Chapter 13
Apprenticeship in microbiology
Embodied adaptation to experimental and technological aspects of learning
Based on participant observation of work in a big US university’s molecular biology department, I discuss how students are guided towards becoming competent scientists. On joining a closely knit community of research and practice, the student has to adapt to an overwhelming environment of techniques, parlance, habits and social mores, while absorbing a massive scientific and practical input. In the apprentice system’s,‘learning by doing’, the mentor-mentee relation and the students’ interactions between themselves and with their studied objects (here, highly contagious bacteria) are more important than verbal teaching; but they also add pressure to the learning process. By adapting to this environment (which includes many smaller adaptive interactions), the apprentices create a solid foundation for their future teaching, research, and practice.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.New trends in science education
- 3.Apprenticeship in microbiology
- 4.Adaptability to a scientific workplace
- 4.1A new social environment
- 4.2New terminology and scientific language
- 4.3Adaptation to the objects, tools, and instruments of the scientific profession
- 4.4Embodied adaptation
- 4.5
Embodiment in scientific practice
- 5.Manual sensitivity
- 5.1The art of plating and spreading
- 5.2Spreading
- 5.3Leia using the turntable to spread
- 5.4Representational gestures
- 5.5Gestures indicating invisible processes
- 5.6NanoDrop
- 6.
Conclusion
- 6.1Adaptation to scientific practice
- 6.2Integration of body and tools
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References