Dr. Elizabeth Becker, associate professor of neuroscience at Lawrence University, has taken lessons in her Brain and Behavior laboratory class beyond campus. Nine students from Appleton East High School joined her students earlier this year for a series of collaborative sessions.
“They’re getting their hands on some of the different techniques, some of the behavioral assays, and even serving as a grant review panel for our students when they first present their ideas,” Becker said.
Brain and Behavior is a laboratory class in which students design a research project, then apply their questions to brain surgery on rats. The students are studying brain lesions in the rats.
“Some of the students want to understand what the resultant effect is and understand the brain-behavior relationship in greater detail," Becker said. "Other students are actually trying to see if they can recover function by using different drugs or different therapies.”
Nine Appleton East High School students observed lab work in the Brain and Behavior class. (Photo by Danny Damiani)
The idea for collaboration with Appleton East students came about when Becker noticed that even when students were excited about the class, the presentation element didn’t draw the same passion.
“I, as a scientist, regularly communicate my work, and I’m pretty excited about it, but it didn’t seem like they had that same level of enthusiasm,” she said. “And then I thought when I present, I’m going to a conference. I’m speaking to people who are really passionate about the same topics, or I’m educating the community.”
Becker pitched the idea of bringing high school students to campus to Karen Koss, who teaches psychology at Appleton East High School.
“The role of the high school students was to help the senior students practice translating their research goals and outcomes in such a way that is accessible to all people,” Koss said. “My students served as research assistants, observers, and even participants in the formulation, execution, and evaluation of the research projects of the college students.”
The collaboration was beneficial to both groups of students.
“My students benefited in several ways from this collaboration,” Koss said. “They were able to overcome their initial intimidation of the college environment and became comfortable. Some of the students who did not consider college in their future began to see that it could be a place where they belonged. Some of the students started to consider neuroscience, medicine, or other subjects as something that is possibly obtainable.”
For high school students who spend most of their time in the classroom, this also provided an opportunity to see the process of real research.
“Oftentimes in education, students are so focused on grades and tests that they fail to become inspired,” Koss said. “This program was a very unique opportunity for students to become truly inspired.”
Lawrence senior Nazlee Harunani, who took Brain and Behavior two years ago, before the integration of the high school students, worked as a teacher’s assistant in the class this year. She said the high school students opened the floor to questions that otherwise may never have been asked.
“They would ask anything,” Harunani said. “It was helpful for the students to hear that. I think it helped them realize that science is about learning, and science is about coming up with new questions.”
When Harunani, from Rockford, Illinois, took the class, she was a pre-med student, and her study was on whether a lesion in the hypothalamus would affect thermoregulation. After taking Brain and Behavior, she realized her love for research. Now, Harunani is majoring in neuroscience and psychology.
“Genuinely, this class completely changed my life,” she said. “This is where my love for research started. Dr. Becker made me feel like I could do anything I wanted.”
In 2020, Becker published a paper on the effect this teaching style had on students, and she was invited to speak about it at the Society for Neuroscience conference.
“I think it’s really rewarding to engage students in service learning,” she said. “There is no doubt that they are doing a tremendous amount of service for others, and sometimes we think it’s a gift that we give, but it’s a gift that gives back in dividends when we engage in that work.”
Becker said Jedidiah Rex, instructional designer and technologist at Lawrence, provided invaluable assistance in setting up the technology for the class. And a faculty teaching grant helped fund the class.
“It really is a collaborative effort,” Becker said. “There are multiple layers of teaching and learning that are happening throughout the term.”
Becker said she aims to repeat this process for upcoming iterations of the Brain and Behavior class.
“Now that it’s set up, I can’t imagine it would be of service to students moving forward not to do so,” she said. “Their mastery is just so much deeper and greater when they have someone to explain it to.”
