Janet Batzli

Now emeritus, I was fortunate to work with students, faculty/staff, alumni and many collaborators across campus for 21 years. In my position as associate director, I led the day-to-day administration of Biocore as well as a number of other activities including teaching Biocore courses, training graduate teaching assistants, coordinating Biocore peer mentors program, advising students on course and career planning, and mentoring students pursuing research projects in the Biocore Prairie and beyond.

I am a plant biologist by training, earning my doctorate from University of Illinois in 1998. My graduate research focused on the ecology and symbiosis of nitrogen-fixing soil microbes that form a partnership with a group of woody plants known as actinorhizal, including alder (Alnus sp.), Ceanothus sp., Eleagnus sp. This type of ecological research influences the many types of investigations we investigated in the Biocore Prairie.

I was drawn to teaching as a graduate student and was so inspired and excited about teaching science that I pursued a postdoc in science education at Michigan State University from 1999-2002. My particular interests in science education focus on how students develop scientific reasoning skills through ‘doing science’ and communicating about their science. In addition, I am interested in student misconceptions that form barriers to learning, threshold concepts that are essential for deep learning of biology, and the development of curriculum that engages student thinking and provides authentic assessment of student understanding. (See some of the projects and publications that we have done in the context of Biocore courses; Full list of publications in Google Scholar https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=list_works&hl=en&authuser=1&user=JmHVBVUAAAAJ)