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Annual Report-Polando
Rachel Polando
Annual Report 2012-2013

TEACHING
Enrollment
Summer 2012
Human Biology 12
Fall 2012
Immunology 19
Human Biology 26
January 2013
Science and Culture in Australia 11
Spring 2013
Microbiology 42
Cell Biology 13


Advisees
Advisees 53
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TEACHING SELF-ASSESSMENT
Human Biology
The second time teaching an online course was certainly easier but I still lack
that connection with my students. Overall, the course was successful and most
students seemed to adapt when there were glitches in the technology.
I continued to use the organizational scheme from summer 2011. From the
student comments this seemed the most appropriate way to organize content and
they easily found the assignments. There were some comments about the writing
assignments and clarity; this is hard to articulate as I want the students to be able to
express their opinion and use resources to back up their claims. I think this
probably frustrates them and I did try to maximize their understanding of this. I
still find the lack of hands on in the classroom activities a struggle. It really drives
home some of the harder to visualize concepts that I cannot recreate in an online
setting.
Human Biology
The fall section of human biology was distinctly different from the summer
online version. I had a diverse range of students in this course and that made it
challenging to meet everyone where they were. I made a concerted effort to be
more approachable and on the lookout for confusion as I had many first year
students present. I think this class is going well and that students are being
challenged and still enjoying a core course.
The hands on activities were definitely a favorite among this class and I think
really drove home concepts we were discussing. I find that the structure component
of this class can be hard to imagine as we are discussing very small molecules, such
as a saturated fat. We actually build these fats from toothpicks, marshmallows, and
gummy bears. This allows the students to build the different bonds and see why
this structure is different from an unsaturated fat. These activities are crucial for a
more complete understanding.
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There are still some areas that I continue to work on, including the papers.
As this is a W course I am required to assign writing assignments. I have tried to
choose more exciting or not out of the book concepts to write about. I also see
comments about not using the book concepts for their papers, there is no reason to
rehash the book they are already reading and taking a quiz on. The openness of the
questions is what seems to bother some students, for example Is it ethical to
quarantine people is a broad topic. I want the students to be able to express
themselves and support their view with appropriate citations. We do discuss the
papers 1-2 class periods before they are due; I find that most of the students do not
want to discuss them in advance of this. The lecture for this is always available on
ANGEL so they can really get started when they would like to. I am not certain how
exactly to improve this but I will perhaps provide an example of an exceptional
paper for clarity. I think that teaching an FYS course will help me be a better writing
teacher and will help improve these topics and papers.
Immunology
While technically this is a new course, it was really an old course just revised
a bit. The focus is more on the immune system as a whole and not so much the
infectious diseases related to it. This course will always be a challenge to students
and I do remind them that they must be dedicated to do well. It is a foreign
language in many ways and you have to learn the names of all the players to simply
understand the basics. There are also many violations of normal biological
function that we must deal with and this can be very difficult for students as well. I
continue to assess them with notecards and did make more games as I did last year
for difficult concepts.
I bring in new topics and let the students also ask for content suggestions
that I may not cover. This can be challenging for me as I have to learn more material
and format a lecture but it is also stimulating and refreshing. The students really
seemed to like having a voice in their content selection. We also continued using the
journal club format. The students seem to understand more and are getting more
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comfortable with this concept. From my own experience they are improving by
leaps and bounds which will help all of them in their professional careers.
There are still suggestions about changes that could be made from student
evaluations. So much in immunology is based on pictures that it might make note
taking easier to have the lecture and this is a 400 level class so I would hope that the
students could make wise choices to pay attention. There are also concerns that
there is a lot of material to cover, and this is true of any immunology course. I am
trying to provide the bare basics so we can actually discuss papers and learn about
the interesting parts as well. It is always going to be a concern of both mine and the
students.
Introduction to Molecular Biology
I was very glad to be able to help Kristen for the beginning of the semester
with her course. It was a challenge to teach them for only a few weeks and the
substitute teacher mentality was a definite concern. I think that overall this course
went well, although the transition between the two faculty was difficult on the
students.
I worked within Kristens framework for lecture but even so there were
differences in teaching style. Also said, our exam formats are very different and did
cause some strife with the students. It was nice to interact with this group of
students again; I had forgotten how much fun they could be. It was also nice to get
to know some of the students I would have in the spring during this time.
Science and Culture in Australia
This was a completely new class and experience for me. The planning and
execution were a real challenge. It caused many sleepless nights and a lot of stress,
but looking back, I would do it again! I loved being able to share my love of biology
and travel with students. It was nice to have my mom as a chaperone; I had another
person to watch over the students and to talk to. She didnt really need to be there,
they were incredibly well behaved, I was very lucky.
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I tried to be as upfront with students about cost and really did everything in
my power to reduce their cost. Although I used a private travel agent, our cost was
about $1000.00 less than EF college tours and other such companies. For the price
we did a lot and had a wonderful experience. One of my comments was that we
should be there longer, I agree, but trying to balance out our excursions and best use
of time I think I did pretty well.
We were able to explore the Great Barrier Reef, a rainforest, mangrove
swamp, wildlife sanctuaries, museums, Sydney history, and aboriginal culture.
Every student had a different favorite activity but the one that stands out the most
to me is my student who had never been on a plane nor seen the ocean. It just
makes my day that he could have those experiences and see one of the natural
wonders of the world. All of my students were courageous and tried new foods and
activities. It was a struggle for some, there was some crying during our mangrove
swamp hunting expedition with the aboriginal guide but everyone was stronger and
looking back they said they enjoyed it but would never do it again.
The students also wished we had been together more as a group. I
deliberately left dinner and evenings to them to decide what to do. My reasoning is
that they should explore and investigate things that might be interesting to them
without me telling them what to do. I was also worried that there would be more
arguing if we were together all the time as I had seen in London. Maybe next time I
will try to plan a few more dinners, we did have 2 and they really seemed to enjoy
them.
Microbiology
This course is always a bit of challenge due to the number of students and the
large classroom it is taught in. I continued to use PowerPoint, ANGEL reading
quizzes, daily notecards, and journal clubs. At this point I am not sure that the
reading quizzes are still effective. Looking through my evaluations most students
found them useless and I found them to inflate their grades. I will move away from
these and instead try a weekly quiz that covers book material and class concepts. I
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think this change is more appropriate and will reduce some of the frustration with
technological issues of the online quizzes.
I experimented with this class having the lectures beforehand and it seemed
to work fairly well. The agreement was that if their exam average was not as high as
the previous exam they would lose the right to have the lecture early. There are
several comments about having the lecture before and I think that overall it worked
well. It does help them to take notes on the images and diagrams as well as the
wording are short on the slides so they must take notes. I read that this is
frustrating to some of the students but if they had taken notes then there would be
no question about what should be in their notes. I think that this change also helped
students who felt rushed to be more comfortable because they could look at the
slide even if I had moved to the next one.
There was overwhelming appreciation for the journal club environment this
semester. Students found the readings challenging but I think they liked being able
to choose the topic we would discuss, I find new articles that are published within a
year of the course and allow them to select which topic we will read about. I think
this aspect of the course is working well and the students are gaining useful
techniques. I did change the presentation format from lab to lecture. It became
really difficult on lab days to get to the article and then transition into lab. There is
actually more discussion about the paper in the lecture than the lab, I think because
more students are bouncing ideas off each other.
The lab is going well, as seen from my evaluations. I did have some grading
problems with my student grader. She got a little behind at the end of the semester
so their grades were about 3 weeks later than usual. I know it frustrated the
students but with the amount of grading and preparation needed for this lab I do not
have another solution for grading. I also find it interesting that several students
commented about the slide challenge, it can be a very frustrating experience for the
students to make a perfect slide. There are diagrams in the lab about what their
slides should resemble and many spend hours making one slide over and over again.
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Michael Slavkin was able to come and evaluate this course which I greatly
appreciated. He liked the format and found the students engaged which were good
points. He suggested that when I ask the students questions that instead of one
student answering I could try using the pair and share technique. I think this would
be interesting and would get more students involved. I will experiment with his
suggestion next year and see how it works in my course.
Cell Biology
This course is always smaller than microbiology and I tend to have older
students in this course which makes the teaching dynamic interesting when there
are just a few sophomores in there. Unlike microbiology this group of students did
not have access to the lecture beforehand. Looking at the comments from this group
of students it is clear to me that the short notes and many pictures made it difficult
for them to review after class. I will post the lectures before class as I did for
microbiology.
The use of the journal club in this course seems to be working well and most
of the students were excited to be able to read new and relevant research. To keep
the interest up in this class I have used a few parts of lecture to discuss cell biology
related diseases which are not discussed in the book. There was one complaint
about this and I am unsure why this student did not like the disease perspective.
These are directly related to a malfunction in normal cell behavior and I did focus on
diseases the students had an interest in. I will continue to discuss just a few of these
to keep the material relevant and give the concepts a more real feeling for the
students.
As with microbiology there are concerns about the online reading quizzes, I
think that I will use the weekly quiz format which will take away from class time but
will be more directly related to concepts discussed in class. Overall, I think this class
went well and I am happy with the outcome.
Overall thoughts/review
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I think I can say that this year was successful; students seem to be doing well,
are excited about new concepts, reading journal articles, and expanding their love
for biology. The notecard analysis is working well and it seems that posting the
lectures before class is not negatively impacting students. There is also an
appreciation for the journal reading in class and bringing in current topics to all of
my classes.
My grades overall were high and I did have a few student comments that the
material was easy and did not require enough effort. I think there are a few reasons
for my grades being higher than think they should have been. The first is the
reading quizzes, since they are open book and can be taken twice the average score
was a 4.5 out of 5, there are several quizzes in all my classes so this does cause
grades to be high. I also offered extra credit for attending discussion day and for
completing the course evaluations, I think both are important and this also added
extra points to students that probably did not need extra points. Students also get
points for filling out the journal evaluation form which is probably unnecessary so
that will also be removed. It is my hope that more focus on exams and papers will
help bring a more even grade distribution.
I do need to work on the difficulty of my grading. I grade assignments very
quickly and hand them back the next class period, I can be too lenient on the
students. I tend to not be as stringent as I should on grammar and flow of their
papers, which is a skill they need to develop and I will continue to improve on this. I
also realize that I should hold them to higher standards. I often struggle with this as
I have a hard time differentiating between complaining that it is hard and a real
concern that they do not understand. The most obvious example is in cell biology, I
would not hold them accountable for all the pathways we discussed when they
should have been able to handle that amount of material. I also struggle with
meeting the students where they are, some students will naturally understand and
some will not. I err on the side of those that do not and this is potentially making my
classes too easy. I think increasing the difficulty of my grading on assignments and
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removing extraneous points will help bring my average into a more comfortable
range.
Service to the Department and Division
1. Biology-Chemistry Council- assisted with advising, election of major, senior
comprehensive exams, and career advice.
2. Wrote letters of recommendation for 24 students for summer research or
internships, dental school, medical school, medical technology school, and
graduate school.
3. Hired and trained laboratory assistants for five laboratory sections.
4. Fully established Beta Beta Beta.
Service to the College
1. Academic advisor for 53 students this academic year.
2. Scholarship Day- interviewed prospective students with strong academic
credentials.
3. Student Research Symposium- three of my research students presented data.
4. Traveled with and advised three students for the Butler Undergraduate
Research Conference.
5. Participated in two advising and registration days.
6. Met with many prospective students regarding biology, medical technology,
biology chemistry, or pharmacy.
7. Member of Institutional Review Board.
8. Member of Academy Under Fire.
9. Spoke to the Board of Trustees about challenges faced by my department.
10. Executed the new course Science and Culture in Australia.
11. Reorganized the immunology course.
12. Organized 2 floor programs in Schwalm.
13. Evaluated the Schwalm Bake off.
14. Participated in the Founders and Faculty day.
15. Participated in the Academic fair.
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16. Provided a prize for the SALT challenge.
17. Worked on the Lily Grant and the El Zook proposal.
18. New faculty mentor for Anthony Cashio.
19. Coordinated and updated procedures for the Medical Technology students
enrolled in the 3+1program.
20. Advisor for Brandon Baccaris honors thesis.
21. Iron Chef Competitor and server for midnight breakfast.

Service to the Community
1. Continuing work with CASA including 2 cases and continuing education
courses.
2. Science Olympiad- Prepared and executed 3 events.
Service to the Profession
1. Indiana College Biology Teachers Association- member
2. Consortium of Indiana Medical Laboratory Educators.
Assessment of Service
I think that my service in all areas is well placed and of the most use to
others. I am active in many college activities and with the addition of the biology
honorary am spending a great deal of time and effort nurturing our students. I
continue to enjoy spending time with students and helping them sort out their ideas
and career options. I struggle to keep up with all of my advisees as there are so
many of them. While I never want to turn away a student sometimes I just cannot
take them on as a formal advisee, there is simply not enough time for me to really
support them. I know that my service to the college is very large and I would like to
balance it more with other service opportunities. As a result I have had to make
choices and cut back on other commitments. I still enjoy CASA but I find that I am
spending a lot of time devoted to it, more with each case it seems. I have very little
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time for myself and I need to consider reevaluating my service with them. It is a
difficult decision as I know these children need a voice.
Scholarship
1. Attended all science seminar speaker presentations.
2. Attended 3 Faculty Development Seminars.
3. Attended 2 Faculty Forum presentations
4. American Association of Immunologists-member.
5. American Society of Microbiologists- member.
6. Manuscript accepted for publication in the Journal of Leukocyte Biology.
7. Indiana Academy of Sciences, member.
8. Mentored Matt Helm, Audrey Dietrich, and Tiffany York for their senior
research projects.
9. Assisted Jerry Sweeten, Amber Melick, and Ben Cloud in RNA/DNA analysis
of fresh water mussels.
10. Submitted a grant proposal for summer research for Adam Creighbaum,
Elisia Ray, and Allison Evanich.
11. Assisted Micah Spurgeon with an independent bacterial analysis project in
conjunction with Bluffton Community Hospital.

Assessment of Scholarship
This last year, I participated in a few scholarship opportunities and tried to
have more students involved. I did succeed in publishing one article and hopefully
the second will be accepted soon. I did mentor 3 students in research this year.
Matt Helm conducted research during his REU but I mentored him once he returned
to campus to write his research paper and presentations. My other two students
conducted their entire project with me. Both examined bacterial colonization
within the campus. Supervising these projects always reminds me how much
mentoring and guidance is needed to have a positive outcome. It was nice to
collaborate with Jerry and students in a topic that combined both of our interests
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and it greatly benefitted the students as well. I would still like to have a research
grant of my own to facilitate student research but given the current state of my
commitments it is difficult to find time to think critically, let alone write well.
Goals
1. Attend a professional meeting.
2. Prepare for FYS and Virology courses.
3. Implement an MCAT preparatory course.

Assessment of Goals from 2011-2012
1. Attend a professional meeting.
2. Continue to increase awareness of Manchesters Medical Technology
Program.
3. Submit my funding proposal to the NIH.
I did not attain all of my goals from last year. I did attend the ICBTA meeting
which was helpful and gave me some new perspective on student research. I also
succeeded in increasing the awareness of the medical technology program. We
certainly have more student interest on campus and from prospective students. I
did not meet my third goal. As stated above, I simply do not have enough hours in
the day currently to think about my project. Hopefully, in the next year I will be able
to chip away at developing and idea and how to execute it.