Keilberg, Daniela

Daniela Keilberg is a postdoc researcher in the Department of Microbiology and Toxicology at the University of California Santa Cruz. She currently works on the pathogenic bacterium Helicobacter pylori in Prof. Karen Otteman’s lab to understand how this bacterium senses the human stomach for colonization and how it causes gastric ulcers and cancer. In the future Daniela Keilberg would like to proceed in doing research in biomedicine and microbiology and teach students in this field. To gain more experience in how to design a great lecture and workshops she participates in the PDP training program.

Teaching Activity Summary

Name of Teaching Activity: METX 119 guest lecture, Understanding exponential growth using bacterial population

Learners: 180 undergraduates.

Reflection on how learners engaged with a STEM practice during the inquiry:

One of the big content goals was to be able to understand bacterial growth in a culture, including exponential growth and different growth phases. For this the learners had to draw growth curves using given data. Each group member had a different data set. The learners had to not only draw, but also decide which growth phases were represented in their graphs, and why they are different. Last, I gave them four different experimental scenarios, which they had to match to the different graphs they drew. I assessed the activity by collecting the worksheets and by asking which experimental scenario was fitting which curve. About 90% got the correct answer on the scenarios, also the majority was able to draw the graphs and label the phases correctly. From the feedback questions I gave them, they found this activity very engaging, and said it deepened their understanding. In the second activity, I used expert groups to learn about environmental factors, and assessed by showing pictures of different environments, and they had to match factors as a group. I found that this activity was not so well received as the first one, and also the assessment showed, that they had problems with the jigsaw part - explaining to each other what the main points of the readings were. For the future I would shorten that activity and make it more directed, by telling them exactly which points they have to find out of the reading, and fill these out written together as a group, instead of just talking.