Five Questions for Vanderbilt Educator, Joey Barnett, Ph.D.
Dr. Joey Barnett is a Professor and Vice-Chair in the Department of Pharmacology and Professor of Pharmacology, Medicine, Pediatrics, and Pathology, Microbiology & Immunology at Vanderbilt. In addition to managing his own successful research program, Dr. Barnett is heavily involved in mentoring and training the next generation of researchers and medical professionals. His dedication to the field of education is reflected by his roles as Director of Medical Student Research and Assistant Dean of Physician-Researcher Training at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.Dr. Barnett was elected to the Vanderbilt Academy for Excellence in Teaching, has received the Gerald S. Gotterer Award for Innovation in Education Programming, and is the US ambassador for the Organization of Ph.D. Education in Biomedicine and Health Sciences in the European System. As an educator, Dr. Barnett is at the forefront of developing and implementing policies and programs that allow for effective and evidence-based teaching at Vanderbilt. (Author: Andy Weiss)
What does it mean to be an educator here at Vanderbilt?
First, I think we are all educators at an institution like Vanderbilt. This includes research scientists, clinical researchers, graduate students, medicals students, any trainee, our staff, and patients. I have learned something from members of each of these groups. That said as educators at Vanderbilt, we get to pursue our intellectual passions, meet others engaged in discovery, be surprised at the connections we find, and share this pursuit with others. That’s why I’m here.
What are the most important innovations or trends in education?
Being at Vanderbilt over the last 30 years has allowed me to see educational innovation up close. The Interdisciplinary Graduate Program and Curriculum 2.0 in the medical school are notable examples. I have been lucky to have been engaged with both of these examples in some form or another. Overall, I think making trainees more active partners in learning has continued to be a welcomed trend. There is still plenty of room for improvement in parsing what knowledge specific learners should acquire, how to better engage them in the process, and how to assess goals. Education is an opportunity and we all talk about supporting lifelong learning as a goal. How best to get there will require continuous innovation and measuring the effectiveness of interventions. If you want to stretch your mind, check out the R3ISE Center for Innovation in Science Education at the Bloomberg School at Hopkins. R3 stands for Rigor, Responsibility, and Reproducibility in science. This program takes a holistic approach to training scholars. I think (hope) similar programs are the wave of the future.
How has the role of educators changed over the years?
The best role change I have seen is the move from educators being deliverers of knowledge to passive students into catalysts who challenge students to seek, integrate, and expand knowledge. The transition from content experts who deliver lectures and literature into educators who engage active learners in team-based modalities has been striking in some quarters and disappointingly absent in others. Educators of all stripes remain undervalued, although there are several initiatives to change that reality. Perhaps the development of more team science activities will drive the recognition of the value of teams composed of individuals with different expertise, including the teams required to effectively and comprehensively train scholars.
Is there a specific piece of educational literature or resource that was particularly influential to you?
The most influential have been books that I read early in my training- and often more than once. An example is “Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher” by Lewis Thomas, another is “A Genetic Switch: Phage Lambda Revisited” by Mark Ptashne. These books and others where scientists describe their fascinations or their work have taught me the value of being a good storyteller. This is true whether you write a research paper, give a lecture, or moderate a discussion. You need to develop this skill.
Two papers that have me thinking now are Verderame, MF, Freedman, VH, Kozlowski, LM, McCormack, WT. Competency-based assessment for the training of Ph.D. students and early-career scientists. eLife 2018;7:e34801. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.34801 and McGee, E., Bentley, L. The equity ethic: black and latinx college students reengineering their STEM careers toward justice. American Journal of Education 124: 1-36, 2017. The competency-based assessment has become part of my life in medical education and I am intrigued about how this might be introduced into graduate education. Wayne McCormack has provided a path for the graduate education community to embrace this competency-based approach. Ebony McGee’s work (she is at Vanderbilt; visit the EDEFI website and the ICQCM website for more information) aligns with and helps me better understand, programs I have been building for underrepresented and first-generation STEM students. Dr. McGee does a great job of addressing in a scholarly fashion how important it is to fold community engagement and advocacy into STEM training early. This approach appeals to me, not only as it relates to specific STEM trainees, but as a vehicle to develop communication and leadership skills in all scholars.
What experiences or resources should junior scientists seek out for a career in education?
The most important resource is a mentor. For scientists who are engaged in training, this mentor may be their formal research mentor or a member of a mentoring or thesis committee. In my experience, a mentor for a trainee exploring education often comes from a place outside of the standard mentoring framework for students and fellows. This may be an educator engaged at a meeting (Experimental Biology is a great resource for this), a university workshop offered on teaching, or a contact made at a smaller, primarily teaching institution. There is no “right” place to find a mentor, but trainees should seek out opportunities where they can find them. Although I have experienced outstanding educators in my training, my first true education mentor was a research faculty member at Harvard Medical School who also directed a program to identify and train postdoctoral fellows to lead small group discussions for medical students. He asked me to join the program, answered my questions, and described what I would do and learn. I did the program for two years. It developed my abilities and confidence while allowing me to see how education could fit into my career plan. I would not have been as successful without him as a guide who offered me time and opportunity.
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