We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Neymi Layne Mignocchi a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Neymi Layne, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s start with education – we’d love to hear your thoughts about how we can better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career
I founded my company, Eye of a Scientist, as a science educational outreach to provide teachers and homeschool parents a valuable resource to improve the science education in South Florida. I did from my own experience growing up in the public school system in a low socio-economic community. There is a great lack of experimental and hands on opportunities offered for students in lower level educational settings, and especially for students attending institutions in low social economic communities. In the laboratory, where I spent the last 6-7 years of my higher level education as I earned my PhD degree, you learn everything by performing various methods. In other words, you learn by doing. Most teachers are not trained to teach science with hands on experiential activities that tie the concepts introduced in articles and videos. For that reason I was inspired to create a developmentally guided science curriculum for students in elementary and middle school levels to supplement their science education and bring science to live in their own hands. The program is meant to inspire and teach students HOW to perform scientific inquiry across various science topics covered at every level in their elementary and middle school educational experience.
Neymi Layne, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
My name is Neymi Layne Mignocchi. I am by definition, a professional student with a doctorate degree in neuroscience and two Masters; one in experimental psychology and one in biology. Obtaining a doctorate degree has given me the advantage of knowing the higher education system from a student perspective. I apply it to guide my students’ learning science topics by offering a scientist’s approach to enhance their problem-solving skills. Everyone is a scientist in their own life when we encounter obstacles that require solutions. I developed a hands-on, project based approach in teaching investigative and laboratory skills to influence young minds to learn about the physical world and understand the role of science in our everyday lives. My goal is to teach my students how to become their own scientists in their everyday lives. I do this by inspiring students to evaluate and understand current scientific breakthroughs across science disciplines using the scientific method that in turn develops problem-solving skills. Students in my classes learn how to categorize the learned information, collect data, make conclusions of their data, and offer solutions to presented challenges. These are skills that become ingrained in my students and become applicable inside and outside of the “classroom.”
What’s been the best source of new clients for you?
Word of mouth has become the absolute best resource. I have a 3 year old boy that I have begun homeschooling since he turned 2, and through the many local homeschool group activities I try to participate in Davie, I’ve met other moms and homeschool organization leaders that have led me to the big opportunities in teaching my unorthodox methodology in teaching about 50 students the last year and a half. Through those sources, I’ve been able to demonstrate how well the kids tune in to these experimental experiences that have in turn inspired me to create games for many of my lessons. The games are designed to reinforce the information learned, especially the neuroscience classes. Developing content through this classes has also improved my social media presence within the South Florida homeschool communities and opened doors to continue to grow and teach more classes and students in the upcoming 2022-2023 school year.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Throughout my journey to obtain a Ph.D. in neuroscience, I was presented with a lot of “NO’s”. No to join graduate programs, no to being a selected graduate students, and a provisional no to even passing my first given presentation and move on to candidacy during my Ph.D. program. I wasn’t accepted to a graduate neuroscience program because of my lack on neuroscience based research. I had a lot of experimental psychology research, but moving fields required more laboratory experience on my part. It wasn’t until I had the opportunity to work for my last mentor, Dr. Hyung-Bae Kwon, for 2 years demonstrate my work ethic, commitment, and diligence that I was finally taken up as a Ph.D. student. It was with Dr. Kwon that helped me and guided me throughout my Ph.D., even after my first big failure in passing my candidacy exam. It took a lot of work but it was more than worth it. I never gave up. Neither no deterred me. Yes, they hurt, but the dream never stopped being the same. The journey was about finding the way and that is what I did.
Contact Info:
- Website: eyeofascientist.com
- Instagram: @eyeofascientist
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EyeofaScientist