Preservice teacher wins national award

Monday, November 23, 2020

Hannah Oliver, an OSUTeach student and biology senior, recently received the National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT) Mentored Undergraduate Research award.

Oliver’s research characterizes green foxtail (Setaria viridis) genetic mutations. She has worked with OSU faculty mentors Drs. Andrew Doust, Hao Hu and Julie Angle. Oliver presented her research poster at the NABT national conference, highlighting phenotypic and genotypic data collected from both lab tests and greenhouse observations.

“All science teachers need to experience research,” Oliver said, “It equips them to better set up an experiment and incorporate relevant research and knowledge into their classroom.”

Oliver also shared a five-point lesson plan summarizing her research findings, developed with her future middle school students in mind.

“It was challenging to look at Oklahoma educational standards and translate my lab procedures for public school classrooms, which may not have access to the same advanced equipment I did for my research,” Oliver said. “Students love hands-on projects, so I wrote this lesson plan to guide them through how to design an experiment of their own.”

Many NABT conference attendees were surprised to see Oliver carry her research one step further to make her findings understandable to middle school students, but it was all part of the Research Experience for Teachers (RET) program, led by Angle, associate professor of science education, and funded by the National Science Foundation to boost science literacy.

“The goal of science education is to produce a scientifically literate populace,” Angle said. “To produce quality K-12 science teachers, it takes a merging of the science and science education communities.”

Science literacy, Angle says, consists of three components: science content, the methods/practices of science and the nature of science. OSU preservice science and math education teachers like Oliver prepare to promote science literacy in their classrooms by conducting at least 64 research hours with OSU STEM research faculty on various topics of interest. Some students, like Oliver, then choose to continue their research for additional semesters through RET, and others submit their research for conferences and journals.

“Each year we have preservice teachers walk away with an award for their poster presentation,” Angle said of RET students. “This is in part due to the quality of student pursuing a science degree with an option in teacher certification, but it is also because our OSU STEM faculty are willing to take on the responsibilities of mentoring undergraduate students in their lab.”

That willingness to mentor preservice teachers makes a difference not only for the teachers receiving awards, but also for their future classroom students.

“From my research, I’ve learned hands-on experiment procedures I can apply to the classroom,” Oliver said. “And maybe one day I'll get to work a little bit more with plant biology, whether it's through research or incorporating some plant studies into the classroom.”

MEDIA CONTACT: Brittany Bowman | 405-744-9347 | brittany.bowman@okstate.edu