GIST Spring 2017 by Duke SSRI

gist SPRING 2017

THE SOCIAL SCIENCE MAGAZINE OF DUKE UNIVERSITY

SHARING THE SOUNDS OF SCIENCE

Producing radio segments for both local and global audiences

SPRING 2017

Contents

Sharing the Sounds of Science

Schooling & Parenting

Profile Q & A: Jana Schaich Borg

Bridging the Gap

Making a Mentor

GIST celebrates its 10th year covering social science research at Duke University. Hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s to many more!

The Social Science Research Institute at Duke University is a part of Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke University

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N E C H Y B A’ S N I C H E

CELEBRATING

10 YEARS OF GIST

A note from Tom... It’s a pleasure to introduce this issue of GIST magazine, particularly as we just discovered that it marks its 10-year anniversary. It used to be called “GIST from the Mill” back when SSRI’s main location was in the Erwin Mill building—a playful twist on “grist from the mill,” but one I admit I didn’t get until years later. Now it is just GIST magazine, and I want to start by congratulating Courtney Orning, our Associate Director for Communications and Web Development, for nurturing this project throughout its existence. It has won national awards while broadcasting social science to a wide audience at Duke, and none of it would have happened without Courtney. In this issue, we introduce you to Brian Southwell and his ambition to engage the public in a deeper understanding of social science. When we heard of Brian’s work, we could not help but find ways of connecting him to Duke’s educational mission by sponsoring a course that engaged Duke students in the production of radio spots on social science. The pilot for the course ran this fall, and it has already been recognized as among the top 5% of classes at Duke as reviewed by students, the majority of whom have now had their spots aired on public radio. We also feature the work of Kamilah Legette and Jennifer Lansford who dive deep into some of our local public schools to explore the impact of tracking on achievement gaps. Their fascinating research is made all the more compelling by the deep engagement of undergraduates in their team—and the impact this work is having on them. And speaking of schools, we continue to feature the exciting work of the Duke TeachHouse, and particularly the role of the inspiring mentor Scott Ellis who has given up, of all things, dentistry to return to Durham to make a difference. Finally, we have an interview with Jana Schaich Borg who recently joined the SSRI faculty and will lead the launch of our Master in Interdisciplinary Data Science (MIDS), joint with the Information Initiative at Duke (iiD). Read about her interesting research aimed at getting human beings to behave better, her aim to “tickle” our brain and her vision for how data science fits into this and many other things. This is also a good opportunity to announce to the larger Duke audience the impending emergence of MIDS, an effort we will have more to say about in the next issue of GIST. So I hope you enjoy this issue, and again, Happy Birthday to GIST Magazine.

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Tom Nechyba Director, SSRI

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F E AT U R E

SHARING THE

SOUN OF SCIENCE

SOCIAL SCIENCE COMMUNICATORS PRODUCING RADIO SEGMENTS FOR BOTH LOCAL AND GLOBAL AUDIENCES

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picture might say a thousand words, but few things stick with the mind longer than sounds. Whether it’s the sound of a raucous campaign crowd or the tremble in a young child’s voice as he reveals his fears as a displaced refugee— what we hear can elevate us, inspire us, enrage us, and haunt us.

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NDS But, most importantly, sound can educate us.

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That’s been the driving force behind Brian Southwell’s career. He’s spent his professional life dedicated to telling stories of the human condition. In particular, he’s focused on making scientific research relatable. “I’ve been attracted to finding ways social science research can inform the broader public discourse and be useful in finding a way to translate work that happens in the public arena,” he said. “I’ve realized scientists and researchers often struggle to inform people of what they do. Translating their work is very important because social scientists study the everyday life of humanity.” To help increase the understanding of social science in the future, Southwell, an adjunct professor in Duke University’s Social Science

Brian Southwell and Jesse Remedios at WNCU.

Research Institute (SSRI), teaches students how to analyze, decode, and share research that affects public attitudes and policies. But they don’t write stories. Instead, they produce radio segments for both local and global audiences.

With Southwell’s guidance, these students tackle topics to peel back the layers of how different societal groups relate. They hope this knowledge will positively impact social relationships and activities.

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LEFT: Jesse Remedios and Natalie Carroll at WNCU RIGHT: The Social Science Radio Workshop class at WNCU with Lackisha Sykes, general manager.

Who is Brian Southwell? Though he teaches, Southwell is more than an adjunct professor. He’s an academic Renaissance man. Before instructing Duke students on the intricacies of sharing compelling stories based in heady research, he served as a tenured professor elsewhere, a communications researcher, a government and non-profit analyst, and a radio broadcaster. As a tenured professor at the University of Minnesota for more than a decade, Southwell taught health, science, and strategic communications as an associate professor of journalism and chair of the graduate school’s Social Science Policy & Review Council. During this time, he also worked with many government and non-profit organizations. In 2011, he brought his expertise to North Carolina, becoming the Director of Science in the Public Sphere at RTI International—a position where he augments how the public understands science and the role it plays in society. As director, he’s concentrated on a wide variety of topics, including cancer prevention, tobacco cessation campaigns, and improving science coverage on television. He also took the lead on RTI’s work with examining public attitudes about the Zika virus in Guatemala. RTI hasn’t kept his talents in-house, though. In addition to his faculty appointments at Duke and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Southwell hosts “The Measure of Everyday Life,” a radio show broadcast on North Carolina Central University’s WNCU 90.7 FM station. It’s dedicated to interviewing social scientists about the human condition.

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Recently, shows and podcasts, which are available online for a global audience, have spanned the gamut of topics, including social alienation in virtual reality, the reinvention of urban spaces, and school drop-out rate reduction. Grooming the Next Generation To ensure the public has a greater knowledge of science in the future, Southwell is using his radio and podcast class to groom the next generation of social science communicators. As a cross-listed course with the Sanford School of Public Policy and the Center for Documentary Studies, the class falls perfectly in line with SSRI’s support of interdisciplinary activities. In fact, according to SSRI Director Tom Nechyba, the course teaches students the skills needed to address the challenges the public faces when trying to access social science research and findings. “This is a class where students learn to talk about social science in a way that [Southwell] does on his show. I think we’ll see students producing short pieces that may well end up on the show,” Nechyba said. “I hope all sorts of new ways of bringing social science insights to the public will emerge.” Southwell agreed that SSRI offers a natural platform for creating interdisciplinary discussions around improving social science communication. Set up like a workshop, the course has 10 enrolled students. Southwell said he begins the class by introducing students to classic theories on the role social science plays in policymaking. They have open discussions about

unconventional ways of connecting the public to social science, including podcasting, and students master technical editing skills by using free or low-cost editing software. During the class, he said, students produce several 4-to-7-minute stories on individual topics. “The students are responsible for brainstorming about their story topics,” he said. “They learn how to pitch the stories and do all the background research to put their pieces together.” For example, undergraduate class participant Jesse Remedios produced the podcast on reducing North Carolina’s high school drop-out rate. He spoke with several state high schools, gathering advice and tips on helping students stay enrolled. Two other students, McCall Wells and Lou Kendaru collaborated on a story about votership among white women in the most recent presidential election. According to Kendaru, talking with women who voted for Donald Trump prompted her and Wells to identify their own internal biases, helping them recognize the importance of objective reporting. “We worked to push aside our disagreements with the voters to identify the logic behind their votes,” she said. “We used it as an opportunity to truly understand the support for the Trump presidency rather than just pretend we understood it.” Students also learn how to talk with people and handle unfamiliar and unforeseen situations while working on stories, Remedios said, while they sharpen their research skills. Southwell also teaches students how to use straight-forward language that allows the public

“ This class and these stories are things that normalize conversations about the world we live in. And, we’re having them in a language that is accessible to most people. That’s important.”

to understand the importance and impact of social science research, Kendaru said. “I get very frustrated with academia being in the Ivory Tower and not being very accessible,” she said. “This class and these stories are things that normalize conversations about the world we live in. And, we’re having them in a language that is accessible to most people. That’s important.” Mentoring & Lighting the Path For his students, Southwell is much more than a professor they see only in the classroom. He’s an approachable mentor—an instructor who takes time to get to know his students individually and unearth their goals and dreams. “Dr. Southwell supports us all. He pays attention to our individual goals and tries

to think through ways to help connect us to the next step,” Kendaru said. “We’ve all had conversations with him about where we see ourselves in five to 10 years.” It’s not enough to simply give students the technical skills needed to produce compelling stories, Southwell said. Aspiring social science communicators can benefit from networking and internship opportunities, as well. Consequently, as part of the course, he brings in professional communicators, such as David Crabtree from WRAL and Susan Davis from WUNC, to answer questions. Several students, including Remedios, Wells, and Kendaru, also accepted internship positions to work alongside station staff on “The Measure of Everyday Life” at WNCU 90.7 FM. These

opportunities are invaluable, Remedios said, because it gives students a head start on their careers with actual work experience instead of only classroom learning. Ultimately, Southwell said, the class work and the internships open the students’ eyes to the effort that goes into creating stories for radio that appear seamless and easy. “This class is good preparation for the students to get out of their comfort zones and ask good questions. It helps them recognize they’re not the absolute expert in all areas,” Southwell said. “They learn to be humble in asking insightful questions. It’s a good skill to have whether for podcasts, shows, or for life.”

Alshadera Dawson, Kimberley Pierce Cartwright, and Brian Southwell of WNCU.

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Schooling & Parenting IMPLICATIONS FOR STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC IDENTITY

he Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools, despite their reputation for quality education, have one of the widest achievement gaps in the Triangle. Minority students tend to score well below white students on end-of-grade (EOG) tests. Duke postdoctoral fellow Kamilah Legette ’15 (PhD) wanted to find out what was going on. Earlier studies she had conducted in Greensboro schools pointed to several factors that warranted further exploration, including how racial and ethnic identity relates to academic identity; messages students absorb from parents and teachers; and the impact of tracking and sorting students into gifted, regular, or remedial classes. “Tracking is endemic in all schools and can perpetuate disparity,” said Legette, a postdoc fellow in the Social Science Research Institute. “Students are aware that they are tracked. That impacts how they view themselves and how teachers view them. And that affects how they’ll perform in the classroom.”

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Students who do well in school tend to consider academics an important part of their identity. The more connected they feel to the school, the harder they’ll try in class and the better they’ll do. Other influences might come from whether teachers think a child is smart and capable of learning the material, and whether parents emphasize a child’s innate ability (“You’re so good at math!”) as opposed to effort (“Your hard work paid off on that test.”). Taking a multifaceted approach to understanding the problem made Legette’s research a good fit for Bass Connections funding. The Bass Connections program encourages interdisciplinary study that brings together researchers of different levels and fields to apply their unique perspectives to the study questions and to learn from one another in the process. Legette contacted Jennifer Lansford ’95 (BA), a professor in the Sanford School of Public Policy who is affiliated with the Center for Child and Family Policy. Lansford’s research focuses on parenting as she looks at students’ academic achievement in diverse cultural contexts and

the development of aggression and behavior problems. She and Legette found enough points where their research interests intersected that they decided to partner in a Bass Connections course they titled “Schooling and Parenting: Implications for Students’ Academic Identity.” Bass Connections projects are structured to have a faculty adviser, in this case Lansford, who mentors a graduate student or postdoc, Legette, who designed and is implementing the study, and a group of undergraduates or grad students who collect and analyze the data. Legette and Lansford selected five undergraduates: senior Jennifer Acosta, sophomores Celia Garrett, Nia Moore, Victoria Prince and Trey Walk. Their majors range from psychology and public policy to education and global cultural studies. From her prior research, Legette observed that tracking could have a negative impact on students shunted into the low-level track, whereas students in the high-level track might have possessed the ability and drive to succeed without extra enrichment. The issue of tracking becomes more salient because of a racial and ethnic divide:

Minority students are over-represented in the lower tracks, while the higher tracks have more white students. Tracking begins in the sixth grade, when students begin middle school. Changing tracks is virtually impossible, Legette said, because students are taught different material, depending on the track. In math, for instance, the noncompacted classes learn sixth-grade material, while the compacted classes move through sixthand seventh-grade work.

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Teaching methods differ, too. “Compacted students learn critical thinking; they break into small groups and discuss the question of the day,” Legette said. “Non-compacted students are given worksheets that the teacher reviews in class.” Legette designed a yearlong study that collected both quantitative and qualitative data. During the fall semester, her team of undergraduates administered surveys to middle-schoolers, their parents and teachers in Chapel Hill public middle schools. (At least one of the undergraduate researchers is bilingual and can proctor the survey in Spanish.) The Duke students will do a follow-up survey toward the end of the spring semester to catch any changes over time. In the interim, the Duke undergrads have conducted open-ended interviews to hear in the child’s own words how race and academics factored into the child’s identity. Those responses have been eye-opening to sophomore Nia Moore, who grew up in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg public schools and benefited from tracking. “It’s interesting seeing complex issues like race and tracking from the perspective of sixth-grade students, and seeing the difference between the answers of kids of different races” she said. “And seeing how everything connects: the things I’ve read about and studied and how they play out in the real world.” Senior Jennifer Acosta came to the U.S. at a young age as an immigrant. She went to underfunded Title I schools and watched many of her peers drop out. Collecting data for Legette’s study got her thinking about how her life might have been different had she not been placed in the gifted-and-talented track in the fourth grade.

“A teacher saw something in me and inspired me to do better,” Acosta said. “She changed my life. I saw a difference in the way students in AP classes thought about themselves compared to students in regular or remedial classes. I saw differences in how one is treated in the educational system.” Acosta has worked on many research projects at Duke—at the Center for Child & Family Policy, Duke Immerse, a prior Bass Connections study, and she recently received the Jerome S. Bruner Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research—but interviewing participants was new to her. “I learned how difficult it can be to talk with some of the participants or communicate effectively when scheduling changes come up,” she said. The Duke students transcribe one another’s interviews, giving them a chance to hear how their colleagues asked questions and handled follow-up. As the study is Nia Moore’s first research project ever, she appreciated that an entire class session was devoted to practicing interviewing skills, what to pay attention to and how to make sure they weren’t guiding participants’ answers. The entire team helps one another. “We’re learning together,” Moore said. After enrolling in the Bass project “with zero research experience,” she said, she now is designing a spinoff study to conduct in Cuba

over the summer to compare students in the Communist versus capitalist society. The Duke students are in the process of cleaning the survey data and coding the interview findings, learning to use NVivo software and looking for themes and patterns. The undergrads hope to get their work published or perhaps present their findings at a professional conference. The researchers have offered to share their findings with parents at the schools, “to get the word out to parents,” Lansford said, “that there are things they could be doing at home that may not be obvious, like praising effort rather than ability.” Legette has secured funding to continue the study next year, in another district that has a higher number of African American students and students of a lower socioeconomic status than the Chapel Hill middle-schoolers. Ultimately, Legette would like to be able to offer suggestions for changing the current practice of tracking, making it easier for students to move to a higher track or do away with tracking altogether. She hopes to test out her ideas in a pilot program, perhaps in a rural county that has fewer parents apprehensive that their child might miss out on any potential benefits of high-level tracking. “If we can think of ways to help students learn the same material, there could be a way to reduce some of the disparities,” she said.

LEFT TO RIGHT: Kamilah Legette, Celia Garrett, Victoria Prince, Nia Moore, and Jennifer Acosta outside McDougle Middle School in Carrboro, N.C.

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PROFILE

Q A &

JANA SCHAICH BORG ON DUKE, DATA, AND MIDS

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just treat each other better? That’s the question that drives all of the research I do. And these days I’m trying to figure out not only what parts of the brain I would have to tickle, but also how I could learn to tickle them without putting anything through our skull. As for why I work with both human and animal participants, tackling a phenomenon like human violence requires deep and simultaneous appreciation of behavior and mechanisms. We need to understand the details and complexity of how humans behave, but we also need to understand the mechanisms the brain uses to create such complex behaviors if we are ever going to have any real hope of learning how to change those behaviors. Human behavior is, of course, best studied in humans, but brain mechanisms are most efficiently studied in non-human model systems. My challenge is to identify and integrate the aspects of human behavior and rodent mechanistic neuroscience

that are necessary to efficiently change the way we interact with one another. You are a new SSRI faculty member. How does your research fit with the Institute’s interdisciplinary approach? My research requires deep expertise in neuroscience, psychology, statistics, engineering, and now, programming and data management. My research can’t get done by me alone. On the flip side, I’d like to think— very humbly—that my research can’t be done without someone with my specific background either. When I heard about SSRI’s vision, I immediately thought, “Wow, it would be so exciting to be in that environment and to help realize that mission!” I am biased, of course, but I love the idea that Duke has created a place where important problems that are too big to be tamed by one discipline or department alone can be solved.

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You work with both human and animal participants to study how and why we make social and moral decisions. What led you to this type of research and what do you hope to achieve? Almost every researcher has something in their head or their life that gets them out of bed every morning and motivates them to tackle the hard challenges they’ve voluntarily put on their plate. For me, that thing is violence. It is very difficult for me to get my head wrapped around the fact that humans intentionally hurt each other. The only way I could handle learning about such events is if I tried to do something to stop them or at least understand them. The most effective approach to answer these questions was to try to understand what happens in our brain when we make decisions that affect others. In other words, what would we have to tickle in our brains in order to make us refrain from violence, and more generally,

I think I also fit into the Institute’s interdisciplinary approach in two other meaningful ways: my work serves as a kind of bridge between the social sciences and data science on the one hand, and between the social sciences and the humanities on the other. By being part of the new Master in Interdisciplinary Data Science (MIDS) program, Duke Institute for Brain Sciences, and Kenan Institute for Ethics, I hope to help clear the way for other researchers and students to walk between the social sciences, natural sciences, computational sciences, and humanities more freely. I’m also deeply connected with SSRI’s mission to build the foundation for social science to engage with a much broader and more interdisciplinary landscape. Much of that foundation will be in the form of providing the data and computational architecture necessary for all disciplines to become more data literate. Another part of that foundation will be in helping established researchers learn how to work on teams with other established researchers. Yet another part will be creating mechanisms for academia to evaluate and give credit for interdisciplinary work. Alongside my own research program, I am hoping to help SSRI build out these pillars of its foundation as we all navigate the opportunity to incorporate Big Data into the social sciences. I believe the future of social science will be to find insights through Big Data, but to do so in a way that is grounded in the thoughtful traditions of the humanities. So much of Big Data is inherently social. Huge chunks of it are related to social media or are collected and presented in social contexts. Social scientists need to be intimately involved in strategies to collect and interpret these types of data. In the process of doing so, social science will be revolutionized by the new insights data of this kind can bring. In return, I think social scientists will help society find deeper significance in what all these data mean by bringing the traditions of the humanities to the table. In addition, I’m hoping social scientists can take the lead in reminding data-heads of the ethical implications of our actions and choices. We all agree that data is changing society as we know it—we need people who will make sure data is changing society in a beneficial way.

Your Coursera Course, Mastering Data Analysis, is one of the most popular courses on the site. What do you think has contributed to the appeal and success of this course? There is an ever-growing number of people who want to learn how to work with data. We felt an almost moral obligation to try to give people of any age and of any background a way to learn these data skills that would be so valuable to them. That’s the reason the courses were so successful—I think they just filled a true need. That said, one thing that might differentiate Daniel Egger’s (co-instructor) and my approach from other instructors’ approaches is that we really wanted every student to feel like they could do this stuff. A lot of people get scared away from technical and quantitative areas because they worry they aren’t smart enough or because, at the very least, they worry they will feel stupid or be made fun of. Learning programming, math, and statistics is not about how smart you are, it’s about having a growth mindset, cherishing and learning from mistakes, and trying different ways of learning information until you find a way that works for you. We really tried to help our students feel like we are all in this together.

What do you think makes a successful data analyst or data scientist? In my opinion, there are five main characteristics that define an effective data scientist: 1 An ability to communicate effectively. 2 An ability to ask and answer the right questions. In practice, that means an ability to translate the problem that needs to be solved or the question that needs to be answered into an appropriate, explicit plan about what data are needed and exactly what you are going to do with those data. 3 An ability to think very logically, methodically, and impartially. 4 Of course, a good technical skillset with the appropriate quantitative knowledge. 5 An insatiable desire to learn and figure things out accompanied by a playful appreciation of failure.

The Master of Interdisciplinary Data Science (MIDS) has recently been approved with plans to enroll students in fall 2018. As the Associate Faculty Director of MIDS, what do you think makes this program different from similar data science programs being offered? Data and data-savviness can help all sectors of life. We want to empower our students with the data skills and rigorous scientific thinking that will allow them to solve whatever problems they are most passionate about, whether those problems are in business, medicine, government, the humanities, or the basic sciences. In addition to the technical and quantitative skills all data science programs have, our MIDS program will put a particularly strong emphasis on: • Training data scientists who can solve problems in any domain. Students will have the opportunity to work with many types of data from projects inside and outside of the University, and will be taught skills that can be applied effectively to any of these types of data and that will allow them to get up to speed in a new subject matter efficiently. • Training our students to be deep critical thinkers. When our students are done with the program, they will really understand what it means to be a “scientist.” They will know how to think through a problem logically and methodically, and how to use data and experiments to guide their conclusions. • The importance of “who cares?”, “what does this mean?”, and “does this solve the real problem?” We intend to train our students to be driven by questions and making a measurable difference rather than by the methods they happen to know at the time. • Communication and teamwork skills. We believe data scientists will only reach their full potential when they can listen to others, work cooperatively with others, and communicate to others what they have done. These skills are often left out of quantitative graduate programs, but we intend to make them a major component of the skillset our students master.

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Bridging the ModU Offers New Social Science Resource

echnical social science models can be difficult to understand the first time students are introduced to them. Like with CliffsNotes and Schaum’s Outlines, students often need a supplement to classroom instruction to fully grasp a concept. Social science students at Duke now have a tool specific for their needs: ModU. An open resource for students and researchers, ModU teaches social science concepts and methods through self-paced learning. Located at modu.ssri.duke.edu, the site features Duke experts talking about their work in a way that emphasizes the theories and methods involved. Named for its organization, individual videos are organized into modules of related content so users can cater their learning to their own needs, getting either a quick introduction to a concept or learning more in depth about it. It may not sound like a revolutionary idea since Lynda, Coursera, and YouTube already offer videos that help build skills and explain concepts, but the focus is unique. With highly technical social science topics broken down for an audience of different levels, ModU offers something new in the online learning landscape.

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Intended for a Duke audience, the site has generated some buzz outside of Duke. In fact, many of the initial views have come from YouTube users searching for terms related to content on ModU. “They’re topics that aren’t being discussed in a non-technical way,” said Jim Speckart, program manager for instructional design at SSRI. “When we can offer a non-technical talk and give some sense of what it’s like to use these concepts in practice, that really appeals to a broad group of people,” he said. User friendly design Speckart leads the project with oversight from Alexandra Cooper, associate director of Education, Research, and Evaluation at SSRI. The site is collaborative, with other staff and faculty at Duke providing content and support. ModU users can browse by topic, instructor name, or course number to find the video or module that suits their needs. This way students assigned modules as a supplement to classroom instruction can easily navigate to them on the site a number of different ways. The goal was to make the site so easy to use that people could jump right in while still giving curious users the opportunity to browse around.

Curating content Modules already on the site range from qualitative methods to quantitative methods. Current videos include Introduction to Research Ethics, Modeling Basics, Ethical Photography, and Regression Discontinuity. The content progresses from introductory to more advanced concepts as users work through the module. When this kind of linear progression isn’t well defined, videos are grouped thematically instead—like with the Research Ethics module. Either way, there’s something for all learning levels on the site. “It’s crafted to serve a wide range of audiences, from new students seeking an introduction to experienced learners wanting a refresher course to faculty seeking accessible teaching tools,” Cooper said. With new content added regularly, Speckart stays busy scheduling and producing videos for the site. In his downtime, he edits film and strategizes how videos can be compiled into connected modules. The challenge, he said, is keeping the content flexible while showing how it connects. “If you make things too intricately woven, then they aren’t modular anymore and can only live in one place,” Speckart said.

Gap Jim Speckart films Will Goldsmith in Gross Hall for ModU.

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But since everything fits together in some way under the social science umbrella, grouping content by topic provides some crucial infrastructure. Currently, ModU features faculty and researchers from various disciplines and the number is sure to grow. Speckart is regularly seen around Gross Hall, camera perched on one shoulder, filming experts as they discuss their work. Recently he filmed Will Goldsmith, a graduate student in the history department, speaking about the history of education in America. The module they’re producing will be a thorough look at the history of educational policy, especially relating to North Carolina’s integration of education into economic development policy in the late 20th century. As a scholar interested in education, Goldsmith was eager to help develop the new educational resource. “It seemed like a great opportunity to get an apprenticeship in online education,” said Goldsmith. “[It] also served as an impetus for developing course materials that will help me land an academic job and do a better job of teaching once I get there.” Goldsmith liked that ModU could reach beyond the traditional classroom. Signs point

to the site already having that reach, with partners outside of Duke interested in developing certain content. Data science at EBay Though intended for a Duke audience, data scientists at EBay have also found the modules useful for their work. As with most Silicon Valley companies, they collect an incredible amount of data from their users. Teams of data scientists then work with that data to gain usable insights for the company. The e-commerce giant discovered the Causal Inference Bootcamp module while looking for resources for new hires. They found it was especially helpful for teaching their new data scientists how to tease out cause and effect in their data. Recently, EBay signed a contract with SSRI to produce interactive content supplementing the Causal Inference Bootcamp module. The interactive content will help EBay’s new hires learn how to apply data insights using statistical software (namely R) among other possible applications. Bridging the gap The hope is that ModU will be a place where people can brush up on concepts

and methods that might have otherwise fallen through the cracks. Cooper and Speckart expect it will be a great resource for interdisciplinary Bass Connections teams especially, helping students from different academic backgrounds get on the same page before they tackle their work. “It’s created as a tool to support 21st century learners,” Cooper said, “[students] who are prepared to develop their own itinerary and who’ll need to need to update and improve their substantive knowledge and methodological skills across their life courses and careers.” With flexibility for how, when, and where the videos are viewed, ModU acts as a content bridge for students in the social sciences. “We’re hoping that people will have a little more material to then feel confident asking a question in class or going to office hours,” Speckart said. “Those can be intimidating situations, and no one wants to look like they don’t get it. So maybe ModU can help break down those barriers and give students something to grasp onto and take more control over their education,” he added. With over 100 videos so far, and plans to add another 400 videos in the coming months, students should have much more to grasp onto in the social sciences.

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PROFILE

MAKING A

MENTOR Duke TeachHouse Mentor Scott Ellis on his return to teaching, and why others should never leave it

cott Ellis’s enthusiasm for teaching is clear. As a third grade teacher at The Expedition School in Hillsborough, N.C., he’s one of few men making that career choice. With 10 years in the profession, his love for it has only grown stronger. But Ellis wasn’t always a teacher. For nearly a decade he was a dentist in Washington, D.C. While dentistry and teaching wouldn’t appear to have much in common at first glance, both careers appealed to him because of his family and upbringing.

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graduation, first in Marietta, Ga., where he was named Novice Teacher of the Year for his entire school system. After two years he returned to North Carolina, teaching elementary students in Raleigh for a year. But despite feeling fulfilled by the work, he still felt the draw of medicine and achieving a higher degree. Dentistry, like teaching, appealed to him because it meant caring for others. He was still able to make a difference in people’s lives, and the paychecks made it easier to make ends meet. Working with his patients, though, just wasn’t the same feeling as being in the classroom and teaching children. Though dentistry was a respected field, the day-to-day left him wanting something more from his work. “I wanted to be of service to my community, but I didn’t feel like I had found a way of doing that with dentistry,” said Ellis. After ten years maintaining a practice, and paying off student loans, he decided to return to teaching and his home state.

CO U RT ESY O F S COT T E L L I S

The importance of family From a tight-knit community in western North Carolina, Ellis always dreamt of achieving big things that would make his family proud. With both sets of grandparents living within a onemile radius, he had plenty of family encouraging his academic development. “No one in my family had gone to college,”

Ellis said. “So my parents were really passionate about making sure [my brother and I] could get the best education possible. We were fortunate to have family members that really wanted us to succeed.” This family encouragement would play a big role in his college education as well. Realizing his parents and grandparents’ hopes, both he and his older brother graduated from college. And both of them went to Duke. As a pre-med undergraduate with a heavy science-based course load, his brother suggested taking an education class for academic balance. It was a decision that would introduce him to his future career. “There was a requirement that you had to go into the public schools and volunteer in the classroom,” Ellis said. “I was in a third grade classroom at Burton Elementary. I think I had to visit four times, but I kept going back.” During that time, he noticed the lack of male role models for the students. It was an observation that led him into the classroom after

With Ellis in the house as mentor, his younger colleagues can benefit from his 10 years teaching, learning what gets results in the classroom and what doesn’t. Scott Ellis helps his students with an activity in his classroom at The Expedition School.

TO P : J U L I E S C H O O N M A K E R ; B OT TO M : S H E L B I FA N N I N G

Back in the classroom As a teacher, Ellis feels a keen sense of purpose with his work. Acting as an advocate for his students and their families, his role is to demonstrate to children that curiosity and learning have a power of their own. It’s something his family taught him well. He doesn’t take this role for granted, especially considering the low number of male teachers in elementary schools. And recent policy changes have made teaching even less appealing to college graduates. With the state ranked 49th in teacher pay and education often the subject of political debate, it’s no surprise that attracting new educators is difficult and teachers are leaving the industry at record rates.

From classroom to TeachHouse For Ellis, this trend is a call to action. Selected as the Duke TeachHouse mentor by Director Jan Riggsbee, he’s on the front lines with early career teachers as they begin navigating the profession and its demands. A living and learning community for graduates of Duke’s teacher prep programs, TeachHouse is a professional development community unlike others in the field. Located in a historic home in Durham’s Cleveland-Holloway neighborhood near downtown, it currently houses six fellows teaching in public schools across the Triangle, with two other non-resident fellows. All of the fellows are first or second year teachers. It’s an innovative effort meant to attract and keep quality teachers in North Carolina’s public schools by supporting them from the very beginning of their careers. Ellis’s involvement has been crucial to the success of TeachHouse. He helped Riggsbee launch the program in fall 2015 and his love of teaching and commitment to learning has shaped the culture of the house. “He sees and understands each child as an individual, and through modeling and support, facilitates a learning community that is a safe space for discovery and risk-taking,” Riggsbee said. “He’s passionate, caring, insightful, inspiring, innovative, and nurturing—an advocate for all children and all teachers.” In short, he’s exactly the right person to lead the TeachHouse efforts as mentor.

Sharing their knowledge and experiences, the fellows regularly talk about best practices and how to apply them in the classroom. Conversations over dinner include strategies they can use to manage their workload, like using dedicated planning time in school to do their grading instead. “It’s a lot easier to bring home your lesson planning book than it is 40 papers,” Ellis said. It may sound like a simple fix, but these insights come from years of experience. With Ellis in the house as mentor, his younger colleagues can benefit from his 10 years teaching, learning what gets results in the classroom and what doesn’t. For young teachers straight from college, this guidance can help translate knowledge into practice. There’s plenty to navigate after graduation from college, so the advice and camaraderie at TeachHouse helps this transition go smoothly. Teacher burnout is preventable, Ellis said, but it takes committed teachers helping guide those who are new to the profession. That support can mean the difference between a new teacher floundering or flourishing in their first classroom. Successful teachers are rarely isolated. Like Ellis, they’re products of their family, education, and community. With him as Duke TeachHouse mentor, there’s hope that more Duke graduates will choose to teach and stay in the classroom too.

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