Reflect on your education from grade school to grad school and describe one memorable learning experience. It is difficult to find a single influential experience. My parents are biologists, and I was hooked on science from an early age, both from their influence and from attending the Children's School of Science in Woods Hole over many summers. The most memorable experience from graduate school was teaching neurophysiology to small groups of dedicated students in settings such as the Shoals Marine Laboratory. What made all of these experiences successful, I believe, is that they combined hands-on activities with strong scientific content.
Scientists approach a problem by asking questions.
I am convinced that hands-on activities are the best way to get students interested in science. Such activities must be combined with strong intellectual content, so that students learn from what they do, as well as enjoying it. In the neurophysiology labs I have taught with Bruce Johnson at Cornell and elsewhere, we emphasize data collection, experimentation, and quantitative analysis along with the skills of dissection and neural recording. In the CD-ROM of psychology lab exercises that I am currently working on, I face the challenge of developing material that not only grasps the attention of a student but also provides experience with experimental and quantitative methods. I see three major areas of challenge.