By Ronica Stromberg
Sumaiya Tabassum has had a busy first eight months as a postdoctoral researcher, teaching, writing, serving in university outreach and learning to balance work life with home life including a toddler. She recently received the 2025 Postdoctoral Excellence Award in the School of Natural Resources for her efforts.
"I was surprised, and it was totally unexpected," Tabassum said, noting she had been in her postdoctoral role less than a year when the award was announced. "It's always a great feeling to get this kind of award that celebrates your accomplishments."
This past spring, she taught the science literacy course Science and Decision-Making for a Complex World. The course is required for all undergraduates in the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources. Tabassum taught the students a seven-step process for making decisions on controversial issues like flood mitigation and developing solutions.
"My class had 130 students, and it was early, eight in the morning, in this brutal cold, so it took a lot of effort to teach this," she said. "Also, that's why I was always trying to come up with different techniques or ideas to engage students in the classroom, because it's hard for students to concentrate at this hour in the classroom, especially in an auditorium."
One idea she carried out was to start the class with a five-minute reflection in which students would write two lines, "I am grateful for [blank]" and "I am looking forward to [blank]." In another idea, she converted a lecture on the environment into a case study and an assignment based on the Antelope Valley Project in Lincoln. She also taught students how to manage conflict through role play to find a mutually agreeable solution to plastic pollution.
To get students to speak up more in class, she divided the class into 27 groups and had each group choose a leader to deliver a two- to three-minute TED-style talk. Students chose topics like hobbies, sports and movies.
"Students were very interested in those TED-style talks," Tabassum said. "They were waiting for that every class. We had those lightning talks in the middle of the class when I felt like, 'OK, now, students are feeling sleepy. It's time.'"
Read the rest of the article at https://snr.unl.edu/aboutus/what/newstory.aspx?fid=1274