Author: Elizabeth Johnson-Young

What does it look like to bring cutting-edge biotechnology into an introductory classroom—and do it in a way that’s affordable, sustainable, and hands-on for every student? This month, our faculty spotlight features Dr. April Wynn and Dr. Ginny Morriss, who used a Center for Teaching Small Teaching Grant last summer to design and pilot a gene-editing lab for General Genetics. They shared this work at the fall Faculty Pedagogy Colloquium, and in this Q&A, they talk about how the project came to life, what students are learning from it, and where they hope to take it next. Along the way, they also reflect on the teachers who shaped them, the joy of “productive failure,” and a few fun questions we couldn’t resist asking.

Last summer, you all had a CfT Small Teaching Grant and presented about it during a Faculty Pedagogy Colloquium—can you tell us a little about this project? 

      One of the major draws for students to come to UMW is our emphasis on providing high-impact education and authentic laboratory experiences for our students that will better position them to be competitive in both their job searches and in admissions into graduate school and professional schools. Gene editing is becoming a standard technique in labs across the country. Since gene editing technologies are still relatively new, it is cost-prohibitive for large universities to allow students experience using these tools in their labs and this has previously been no different at UMW. Only students taking one of the two research-intensive courses that involve gene editing or working on independent research projects were able to utilize gene editing tools. We wanted to provide a way in which all students who major in biological sciences can gain experience using these tools, so our project was to design a low-cost, sustainable gene editing lab. This lab is integrated within one of our introductory courses, General Genetics, and taken by all biology students, all biochem students, and all pre-med students. We used the bacteria, E. coli, which is a standard model organism used in genetics labs and some other molecular biology tools to have students target and cut the E. coli DNA. Once cut, they repaired that DNA in a way that would create a non-functional enzyme whose function, or lack thereof, could be assessed using colorful indicators. Using these indicators, the students would be able to tell whether their gene editing was successful because the color of the indicator differs when the functional enzyme is present versus when the non-functional (edited) enzyme is present. We rolled out the gene editing lab during the Spring 2025 semester, with positive comments from students about the exercise. While we were piloting the lab with the students, we were also making small changes to the protocol and optimizing it so that we could make the lab even more resource-efficient than the pilot.

How has the incorporation of this work enhanced your classroom setting? 

      Students can learn complex technologies more effectively when they work with the technologies in a hands-on way. This lab enhances not only the ability to learn this emerging technology, but it also served to reinforce concepts learned in the prior labs, review new concepts learned in lecture, and connected the material to other biotechnologies we covered later in the semester in both lecture and lab. Additionally, this investment in staying on the cutting edge of emerging technologies, gives our curriculum relevance for our students. 

Do you have any further plans to continue? 

      Yes. When we started this project, we purchased the original bacteria and DNAs used and prepared them in a way that we could continue long-term use of these biological materials. This included freezing the bacteria in a way that it could be thawed and grown when more was needed and inserting the DNA into a different strain of bacteria that we could also freeze and grow more when needed, rather than re-purchasing. We also amplified the amount of the DNA for long-term storage and isolated the DNA from the special strain of bacteria we obtained from the project. We will have all of these DNA samples sequenced so we can use the system to edit other DNA targets. We will be first using the obtained sequences to have a URES student create a gene-edited strain of bacteria for use in another genetics laboratory exercise and to modify our current CRISPR lab. We will also use the sequenced plasmid DNA to design projects in BIOL 431 (Research in RNA Technology) that explore the function of other E. coli genes using gene editing.

Is there anything that stands out to you that has prepared you or continues to prepare you most for effective teaching?

AW: Talking to students about their experience before coming here, what they are doing in internships and external research and working with dedicated colleagues that take effective teaching seriously. Additionally, the availability of funding for trying new projects that will make the classroom more engaging allows for the space to try new things within the classroom.

GM: I would say that comparing notes with other faculty, whether within department or at professional development sessions, to get new ideas on how to approach certain topics or fun ways to teach any topic helps rethink the way I do things. 

Who was your favorite teacher?

AW: Dr. Pilcher – he taught biology classes and in his last year teaching taught a course on the History of Darwin. It was a great liberal-arts class combining biology, history and sociology. He had taught college for 40 years and cared about promoting learning from the first to the last day he taught. 

GM: There are too many to choose from, but if I could only choose 1, I’d say Dr. Staub, who showed me not only how much fun genetics could be, but also how showing compassion to the students when something seems off can change how they view interactions with faculty and higher education as a whole.

8:00 a.m. class or 4:00 p.m. class? 

AW: 4 pm – no brainer!

GM: I have to disagree with April, 8 am, hands down, is the only way to go when these are the only two options!

What is your dream class to teach? 

AW: A seminar on GMO plants – what worked and what didn’t!

GM: I already get to teach mine – RNA Technology. But, really anything that has to do with genetic engineering sounds like a fun time, even if it is with plants!

What is one piece of advice you’d give a brand-new faculty member? 

AW: Trust yourself! Remember that what you are teaching is new to the students it will be a challenge, and that is where the learning happens. 

GM: You are going to have some ideas that will fall flat with the students. Take the risk and learn the lesson. We become better when we can embrace productive failure.

What podcast, book, or show would you currently recommend?

AW: The Anxious Generation (book)

GM: Braiding Sweetgrass (book)

If you could take any class in the UMW catalog, what would it be? 

AW: Pretty much all the FSEM classes! Or psychopathology.

GM: Historic Preservation courses…so many of them!

What were you like as a student in college? 

AW: Overscheduled and overinvolved – loved every minute of it! That is why I never left the college atmosphere. 

GM: I was also overscheduled and overinvolved. That has not really changed much.

What does it take to write your own textbook—and make it freely available for others to use and build on? This month’s faculty spotlight features Dr. Caitie Finlayson from the Department of Geography, who used a Center for Teaching Small Teaching Grant to redesign her online Human Geography course around a new open educational resource (OER) textbook she authored. In this Q&A, Dr. Finlayson shares her goals for the project, advice for faculty interested in creating their own OERs, and some reflections on what keeps teaching fresh and fun.

Over the summer, you had a CfT small teaching grant. Can you tell us a little about the goal of that project? 

The small teaching grant was actually for a redesign of my summer online Human Geography course to better align with my new OER textbook. I’d previously written a brief Human Geography textbook but for a sabbatical project, had written a new version that was more comprehensive and was better aligned with AP Human Geography. My goal for the project was to comprehensively redesign my online course so I could use the new textbook, and to share the online course through Canvas Commons so other instructors could use it to build their own courses.

How have or do you anticipate student responses to this text? 

I haven’t used it in my own course yet, since it’s a summer course and I just revised it, but the response from instructors has been positive and the online textbook gets over 800 visitors per month, so momentum seems to be building for it. Since I’m publishing it on my own and don’t have the resources of a major publisher, I find it takes a bit of time for instructors to start switching over to an OER textbook.

Do you have any tips for faculty considering preparing their own OER text for their courses? 

I would just suggest that they go for it! Writing a textbook seems like an overwhelming task, but when you think about how many lecture notes and examples you have for your courses, especially if you’ve been teaching a while, it’s easier than you’d think. It’s also quite fun (I think) to write without a publisher pushing certain expectations or norms on you. So I was able to write all of my OER textbooks in a very conversational, engaging style and just approach it the way I wanted — not in the same, cookie-cutter way that every other textbook approached geography. And especially for my World Regional Geography textbook, it seems like it’s the kind of book other instructors wanted as well.

Is there anything that stands out to you that has prepared you or continues to prepare you most for effective teaching?

I attended a Teaching Professor conference with a Teaching Center grant early in my career and that was really inspiring. In particular, there was a session on “blue sky” thinking applied to teaching, and the idea of stripping away everything from your course and considering how you’d approach it if you had a totally blank slate. But I also took a lot of inspiration from Jim Lang’s “small teaching” workshop and the idea that sure, you could make radical changes to your teaching, but you could also make relatively minor tweaks that increases engagement and interaction.

Who was your favorite teacher? 

Dr. Peter Judge, who was my undergraduate advisor, was an outstanding teacher. I was a Philosophy and Religious Studies major and he was a former priest who became a professor (which is quite a cool trajectory). I’m the first in my family to attend college, and he was so encouraging, particularly of me conducting my own research and presenting at conferences, and he absolutely set me up for future academic success. He was also just quite fun and playful and clearly loved teaching, and that made his classes really engaging.

8:00 a.m. class or 4:00 p.m. class? 

Oh, 8:00 a.m. for sure. I’m definitely more of a morning person.

What is your dream class to teach? 

My dream class that I actually teach is Sacred Spaces. It’s cross-listed with Religious Studies and has a great mix of students and viewpoints and every time I teach it, I learn something new. My dream class that I wish I could teach would be on Pop Culture Geographies. I give a special lecture in my World Regional Geography class on Disney movie landscapes, and it would be so fun to teach a whole class where we explore pop culture from a geographic perspective.

What is one piece of advice you’d give a brand-new faculty member? 

It takes time to be a great teacher. And there isn’t a great substitute for time. It takes trying things, finding your voice, seeing what works and what doesn’t. The Center for Teaching is a great resource and there are great books on teaching, but I do think it just takes a lot of practice, just like anything else.

What podcast, book, or show would you currently recommend? 

Good Hang with Amy Poehler.

If you could take any class in the UMW catalog, what would it be? 

I did take classes! I took several Spanish classes and would love to continue with them.

What were you like as a student in college?

 I only went to college because I received a scholarship, so I was a really hard-working student because I felt like I’d been given this gift. I also had to work quite a lot outside of the classroom (I was the student manager of our campus dining hall) so I had to manage my time well. But I think that work ethic, and the undergraduate research experience I got in my major, really carried with me through graduate school.

What do historic preservation and podcasting have in common? A love for storytelling! This month’s faculty spotlight features two professors from the Historic Preservation department, Dr. Christine Henry and Dr. Andrea Smith, who are making history come alive—both in the classroom and through their own podcast. In their own unique style, they are giving us their faculty spotlight answers in podcast form. Check out the link below to hear them discuss why preservation matters, share hands-on experiences from the field, talk about their dream course (it involves an RV), and give advice to students interested in the field.

Check out their conversation and the transcript using this Dropbox link.

You can follow their podcast, “Verdigris with Rae & Andi”, via their website or wherever you get your favorite podcasts.

What drives an award-winning professor to forge meaningful connections with their students? How can a meme set the tone for learning? This month, we’re excited to spotlight Dr. Marcus Leppanen from the Department of Psychological Sciences, whose outstanding contributions earned him both the Young Faculty Award and the Mary W. Pinschmidt Award.

Over the past year, you’ve received both the Young Faculty Award and the Mary W. Pinschmidt Award, which highlight your exceptional teaching and ability to connect with students. What keeps you motivated in the classroom, and what do you think are the keys to building meaningful connections with your students?

While it might sound cliché, what keeps me motivated in the classroom is the students. I have had many days where I was not feeling up to going to a class, but after interacting with the students I almost always end up feeling better. Their genuine interest in learning and in me as a person really motivate me to give them my best effort. I think what helps with building meaningful connections is seeing the students as people first and students second. I try to start every class asking my students how they are doing (usually with a smattering of thumbs up or thumbs down in response) but when they ask me back it energizes me to have a good class. Equity in the classroom is important and having guidelines for students to follow is important, but there are ways to maintain those things while putting individuals first. My approach to teaching is to show the students that learning is fun and interesting, and that examples do not have to be boring. I think that attitude helps me to connect with them. I also think you have to want to be approachable and students pick up on that.

In what ways do you see your research and teaching informing one another?

I am trained as a cognitive psychologist. What that means is that I am interested in how people think and how thinking affects behavior. My graduate training and much of my research career has focused on memory. The goal of instructors is for students to learn, so having an understanding of what leads to stronger memories allows me to directly put my training into practice with how I develop assessments. At the same time, I am currently doing research looking at how eye movement behaviors during test taking are related to testing anxiety and test performance. I see how many students are anxious about testing in the classroom and have used those observations to drive a new line of research. I somewhat lucked into a career where my research and my teaching are pretty much directly related.

Can you share a time when you took a risk by trying something new in the classroom? What encouraged you to try it, and what was the outcome?

For me, one of the biggest risks I have taken was in how I assess my students. I was teaching my Cognitive Neuroscience class and really needing something to assess students on besides quizzes and a paper. I had never created a novel assignment from scratch before, but was encouraged by what I know about learning to make an assignment. I developed what I called a “Share the Knowledge” assignment. For the assignment, students are asked to have informal conversations with someone about what they are learning in class and then write a reflection on how it went, but also what it taught them about their own knowledge. The outcome of the assignment has been really exciting! The reflection papers are fun to read instead of the typical assignment we dread grading as faculty. Students seem to enjoy the activity and many will anecdotally write about how much they liked the practice of talking about class content. Students “accidentally” get exposed to different viewpoints through these conversations and they often notice that happening. I have also learned that the assignment is a low-stakes way to assess student writing while also being something that discourages the use of AI. I use the assignment in multiple classes because it is not about the content, it is about the process and the skills the students are practicing.

Is there anything that stands out to you that has prepared you or continues to prepare you most for effective teaching?

What has, and continues to, prepare me for effective teaching is having a group of colleagues who also care about teaching well. I find I am able to talk about my ideas to get feedback but that I also learn new ideas from talking with them.

Who was your favorite teacher?

I have had a lot of great teachers, but my favorite was Mr. Nelson. He was my High School earth sciences teacher. He always demonstrated a passion for his content while also taking the time to be interactive with his students. He made me laugh, but I also learned a lot. Because of him I almost went to college for Geology!

What is your favorite way to start a class?

I start all of my classes with a meme. I think getting students to chuckle about something unimportant at the start of class can help put them in a better mood for learning.

8 a.m. class or 4:00 p.m. class?

As someone who commutes 35 minutes to campus, definitely a 4:00pm class!

What is your favorite UMW class to teach? Why?

I think my favorite class to teach is Cognitive Neuroscience. I have always been fascinated by the brain and getting to talk to students about how biology is related to psychology is a fun challenge.

What would be your dream class to teach?

I would love to be able to teach a semester-long class just on memory. I was able to do that during my post-doc and it was great. There are so many nuances to how memory works that you just cannot get through in one week of class, so I would really enjoy getting to dive deeper into memory again.

What is one piece of advice you’d give a brand-new faculty member?

My biggest piece of advice would be to use the resources you have available to you and be curious. Many of the connections I have on campus have come from attending workshops put on by the Center for Teaching. Wanting to learn about how other people teach is a great way to improve your own teaching, feel more supported in a new environment, and develop connections within the campus community.

What podcast would you currently recommend? (or book/show/etc.)

I hate to admit I have only been reading fictional crime novels lately! James Patterson is always one of my go-tos.

If you could take any class in the UMW catalog, what would it be?

I recently learned that there is an American Studies class being taught about baseball that sounds absolutely fascinating to me. However, I have been told I need to wait until the next iteration before I do.

What were you like as a student in college?

I was a prototypical quiet student in college. I made a point to always show up to my classes, take notes, and get my work done on time, but I never raised my hand or participated unless I absolutely had to. I liked tests and thought of them as a way to challenge myself to see how much I knew about what I was learning. While my faculty never would have known, I enjoyed being in class and hearing an expert talk about something that was new to me. Learning is fun for me and that motivated me to try hard while I was in college.

Curious what keeps one of UMW’s 2024 award winning professors motivated and why he avoids both 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. classes? In this month’s faculty spotlight, Elizabeth interviews Dr. Kyle Schultz, Professor of Mathematics Education. Read on to learn about his approach to teaching and his practical advice for new faculty.

This year you were awarded the Graduate Faculty Award! What do you enjoy most about working with the graduate students in your program? What keeps you motivated? 

I enjoy my students’ passion and creativity in exploring their wonderings about teaching and learning. My background is in secondary mathematics education, but I work with graduate students from all content areas and grade bands to develop and carry out their research. As a result, I get to learn a lot about other fields of education through my students and their projects. Seeing the challenges they will face as teachers and knowing the rewards of the profession refreshes my sense of purpose and motivates me.

You are also a co-PI on the Noyce grant. For those of us that aren’t familiar with it, how would you describe the Noyce grant and purpose? Do you see an impact of the grant opportunity on your teaching and students? 

Our Noyce Grant, DISCOVER, is funded by the National Science Foundation and aims to recruit secondary teachers in STEM fields. Our goal is to get university students majoring in science, mathematics, or computer science to consider a career in teaching and provide informal opportunities for them to experience what it’s like to be a teacher. For students who become DISCOVER Scholars, our grant provides significant financial support ($24,000 during each of their junior and senior years), benefits such as professional memberships and personalized mentoring, and specialized coursework focused on STEM teaching, in return for a commitment to teach in a high-needs school district after graduation. We are currently seeking to connect with UMW and GCC freshmen and sophomores interested in more information about our upcoming cohorts of Scholars.

For me, the grant has provided the opportunity to develop a new course focusing on STEM teachers’ beliefs about the nature of their disciplines and about themselves as teachers. Beliefs form and change over a long time, so giving our Scholars opportunities to reflect upon their beliefs earlier in their licensure program is a great benefit to their professional development.

Is there anything that stands out to you that has prepared you or continues to prepare you most for effective teaching?

Unlike most of my non-COE colleagues across campus, my professional preparation focused on teaching. I was a high school teacher and coach prior to entering academia and learned a lot about effective teaching from my own education coursework and my students. One of the biggest factors that has helped me grow as a teacher is being able to reflect on my practice, experiment, recognize and accept failure, and learn from my mistakes.

Who was your favorite teacher?

I had five teachers, Dr. Bushyager (high school math), Drs. Hill and Kansky (teacher preparation), and Drs. Wilson and Kilpatrick (PhD program) that stood out. The traits they shared were patience, recognizing me as a person first and a student second, and expressing enthusiasm and encouragement when I shared my ideas.

What is your favorite way to start a class?

I like to ask my students how they are doing and if they want to share anything about their day or week. I like to share as well. Building community and trust is important.

8 a.m. class or 4:00 p.m. class?

With two elementary-aged boys, I try to avoid both. Earlier in my career, I would have said 4:00 pm, but I would probably choose 8:00 am now. The earliest class I’ve ever attended or taught was at 8:30 am, taught just this past spring.

What is your favorite UMW class to teach? Why?

I enjoy my undergraduate elementary mathematics courses, MATH 204 and EDUC 305. It is fun and rewarding to watch my students, particularly those who didn’t have good prior experiences with mathematics, discover that math makes sense and develop confidence in their ability to understand and teach it.

What is your dream class to teach?

I’m going to teach a new special topics course this spring focused on equitable teaching and assessment practices. A lot of what we do as teachers comes from practices established a long time ago, during the Industrial Revolution. In this class, we’re going to explore the origins of our current practices and how those practices can undermine the education of students from underrepresented and impoverished communities. Building on these understandings, we will explore ways to improve how we teach and assess so that all students are empowered to learn.

What is one piece of advice you’d give a brand-new faculty member?

Be careful about making commitments. It’s natural to want to fit in and agree to help out, and easy to overextend yourself. As safeguards, never agree to any request on the spot (ask for time to consider it) and keep a list of the people and requests you say “no” to. (Far from burning bridges, you’ll be surprised at how many folks will still seek you out for future collaboration).

What podcast would you currently recommend? (or book/show/etc.)

I like the podcast 99% Invisible. It focuses on essential architectural and design elements that go largely unnoticed. They recently did a 6-part series, Not Built for This, about how our current infrastructure is being challenged by climate change.

If you could take any class in the UMW catalog, what would it be?

I would like to learn more about music theory, maybe MUTH 191. I played bass in a band with friends a long time ago and was self-taught. I relied a lot on memorization and couldn’t improvise much because I didn’t understand how the notes, chords, and scales all fit together. As a music fan, I would like to better understand the compositional elements of the music I like.

What were you like as a student in college?

I was a student athlete as an undergraduate and was fairly disciplined about keeping up with my work. I majored in mathematics and statistics but my favorite courses tended to be in other areas (literature, art, philosophy, economics). This broad range of interests is a big part of why I felt drawn to and feel at home at UMW with its focus on the liberal arts