FAST Graduate Students Gain Insight into Scholarship of Teaching
Katherine Friedrich

Doctoral students at Michigan State University are gaining valuable teaching-as-research experience during CIRTL's first year-long fellowship program, FAST (Future Academic Scholars in Teaching). The program was designed by CIRTL's steering committee at MSU.

The FAST fellows - ten doctoral students from science
colleges - gather each month to discuss teaching techniques at a roundtable with faculty and guest speakers. The fellows also communicate through an online forum.

"They have a passion for really wanting to provide relevant information and provide the best pedagogy. It's exciting to hear them talk about it," said fisheries and wildlife professor Henry Campa. "The light will come on in the students' eyes."

When he was a junior faculty member, Campa participated in MSU's Lilly Teaching Fellows Program. "I kept thinking. wouldn't it be great to have a program like this for graduate students," he said. This idea led to CIRTL's development of FAST in 2006.

Working with a faculty mentor, each FAST fellow will carry out a small teaching-as-research project during the coming year. Fellows are given financial support so that they can share their results with the academic community.

"I'm very excited about my project," said Anne Axel, a FAST fellow from the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife. Axel teaches a study abroad course in Madagascar during the summer. This year, she plans to teach her students how to write journals on their perceptions of Madagascar 's nature and culture. She is still determining how to evaluate the success of the assignment. Axel has kept journals of her travels to the island since 1994.

Teaching-as-research has engaged Axel's curiosity. "I've never really thought of teaching as research," she said. "They really can be intertwined. You can see patterns.. It's wonderful!"

Campa is enthusiastic about the FAST Program's potential for helping doctoral students gain the experience and knowledge they need to be comfortable as faculty. "It's the type of interaction that I wish I would've had before I became a professor," he said.

November 7, 2006

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