In their capstone project, "What Questions Do You Have?: Developing Scientific Questioning Skills in Biology Students," Ava Nemerovski explored how to shift the classroom dynamic from passive listening to active scientific inquiry.

Ava’s methodology targeted two distinct pillars of student engagement:

• Quality: Training students to transform curiosity into "testable" scientific questions.
• Quantity: Ensuring every student felt empowered to voice their questions, regardless of their starting point.

By blending the Question Formulation Technique with explicit instructional scaffolding, Ava saw a measurable increase in her students' ability to think like scientists. Looking forward, they plan to refine their framework by adding specialized supports for Multilingual Learners and more granular scaffolding for defining experimental variables.

Ava's advice for future MATs is “Find community within the MAT cohort. Our cohort does a ton to stay in touch, and it helped me stay grounded during student-teaching.”