To begin, I am fortunate to have had many excellent role models and mentors. My circle is brimming with amazing people who have produced incredible results in a myriad of areas. I know people who are preposterously poised, kind, wise, accomplished, generous, generous and determined. As I have navigated graduate school and tried to figure out how I fit in and who I want to be, there is one person who stands out as a clear and inspiring example of what is possible. When I was invited earlier this year to write a letter of recommendation for this person for an award in teaching, I gladly agreed. On February 17, 2020, the Boulder Faculty Assembly announced that Dr. Dave Brain would be receiving its Teaching Excellence Award. He will be celebrated on March 31, 2020, if you're in Boulder you can RSVP and go. Below is the letter of recommendation I wrote for Dave. It's a kind of academic writing I am relatively new to, so I thought it would fit here alongside my other thoughts on writing. But moreso, I wanted to share my admiration of this person and give you a sense of what inspires me and who I want to be. To supplement my prose (or as an alternative in case of TL/DR), may I suggest a watch of Dave's Ted Talk about habitable planets.
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January 24, 2020
Dear Boulder Faculty Assembly,
I am writing to offer my enthusiastic support of Dr. David Brain to receive the award for excellence in teaching and pedagogy. I am currently a graduate student in planetary sciences at the University of Arizona and I took two semesters of Accelerated Introduction to Astronomy with him as an undergraduate and was a learning assistant for his Planetary Atmospheres class. His excellence in teaching derives from his brilliance, hard work, interest in educational research, rigorous and strategic implementation, and from his humanity. In this letter, I will refer to him as “Dave” since that is what he always insisted we call him because, as he says, “Dr. Brain sounds like a weird super villain.”
Dave epitomizes the kind of scientist and educator I would someday like to become. His lectures are a playground for the brain. With an unbending consistency, he makes difficult concepts accessible to his students, challenges them to think critically and uses various techniques to leave his audience amused and delighted. Part of his ability stems from his own clear understanding of the topics he teaches and his expertise in planetary science. On aspects of lectures he is not an expert in, he will often prepare by reaching out to colleagues who are.
Dave shares with his classes the evidence from current research showing that interactive lessons lead to better student outcomes than passive lecturing. He implements this deliberately in each lecture. His lectures are peppered with thought-provoking questions. He uses clicker questions in class to elicit critical thinking, recognizing the research that shows benefits to this method. He experiments with different modalities, searching for new tools that will serve his students. For example, passing out small white boards that allow for small groups to work together on a problem and answer together. As his learning assistant, he solicited our advice and feedback and together we assessed the efficacy of new methods.
Dave also liberally solicits student feedback and queries. I’ve never seen a professor more bold in their willingness to pause after asking if anyone has any questions. One for transparency, he lets his students know that this too is based on current educational research. In answering questions, Dave does an incredible job of producing a simple explanation of nearly any phenomenon. He is also rigorous in defining the limits of his understanding, working hard not to lead anyone astray in their understanding. When he cannot answer questions on the spot, he is regimented in collecting these, researching them and returning to the next lecture, answer in hand.
This type of timely response is part of the respect and caring Dave demonstrates to his students. He comes prepared for class, responds quickly to emails and writes thoughtful letters of recommendation, all while advising several students and conducting his own research. He makes himself available for advising and mentoring to his students, listening generously and offering helpful advice. He keeps a bar of chocolate in his office and offers some to students during one-on-one meetings or when he recognizes they may be having a bad day. While this is a small gesture, the expression of humanity can have an over-sized impact for students in times of stress. In class he takes care to create an environment that is supportive and free of discrimination, conscientiously avoiding biased language. This was meaningful to me as a female student in a male-dominated field and it helped me see my way to continuing on in this career.
To me, the shining capstone on Dave’s success as an educator lies in his jokes, antics and willingness to be silly. He often does things incompatible with the stoicism expected of scientists of his caliber. He sometimes expresses breathless excitement when relaying intriguing new research or announcing the answer to a question from a previous class period. He demonstrates how seasons derive from the axial tilt of the Earth by tilting his body forward and shuffling around an imaginary sun, then rotating awkwardly to show Earth’s rotation in a day. He frequently asks for volunteers to demonstrate an astrophysical phenomenon, sometimes in fun and frenetic ways. This kind of thing electrifies the classroom and there is an aliveness not often found in astrophysics classrooms; the students are awake and engaged.
Dave’s humor is both authentic and deliberate. I recall one day as his learning assistant, we were going over an upcoming lecture and he said something like, “I need to put in a joke around slide 25; there hasn’t been one for about five slides.” He understands the experience of being a student so well that he knows, to the slide, where engagement starts to fade.
To assess the success of his approach, you need look no further than his classroom. Dave’s courses are consistently full. I recall a persistent issue in his Planetary Atmospheres class to find enough chairs for the students. In most classes, attendance wanes over the course of the semester but Dave’s remain well-attended.
Concepts I learned in Dave’s classes have stayed with me through grad school in an enduring way (I was so excited to use “the flapjack model of radiative transfer” on my written comprehensive exam). I am thankful for the work he put in to provide me and so many others with an excellent education in planetary science and to have us succeed in life. Being in Dave’s class had me see that being silly, authentic and human could actually be an asset in the field of astronomy; that I didn’t have to change or hide who I was to advance in my career. He serves as a beacon as the kind of teacher, and the kind of human being, I strive to be. I hope that you will grant him this award in teaching and pedagogy; I can’t think of anyone more deserving.
Sincerely,
Zarah Brown
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