133917_01_11:features 20-27 12/14/10 7:44 AM Page 6
LAURA BARROSSE-ANTLE Instructor in Chemistry Joined Hotchkiss: 2009 Courses Taught: Chemistry (CH350), Foundations of Biology and Chemistry (SC260) “By the end of high school, I knew that teaching would be my career. I really liked being in classes, I liked explaining things to people. Then, in college my freshman chemistry teacher made it all about understanding rather than about memorizing. He wrote his tests in such a way that I felt I learned something from even the assessments. It was hard enough that it was a challenge, and so when I got it, there was a big rush. I like it here because my students are bright kids. I can go off on some side notes that are interesting to me and may be to them as well.
GIVING STUDENTS THE SPACE TO THINK FOR THEMSELVES I hope, as I think probably every teacher at this school does, that the students in my class learn to think critically and creatively. In science courses, the challenge is helping the students to learn the vocabulary and concepts that they will need to be able to think deeply about scientific information as
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well as trying to give them space to think for themselves. After every laboratory experiment, I have round-table discussions. This encourages the students to be thoughtful and active participants. They know to bring any articles that they’ve found or been given as well as their notes and the data itself. It is always exciting to see the evolution of an idea as the students make connections between their physical evidence and the chemical or biological concepts they’ve seen in class. Students who don’t always speak a lot will contribute a question. Students who are sometimes know-it-alls will be respectfully corrected as they propose an explanation, and another student points out a flaw. Sometimes a student who isn’t the originator of an answer will still contribute significantly by figuring out a different way of explaining that answer to another. At the beginning of the year, these discussions can be painful for the students, as no one wants to be the first one to say something wrong. But by the end, everyone is communicating, synthesizing data from a variety of sources, and thinking critically to get at the heart of whatever our experiment was exploring. I also coach Varsity Boys’ Water Polo in the fall and Varsity Girls’ Water Polo in the spring. I coached a little bit of rowing when I was in grad school. Coaching is defi-
COLOR PHOTOS BY COLLEEN MACMILLAN; BLACK AND WHITE PHOTO COURTESY OF THE HOTCHKISS SCHOOL ARCHIVES
“Dr. Barrosse-Antle”