Teaching, Volunteer and Outreach Opportunities
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Office for Postdoctoral and Research Careers (OPRC)

Teaching, Volunteer and Outreach Opportunities

O'BRYANT GATEWAY TO THE LMA:

"Gateway's programs changed my perception of science and scientists.  The laboratory visits fascinated me.  The extra science sessions gave me confidence.  I began to envision myself within the scientific enterprise.  I learned that I could thrive in a challenging academic environment. Gateway taught me important skills and made me believe that I could become a doctor.  I will always be grateful for that."      - Gateway Alumna, Darlene Gabeau-Lacet, MD, PhD, Research Fellow in Radiation Oncology, Resident in Radiation Oncology, Brigham and Women's Hospital.

Program Overview: 
Brigham and Women’s Hospital is embarking upon a new partnership with the John D. O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science in Roxbury, MA, to nurture the next generation of physicians, scientists and health professionals among Boston’s own schoolchildren.  The O’Bryant Gateway to the LMA is a collaboration involving medical and academic institutions throughout the Longwood Medical and Academic Area [LMA].

The O’Bryant Gateway to the LMA is a four-year high school program that provides selected students with meaningful early exposures to careers in medicine and science.  The distinctive pipeline feature of the O’Bryant Gateway program is the opportunity to engage deeply with a talented group of students through all four years of high school, both during and outside of school time.  Each fall, a cohort of approximately fifty ninth-grade students enters the Gateway program, and they stay together as a supportive learning community during their high school years and beyond. 

The O’Bryant Gateway to the LMA program has enrolled its first cohort of 52 ninth-grade students to begin the program in August 2007.

Opportunities for postdoctoral researchers:

  • Minicourse teaching.  The Gateway program offers flexible volunteer teaching opportunities to postdocs who are interested in gaining formal teaching experience, in the form of minicourses for high school students who are interested in pursuing biomedical careers.  Gateway minicourses can be scheduled after school, on weekends, and during school vacations.  Gateway program staff will work with interested postdocs to develop topics that are appropriate for the students’ grade levels.  Please note that in the 2007-8 school year, only 9th grade students will be enrolled in the Gateway program.  Opportunities for postdocs to teach topics approaching the undergraduate level will develop as the program expands to Grades 9-12.      
  • School-based career presentations.  The Gateway program currently is recruiting biomedical researchers at all stages of professional development – graduate students, postdocs, and faculty – to speak to Gateway students about their work and careers.  These presentations can be scheduled either during the school day or on Friday afternoons between 2-4 PM, at the O’Bryant School.   
  • Laboratory visits.  The Gateway program also is seeking researchers who are willing to provide lab tours to groups of Gateway students.  Ideally, we hope that some of our school-based volunteers will be able to host follow-up visits in their labs.  The size of the student group and length of the visit are determined by the host in consultation with Gateway program staff.
Contact: 
Jennifer Wu, Program Director, O’Bryant Gateway to the LMA, John D. O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science, 55 Malcolm X Boulevard, Roxbury, MA 02120, Phone: 617-304-4601, Email (preferred):  jwu@boston.k12.ma.us

BRIDGES PROGRAM AT UMASS BOSTON:

The Bridges program at University of Massachusetts Boston is seeking assistance in identifying postdocs and young scientists , preferably members of underrepresented minorities in the sciences who might be interested in being a study group facilitator (FSG). A $2000 per leader per FSG session is available. In addition, we will run an FSG leader training session to prepare them for the task. This is a great opportunity for our post-docs and junior faculty seeking teaching experiences.

Below is a brief description of the role:
The Facilitated Study Group (FSG) job description is: Study group facilitators are responsible for keeping the students on task, helping students understand the expectations of the professor, introducing different approaches to studying the material, and managing the logistics of the group. Facilitators should focus primarily on the process for learning the content of a particular course or discipline and not to re-teach the course.

Semester-long tasks:
* Attend a training session at the beginning of the semester.
* Maintain confidentiality of student information.
* Attend the targeted class if your schedule allows. If not, review the weekly class notes/syllabus provided for you by the community college Bridges to the Baccalaureate coordinators.
* Conduct a weekly facilitated study group (one to one and a half hours per week).
* Create a 'plan' for each study group session using information from the class.
* Give a weekly attendance list and an update on the group's progress to the Bridges Coordinator.
* Attend weekly meetings with the professor or coordinator to discuss student progress.
* Attend two facilitator meetings (run by the Study Group supervisors) during the semester.
* Complete a final evaluation with your comments on the FSG program.

Contact:
Michael Shiaris, Professor, University of Massachusetts Boston, Biology Department, 100 Morrissey Blvd
Boston, MA 02125-3393, Tele: 617-287-6675, Fax: 815-327-4183, Email: michael.shiaris@umb.edu
Web: microbe.bio.umb.edu

SCIENCE OUTREACH:

This fall, the HMS Post-Doc Association, in collaboration with the HMS Office for Diversity and Community Partnership, will be going out into local area middle/high school classrooms to talk with students about current science issues in the news and careers in science.  Help us reach out to the next generation of scientists, spark their curiosity and raise their awareness about potential careers. This is a great opportunity to see first hand the state of primary science education in our schools and serve as a mentor. Being the first program of this type, it will be piloted this fall on a small scale with minimal time committments and easy commutes (all classrooms we reach will be within walking distance or a very short commute by car/bus/train).  

Contact:
Mark Sundrud, Ph.D., Research Fellow, The CBR Institute for Biomedical Research, Inc., Harvard Medical School, (W): 617.278.3009, (M): 617.838.2497, Email: sundrud@cbr.med.harvard.edu  or mark.sundrud@mac.com

MENTORING FOR SCIENCE PROGRAM:

Mentoring for Science is an after-school program that links Boston Public Schools' (BPS) students in the 8th and 9th grade, particularly underrepresented minority and/or low income students, with Harvard graduate, medical students, HMS/HMS-affiliate postdocs,  who volunteer to be role models/mentors.  The program is designed to enhance students' critical thinking skills, provide laboratory exposure, and increase knowledge about careers in science. This is done through mentored relationships and participating in hands-on science and biomedical research-based activities and experiments.  The mentoring process, which takes place at the  Harvard Medical School campus, includes a 3 hour mentor training workshop and approximately 11 mentoring sessions with an assigned individual student for the duration of the program. There is a possibility that a mentor may be assigned more than one student to mentor, depending on the number of students and volunteer mentors.  We are currently seeking volunteer mentors for MFS-9 Session II (see below). Sponsored by the Office for Diversity and Community Partnership, Harvard Medical School.

Harvard Medical/Graduate Student /Postdocs Roles:
Mentors/Advisors
In MFS-8 Program for 8th graders, Harvard medical and graduate students volunteer to work with local middle school teachers and students interested in using the hands-on approach, provide one-to-one mentoring to middle school students while engaging them in the scientific method.  The same approach is used in the MFS-9 Program with 9th graders, but the teachers are not present during the sessions. 

Boston Public School (BPS) Students Roles:
8th Grade
A total of 16 students from the 8th grade are nominated by their science teachers and recruited for the program.  Four students from each of the following 3 schools participate in the program:  Orchard Gardens Middle School, John D. O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science, & Lilla Fredrick Middle School.
9th Grade
A total of 16 students are accepted into the program each academic year.  Students who have participated in previous HMS outreach programs, such as MFS 8th grade or Program for Research and Investigation in Science and Math are encouraged to apply.  In addition, BPS K-12 teachers who are alumni of our K-12 student and teacher professional development programs are mailed invitations to pass on to their students as well.

Sample Meeting Dates and Times:
MFS-8: February 6 – May 1 , 2007: 3:30 – 6:00 pm (Tuesdays once a week)
MFS-9 Session I:  Wednesdays February 7  – May 2, 2007 : 3:30-6:00 PM (Wednesdays once a week)
MFS-9 Session II: Mondays February 26 – May 14 2007: 3:30 – 6 PM (Mondays once a week)

Contacts:
-Sheila Nutt, EdD, Director of Educational Outreach, Phone: 617 432-4634, e-mail: sheila_nutt@hms.harvard.edu
-Mark Sundrud, PhD, Research Fellow, Outreach Coordinator, HMS/HSDM Post-doctoral Association
The CBR Institute for Biomedical Research, Inc., Harvard Medical School, (W): 617.278.3009, (M): 617.838.2497, Email: sundrud@cbr.med.harvard.edu  or mark.sundrud@mac.com

EXPLORATIONS:

Explorations is sponsored by the Harvard Medical School Office for Diversity and Community Partnership and its Minority Faculty Development Program, K-12 Programs, and Biomedical Science Careers Program, and will host approximately 250 students from the Boston and Cambridge public middle schools.

The program will include:

  • a panel discussion with high school, college, medical and graduate students
  • goal setting workshop
  • lunch at BWH for the students our laboratories host
  • an hour and a half of shadowing laboratory scientists

It is our hope that you will join the many laboratories from the Harvard Medical School, Harvard Medical School-affiliated institutions, Harvard School of Dental Medicine, and Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, Northeastern University department and UMASS Boston Chemistry Department who will open their doors to students to review a brief research experiment.

Please contact Shelita Bailey at phone 617-732-5697 or email: sbailey3@partners.org.