possible, but is the norm. I believe Lyon College offers the kind of academic and intellectual environment where I can most effectively meet my academic goals. Further, I believe that my philosophy is not unlike that which has made Lyon College such a successful institution. I am excited about the possibility of teaching in the intellectually-charged environment of a school where teaching is a primary concern. In such an environment, I will be able to continue to improve my teaching abilities where I can have the maximum positive impact on those individuals who will shape the future of science and society.