DrJamie Foster

My role as an educator is to create an educational environment where I can instill into my students three essential building blocks of learning: scientific knowledge, critical thinking skills, and self-advocacy. Each of these building blocks is deeply interconnected. Transferring fundamental scientific knowledge is critical for students to advance their professional careers. Additionally, developing a student’s critical thinking skills helps them assess that knowledge and make correlations between seemingly independent components, thereby enabling them to apply that knowledge in practical settings. Lastly, helping students take ownership of their own learning experience is also an important goal and enables them to become their own advocates to help broaden their sense of responsibility in their own education. Together, by developing these different facets of learning I hope to help drive a student’s own natural curiosity toward discovery and provide them with the necessary critical thinking and communication skills that will make them successful in their post-graduate careers.

Specifically, I have taught following courses at the University of Florida

MCB 3703 Astrobiology (Undergraduate, Spring)

MCB 4652 Environmental Microbiology (Undergraduate, Spring)

MCB 5705 Astrobiology (Graduate, Spring)

MCB 6656 Environmental Microbiology (Graduate, Fall, Co-taught)

MCB 7922 MS Final Assessment (Graduate, Spring, Summer, Fall)