Profiles in Teaching: Jennifer Ross-Wolff on developmental biology and unraveling concepts with students

Growing up in a family of elementary and high school teachers and school administrators, Jennifer Ross-Wolff thought that teaching was just what adults did.

Now professor of biology and current director of Carleton’s Perlman Center for Learning and Teaching, Ross-Wolff began her professional journey at Millikin University — a small liberal arts university in Decatur, Illinois — working closely with professors as a teaching assistant (TA).

“I had the most wonderful professors who were willing to meet, answer all of my questions, and help me when I needed help, particularly [my] chemistry professor and my adviser in biology,” she said. “They helped me see that getting a PhD might let me follow the same path that they had [taken] to teach at a small college.”

What drew Ross-Wolff toward teaching was the dialogue that still sparks between herself and her students, where she can meet someone where they are and pique their interest in a subject they may not have thought about before.

“I really love talking about concepts that are kind of tricky and turning them into stories that make sense,” Ross-Wolff said. “In one-on-one [interactions] in undergrad, I like to think of molecules as these little robots that are doing things. I love being able to just explain things in different ways, because not everybody understands in the same way. It really makes me happy when you can finally see it make sense to a student.”

Along her trajectory into education, Ross-Wolff met some difficulties in graduate school, where there were controversial attitudes in regards to the teaching profession.

“When I ended up going to grad school, in biology, the hot thing was biomedical sciences and either becoming a big research professor or going and working in industry,” she said. “The particular university where I went was not super teaching-friendly. They saw it as a lesser path, and I got really demoralized.”

After leaving her previous graduate program, Ross-Wolff was able to negotiate for the maximum amount of TA-ing along with doing lab research at the University of Minnesota.

“I definitely had some bumps in the road where people put up roadblocks and made me question what I wanted to do, but eventually I was really happy that I came back [to academia] and was able to balance research and teaching at a place like Carleton,” Ross-Wolff said.

Ross-Wolff’s interest in science stemmed from her biology major in undergrad and the chemistry classes she took. Specifically, she is fascinated by the concept of biological processes that fall under developmental biology and genetics, which are covered in some of the courses she teaches at Carleton, such as BIOL 125: Genes, Evolution, and Development and BIOL 240: Genetics.

“I think developmental biology was what I really loved,” Ross-Wolff said. “A lot of my graduate work [was on] neurons. Thinking about how you could go from a cell that’s not a neuron to a cell that is, and it’s making an organism behave in a particular way, is really, really cool.”

Along with teaching them about developmental biology, Ross-Wolff encourages her students to explore topics they find interesting by building off of class material, and tries to make research less intimidating.

“I love helping students unravel the puzzles of what seems really complicated,” she said. “[I tell them], ‘Here are pieces of the puzzle that we know pretty well. [How] can we jump from there to the piece that we don’t know about yet? Could you propose an experiment that would address that?’ I remember as an undergrad being really overwhelmed, [thinking], ‘How could I ever discover something that no one knew? How could I even get there?’ [I help] students recognize that it’s just step by step. You start with what you do know. You seek out things that people you know can help you [with], then you look at things that other people have done, and then it just starts to become clearer what your contribution might be. Not getting blocked by [the thought that] it is all too big for one small person to think about is really important, [along with] embracing the unknown.”

In addition to teaching students about pursuing research, Ross-Wolff conducts “teaching research” on the development of the nervous system using the organism C. elegans. Specifically, she is interested in how during development, the neurons differentiate between the two sexes.

“My research interests are combining genetics and developmental biology,” she said. “Looking at the genes that get turned on to make the cells become neurons is a very central genetic question. This idea of turning genes on and off is a very developmental biology question, since cells become different from one another because they express different genes. The other piece I think fits really well is that I was always interested in teaching the model that I work on. C. elegans is so good for being able to work alongside students every single step of the way, and that is part of what appeals to me. We’re at Carleton, and we have these wonderful students who are part of this teaching research.”

In the classroom, Ross-Wolff practices her philosophy of teaching with an active classroom and one-on-one time that makes the material she teaches accessible to everyone, sharing her passion for biology with her students.

“I work with individual students and small groups, starting where they are, finding something that we know in common. I encourage everybody to share what they’re bringing in, because even if someone hasn’t ever taken a biology class, they’re bringing experience that is really useful,” she said. “People who don’t have preconceived ideas ask the best questions, so getting students together to talk to each other and work one-on-one in those small groups is a big part of my teaching. A lot of my teaching is about spending our class time working on problems together, working in small groups, and encouraging people to ask questions, even when they might feel embarrassed to ask. I don’t want anybody to feel like they can’t ask a question. I meet with a lot of students during office hours, too, as part of my teaching philosophy.”

Having taught at Carleton for almost 20 years, Ross-Wolff appreciates the curiosity and diligence that students at the College have, as well as having creative discourse about any subject matter. She loves teaching about things she is enthusiastic about, because it helps students find their own passions.

“One of the things that I just love about [working at Carleton] is that students come in, they’re super curious, and they’re all willing to work hard,” she said. “You can ask a Carl to rise to any challenge, and as long as you support them in that, they are able to do it, and they will do it with enthusiasm. I have a lot of fun just talking about science with my students and letting our curiosity lead us.”