Information for Guest Speakers

SESB Benefits Companies and Guest Speakers

Companies know the value of learning. The SESB provides the life science community with the opportunity to enrich the educational system that gave them the opportunity to launch their careers.

The enthusiasm generated from this partnership for science learning in both students and teachers is a priceless reward. It is about wanting to excite students about the possibilities of science as well as to give them a scientist's practical view of the world. Science is not just alot of facts and figures. It's about how science relates to real life.  Science is useful.   It's also fun to know all this stuff.

The successful participation of the guest speaker in a classroom does not happen by chance. The SESB has developed a program to plan, implement and accomplish all of its goals. When a school applies for SESB membership and receives a guidebook, the staff-principal and teachers are offered help to ensure the partnership is successful.

Once the candidates are identified, SESB is responsible for interviewing and supporting the SESB guest speaker in the school.

If you are interested in being a guest speaker please fill out this SESB Industry Application.pdf and fax to (858) 455-0022 or email to kgrover@biocom.org

What is Involved - Guest Speakers

The SESB is an opportunity for industry professionals to discover one ofthe most challenging and rewarding professions - teaching. This guest speaking visit could be the tipping point in convincing a student to pursue a career in the biotech and medical device industry. This small time commitment is intended to make a very big impact in our schools.  The ultimate goal of this resource alignment between educators and industry is to increase student proficiency in science.

Here is what is involved:

  1. Identify SESB topics of interest
  2. SESB will match you with a middle school teacher based on teaching interest
  3. Familiarize self with in-class lesson, communicate with teacher prior to visit as needed.
  4. In class visit: Brief introduction/lesson work with teacher (1 day or 1/2 day: 1-2 50 minute class periods)
  5. Guest speakers will receive an email with a link to complete an on-line survey.

Pre-work Exercise

The SESB program will incorporate career related multimedia products and information to help students begin to recognize the connections between topics they study and how it may translate into related work environments or career pathways.

Before the guest speakers of the SESB enter into the classroom, a pre-visit research exercise will be conducted by the students. When students are given the opportunity to envision themselves practicing the science they are learning, there is higher potential to internalize the science content and consider career pathways (NRC,2007).

Student Learning Abilities

While a SESB guest speaker can’t be prepared to know how each child will respond in a classroom, there are guidelines that can help us determine what can be expected from students at different age levels. The following provides guidelines for the development of instructional strategies that best conform with the learning abilities of students of different age levels and can help to know how the students may respond to any lesson or presentation. The learning abilities of students grow and change as they mature. Be sensitive to how students learn at the different grade levels.

Students in the Primary Grades (K-2):

  • believe only what they see, e.g., change in shape means change in quantity
  • learn through manipulating objects
  • concentrate on parts, not the whole
  • can pay attention for 10-15 minutes

Elementary Students (3-5):

  • begin to generalize
  • like to memorize facts
  • begin to understand concepts
  • can believe without seeing
  • can pay attention for 20-30 minutes
  • can follow a task for several days

Middle Grade Students (6-8):

  • can hypothesize
  • can conceptualize abstractions
  • begin to understand multiple causation
  • can challenge authority
  • can handle 30-40 minutes, and can follow multiple tasks

Teaching Strategies

To help you develop you lessons and presentations, consider that the students at the different grade levels learn by:

Primary Students (K-2):

  • making observations
  • simple manipulations
  • pictorial communications
  • simple comparisons

Elementary Students (3-5):

  • building relationships
  • using space-time relationships
  • formulating inferences
  • drawing simple conclusions

Middle Grade Students (6-8):

  • formulating experiments to test hypotheses
  • recognizing and predicting patterns
  • developing models to explain

SESB Industry Professional Presentation Guidelines

Your SESB presentation will likely be one of the most impactful talks you will ever give. It is your opportunity to inspire young people to consider the sciences as a potential career path.

  1. Coordinate your presentation with the in-class lesson
    The teacher has selected a topic from the SESB Lesson Matrix and will prepare students for skills and content required in the lesson. Be sure to use the lesson provided to structure your presentation. Please add examples of how the concept is applied in the real world.

  2. Make it personal
    First, introduce yourself, discuss where you work, and give your audience some interesting personal aspect of your life or work that is unique and engaging, something that will hook your audience. This can be a short anecdote about some event in your life that made you want to be a scientist or a moment that was particularly rewarding. If you have traveled an interesting or non-traditional path to your current job, share that with students. They will appreciate hearing about any speed-bumps you encountered along your way.

  3. To use or not to use slides
    If you choose to use PowerPoint, limit the number of slides, minimize the amount of text, but maximize the use of pictures, diagrams, and analogies. (Stimulating visuals and colorful imagery through stories and analogies not only hold students’ interest but will help them remember the contents of your presentation longer.

  4. Avoid unnecessary jargon
    Don’t use jargon or abbreviations, no matter how commonplace you think they are.

  5. Convince them science is cool
    Talk about how much you enjoy doing science. Give them a sense of your personal satisfaction, and the thrill of discovery. Find a way to show them that the science you do is cool and makes an impact on the world.

  6. Have a Q&A session
    Make sure you leave plenty of time for students to ask questions. If they don’t immediately ask you any, be prepared with questions to ask the students. For example, you could ask them:
    • When do you think I decided to become a scientist?
    • How do you think I chose a major in college?
    • How do you think I chose a college?
    • How often do you think I travel as part of my job?