Teamwork and Mentoring

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.
African Proverb

I have loved working in teams because this is the best way to approach problem solving. When we work together and use all our skills, we can achieve more. Here are some of the highlights of times I served as a mentor to students in groups or working on independent projects.

These four women were members of the Carroll High School iGEM team. I had all of them in my AP Biology course, and two of them in Honors Chemistry. In the Honors Chemistry course, I mentored them through independent research projects, and they all collaborated together (with 6 other students) to complete a gold-medal winning iGEM project. Currently, one has a PhD, one is a PhD student, one is in a masters program, and one recently completed an undergraduate degree.

These 20 students competed at Ohio State Science Day and earned the Shaw Award, which requires that 80% of the students from a single school earn Superior ratings at the Fair. This is the largest group to have ever won the Shaw Award.

The Melvin Award is a prestigious prize that can be earned by students who present their work at the Ohio Academy of Science Annual Meeting, then submit a scientific paper for review. These students presented their work at Bowling Green University and were offered the opportunity to present at the American Junior Academy of Science.

Cameron, Ryan, and Katie are a few of the talented students I worked with to help them be successful with their independent research projects. Cameron and Ryan competed at the International Science and Engineering Fair.

As Mercy House Dean at Carroll High School for 6 years I worked with 12 student leaders each year to manage our portion of the student body, totaling in about 140 people (about 125 students, and no more than 12 adults). Our shared task was to create meaningful community building experiences for six homerooms of students, run (almost) entirely by the student leaders. Over time, Mercy House grew to have traditions for holidays, we celebrated weddings and babies, competed in school-wide events, and in my last year at this school, we won the House Cup! My role was to be their enabler and go to meetings, and to disseminate information by a weekly task list. I considered by role as a mentor to have two sides – one facing the students, who I worked with weekly to develop short and long term plans, but also enable the faculty, who saw their pair of student leaders daily, to have the information they needed to support them without taking advantage of their time.