Monday, November 15, 1999
Crying fowl
Noted writer named Franklin Professor
UGA entomologist, geneticist Lois Miller dies after long illness
Campus Closeup
Kudos
Campus Pulse
Ballet: Not easy by any stretch
When the teacher becomes the student. . .
The winners of UGA’s Study in a Second Discipline grants for this academic year were Mitchell Rothstein, an associate professor of mathematics, and Steve Oliver, an associate professor of science education. The grant releases the recipients from teaching and committee responsibilities for the year so that they can immerse themselves in another discipline. Rothstein is studying computer science and Oliver is working in genetics. Columns talked to the two of them recently about how their year is going.

By Beth Roberts

Columns: What are you actually doing this year?
Rothstein: I actually started last summer. Officially the program began in fall, but I taught myself some computer languages over the summer, as a warm-up. At the moment, I’m sitting in on several undergraduate courses. Next semester I hope to get into research-level issues, but for now I’m really just learning the basics. I’m dividing my time about 50-50 between doing that and doing the research I was doing before.

Oliver: I spend most of my time doing laboratory activities. Dr. Mary Case, an emeritus professor in genetics, is tutoring me, and we are together trying to begin sequencing the DNA on linkage group 3 of the little fungi called neurospora--bread mold. I’m learning laboratory techniques and learning what bench scientists do when they work in a lab all day.

Columns: What led you to apply?
Rothstein: There were two motivations for doing it.
I was on the curriculum committee for the math department and an idea came to us to have a new major in our department, a degree in mathematics with computer science. I thought it was a great idea. So the goal was in part to make myself an expert in computer science--to the extent that I could--so that I could be instrumental in putting this new degree program together. That was how I thought of applying.
But once I got the idea, it set up a chain reaction in my mind and I started to see all kinds of reasons to do it. I began to see how it related to some of the things that I was doing in my own research, and also to themes that I had been interested in much earlier in my mathematical career. I had originally been interested in logic, and I drifted away from that and became more interested in geometrical issues and applications to physics. But logic and computer science are extremely close, and I began to see a way of getting back to some of the earlier themes of my mathematical life. And as it happens, too, there’s nowadays a lot of interplay between certain aspects of mathematical physics and computer science--methods from statistical mechanics are used now to study problems of complexity, for example. So I’m confident that it will inform my thinking, and perhaps I will get into some specific research questions where I can really make a contribution in computer science.

Oliver: I have a degree in zoology, and I had always worked with larger vertebrates--I had some experience wandering around in the woods and doing the naturalist thing--and I really wanted to learn what a high-tech bench scientist does. One of the big deficiencies in science education is that the people who are training teachers don’t have a real grasp of what science is today. A lot of us were trained 25 years ago--or more--and we don’t understand the way science happens today. What Jonathan Arnold and Mary Case are doing in fungal genomics makes this lab an ideal place for me to come to understand this new area of science.
The way that I help teachers represent science, as they teach it, will be different because of this experience. The students in our program are very good students, but their view of science doesn’t have anything to do with inquiry--it has to do with facts. As we work with them to become science teachers, we try to shape their view of science, and I think this year will influence my ability to do that.
About two years ago, Jonathan Arnold called me one day--I’d never met him, but he needed someone to work on a proposal that he was putting together for the National Science Foundation for a science and technology center. The center was to have a substantial science-education component, and I had done some related kinds of work with teachers. That proposal didn’t get funded, but we’re going to try again. Ultimately we want to bring teachers to this center to join a community of scientists and educators and technicians, to participate in the research that’s going on here and take products back to their classroom--it’s a large and grandiose plan.
And one of the things we needed to know is: if we bring teachers here, and put them in this lab setting, what is it going to take for them to get something out of it? Will the level of technology and the mathematical components overpower the rest of the experience? With my background as a classroom biology teacher, I was an ideal guinea pig. We think it will be a great advantage to us in future teacher-enhancement work that I’ve spent this time over here.

Columns: And what will be the immediate result of this year’s study? Will you be writing a research paper? A book about the experience?
Oliver: That’s a good question. I’ve been talking to people about how I should share the results of this with the science-education community--and I’m not sure right now.
I gave a talk at a conference on Saturday and there was a lot of enthusiasm for this kind of experience. I think it has the potential for an important contribution. I’m just not sure what form it will take.

Rothstein: Certainly the best thing I could hope to do would be to publish some research. But in the meantime the courses I’m taking are teaching me a lot, and not only about computer science but also about teaching. I get to see the professors from the students’ point of view, and they do a really great job. Occasionally they make the same sorts of mistakes that I make, and it’s much easier for me to see it when they do it. So maybe I’ll be a better teacher. I’ll certainly be more understanding of what the undergraduates are going through. I’m taking four courses--and not for a grade--and it’s a lot of work. So my hat goes off to the students.

MORE INFO
Guidelines and applications for the Program of Study in a Second Discipline are available from Carol Winthrop, assistant VP for academic affairs, 103 Old College, 542-0415. Application deadline: Jan. 14.
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