Teaching Philosophy Manning

As I develop my neuroscience teaching skills, my goals in the classroom is to provide a

foundation of governing principles in neuroscience, to foster critical thinking, and above
all practice good teamwork. Too often, undergraduate students course of study creates
narrow foci of study such that students cannot parse information which may relevant to
solving real-world problems. This is concerning as many neuroscience classes are full
of future medical students and problem solving is essential in their future careers. To
promote critical thinking in the future, one aspect of my teaching to incorporate case
studies and problem-based learning (PBL) strategies into the structure of the classroom.
One objective independent of the content is that PBLs will force decision making in the
face of uncertainty and encourage justifications for those decisions.

Ultimately, I hope each student gains proficiency in defending their PBL decisions. To
facilitate these skills, I will incorporate these PBLs as group work. These will lend well to
both laboratory and smaller breakout sessions in lecture. I will have students form
formal groups of four or five with discrete roles. The roles within the group will rotate
over the course of the semester and generally constitute a spokesperson, a notetaker,
alternative hypothesis generator, and a fact-checker. This promotes engagement by all
individuals, practice at different skill sets, and facilitates thinking about multiple possible
solutions.

While group work is widely considered undesirable by many students, I have observed
during my TAship that it facilitates discussion on the subject matter and helps combat
common misconceptions. In addition, I have learned that there are a few easy
considerations to make group projects less frustrating for students. In my future
teaching for example, after the groups are formed all teams will write up a contract. This
will explicitly define expectations and consequences for failed expectations, as well as a
conflict management plan. The contracts will be signed all group members. I want to
hold students accountable to their work as well. One of the common complaints in
unstructured groups is slacking by a group member. To combat this, in the group work
scheduled after exams, the groups will write up each members respective contributions.
Furthermore, I will stress the importance of working together as in both medical school
and in research people continue to work together, and success is often dependent on
your colleagues.

With both PBL and group work strategies in mind, in basic neuroscience classes I will
guide students through the molecular biology of synaptic signaling, the components of a
basic neural circuit, and the gross anatomy associated with our understanding of how
we perceive and interact with the world. These three components are traditionally
presented in that order. However, I will first introduce gross brain anatomy by using
whole brains from the neuroanatomy labs and from my own work or a 3D brain atlas,
available online. I will then introduce the molecular biology of the synapse which are
typically taught through diagrams, but Ive become intrigued by the concept of modeling
these processes through simulations or using pipe cleaners and beads. Lastly, I will
discuss the neural circuit, which is the most complex concept to convey is the neural
circuit, since its actions are completely dependent upon the connectivity and molecular
biology. The physicality of the circuits may be visualized by the 3D brain atlas, but
describing its function will require extensive modeling, either simulation or pipe
cleaners. By recognizing that students are more familiar with the macroscopic brain I
can nest the course information within a larger, familiar, framework and reference earlier
topics. By examining both macroscopic and microscopic perspectives of neuroscience,
students will develop an intuition of the neurobiological correlates of the human mind
and an understanding of some common perturbations of the brain.

To assess the depth of understanding, I will assess students performance using

informal surveys in the classroom and graded PBLs. On the exams, the majority of the
questions will be multiple-choice knowledge checks with a few asking several open-
ended questions which require a documented evaluation of the problem throughout the
semester. I firmly believe that the brain is one of the last frontiers which many people
are compelled to interrogate through philosophical and physical means. Its import
cannot be overstated, as it is through this organ that humanity interacts with the world.
As many neuroscience students are pre-medical students, psychologists-in-training, or
even computer scientists building neural networks, learning both physical neurobiology
and how to make and justify decisions will benefit students by priming them for their
future studies.