Peer Teaching
Students Try on Role of Teacher
“Peer teaching is a ‘win-win-win’ situation,” says Francis Sailer, Ph.D. (MSCLS ’92, Ph.D. Microbiology and Immunology ’01), assistant professor of microbiology and immunology, Grand Forks. “It’s a ‘win’ for the graduate teaching assistants, a ‘win’ for the peer teachers, and a ‘win’ for the students they’re helping to teach.”
Peer teachers are undergraduate students who have completed the laboratory portion of the advanced microbiology course and excelled in it. Through an application process, they are selected to help teach that course alongside graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) and faculty members.
The peer teachers earn academic credit and gain experience in teaching, Sailer says. They also receive valuable, behind-the-scenes training in how the labs are set up in preparation for classes, and how supplies and media (what bacteria are grown on) are prepared and the use of modern classroom technologies.
“Peer teaching enhances students’ resumés and strengthens their application graduate school.” |
Since the program was initiated in 2003 with funding from the UND Office of Instructional Development, 23 students have participated in the peer teaching program.
“We choose the ones who are best-suited” to the role, she notes. “Most are pre-professional students, majoring in biology, nursing, pre-med, pre-dentistry or other medical fields.”
The study of microbiology “is very labor intensive,” Sailer notes. “It involves a lot of demonstration, explaining, mentoring... It can require one-on-one teaching, if the student needs help.”
Students in microbiology learn to become adept in the use of the microscope, sterile techniques, how to culture for an experiment, safety rules, the principles behind the experiment and how to interpret test results.
Generally, in the fall, about 120 students are accommodated in five labs and, in the spring, about 75 in three labs, she says. “A GTA in each lab only goes so far.”
Because peer teachers may be interacting with their roommates or friends, safeguards are built into the program to prevent them from being put into a “conflicted” position, Sailer says. They do not write or grade tests. They distribute their help among all students as needed.
“It’s really been a good program; and we’ve had really good feedback. Almost all (the peer teachers) strongly agree it’s been beneficial” for them. In their exit evaluation they’re invited to discuss what they liked about the program and offer suggestions.
“We’ve implemented a lot of their ideas,” she says.
Three peer teachers “have gone on to teach labs for us when we were short of lab teachers,” she adds, and two others have opted to continue doing laboratory research with faculty in microbiology and immunology.
“We’ve been extremely happy with their performance,” Sailer says. The program “has been a real success, I hope to continue it. As long as we have these big, full labs, the peer teaching program is very worthwhile for us.”
Students gain valuable experience
Kelsey Naze wants to be a pathology assistant – someone who works with autopsy cases, like the sort of character you’d see on the popular CSI TV series.
“When I was about seven I asked for a microscope,” says the sophomore from Adrian, ND. That gift launched her interest in the world of human biology only visible through a high-powered lense.
At UND, she’s majoring in cytotechnology, working toward a Bachelor of Science degree. If all goes as planned, that diploma will be placed in her hand in the spring of 2009. Her long-range plan is to work five years in the field of cytotechnology, a requirement to enter an advanced program for pathology assistants offered by a university out-of-state.
Experience as a peer teacher is part of reaching that goal, she says. It allows her “to build up references” that will strengthen her application to graduate school.
As peer teachers, “we’re seeing it from a different side; it’s been interesting to see what our TAs went through,” Naze says. “It’s been lots of fun.”
Peer teacher Margaret Oestreich, a nursing major and junior from Bemidji, MN, also wanted the experience for the sake of references. She is hoping, after graduation, to work in an AIDS clinic or with burn patients.
Margaret Flanagan, who is majoring in cytotechnology, says, “I really like microbiology and I wanted to see what it was like to teach. I want to be a college professor and a researcher one day.”
Peer teaching “changed my mind,” says the junior from Sebeka, MN. “I debated about (going on to) medical school...” Now she’s sure about her decision not to pursue a medical career because “I found something I like better.”
She has applied to enter the graduate program in UND’s Department of Microbiology and Immunology.
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