Scholthof wins teaching honor
Karen-Beth Scholthof uses literature and art to teach students about the human cost of disease.
Science professor experiments with writing
Karen-Beth Scholthof, a professor in the Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology, has won the 2008 W Course Teaching Award for her work in the course, “Pathogens, the Environment, and Society.” The $3,000 award, presented to Scholthof last November, recognized her spirit of innovation and unwavering commitment to improving her students’ writing.
Students in her course learn not only about the science behind some of history’s most notorious epidemics, but also—through Scholthof’s use of relevant fiction and poetry—discover the human consequences of these outbreaks.
The course’s heavy emphasis on reading and writing may be unusual for a science class, but the combination comes naturally to Scholthof.
“I don’t know any other way to teach,” she says, pointing to her own eclectic reading tastes and noting that even before the advent of W courses, she always assigned writing.
“I’m not interested in exams,” she says. “I don’t see the sense in rote memorization. I want my students to gain confidence that they have opinions and can defend their point of view.”
Scholthof finds students often lack that confidence and have genuine anxiety about writing. She tries to lessen their fear by making the first assignment worth only a few points and limiting it to 500 words.
She also works hard to earn their trust. She reads and comments on everything they write, including journal assignments they complete in class. As she reads, Scholthof marks errors, offers comments, asks questions, compliments good ideas, and even recommends additional reading students might enjoy. In essence, she treats each student as she might treat a valued colleague. It’s an approach that takes some students by surprise.
“I had one student who looked at his paper and said, ‘Wow, you actually read this.’ And I said, ‘Well, you wrote it, so why wouldn’t I read it?’” she recalls, laughing.
Scholthof isn’t the only one reading each student’s paper, though: after considering the idea for several semesters, Scholthof decided to add peer review to her course.
“I was reluctant to give up my lecture time,” she admits, but she now sees it differently.
“By the end of the course, the students had completely bought into the peer review process and were going on about how great it was,” she says. “Some of them were actually doing extra peer review, having their roommates read their work if they missed a session.”
During peer review, students read their paper aloud to two of their classmates. At one point Scholthof made reading aloud optional, but some students complained, saying that reading out loud was especially useful because it allowed them to hear problems they wouldn’t catch otherwise. When Scholthof’s students submit their final drafts, they also turn in a paragraph discussing how they’ve responded to their peers’ advice.
Now that she’s sold on peer review, Scholthof is contemplating additional changes to the course, including a possible wiki assignment. She compares refining the course to her work as a scientist.
“In the lab, you sometimes get surprising results, and that’s the direction you go,” she says. “You can’t stay locked in to just one idea.”
