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My
role as a teacher is to create a stimulating and challenging learning
environment. I structure my teaching around the following ideas:
(1) Students have a variety of learning styles.
(2) Teachers should teach skills in addition to facts.
(3) The topics and skills that I want students to remember determine the
structure of the course.
Since students learn in a variety of different ways, I try to present
information to them in several forms. While some information is presented
best through traditional methods like lectures, laboratories, and assigned
reading material, other subjects are best presented through discussion,
group projects, field trips, and an occasional game. The same activities
do not always work with every class. Some groups of students are more
eager to participate than others, and I have found that I need to adjust
my teaching strategies to meet the needs of the particular group of students.
However, while the activities and assignments may change, the learning
goals ultimately drive the direction of the course. Rather than simply
teaching facts, I try to provide students with skills that they will be
able to use for their entire lives, such as the ability to communicate
effectively verbally and in writing and the ability to determine the quality
of information based on its source. Other skills that I intend to nurture
in my classes include how to collaborate with others, technical fluency,
and a general appreciation for academic study and the world around them,
especially nature and the scientific method. I will explain the implementation
of my philosophy with examples of course design and different teaching
activities.
When designing a course or a single lesson plan, I first consider the
concepts and skills that I want the students to possess after completing
the course or lesson and for the rest of their lives. The classroom activities
can be integrated with the assessment techniques and structured to meet
the learning goals of the course. For example, I designed an interdisciplinary
course, “Understanding the Natural World,” by first developing
the learning goals and then developing activities including graded assignments
that would allow the students to meet those goals. One learning goal of
the course is, “Students will develop informed, testable scientific
hypotheses based on observations.” To meet that goal, activities
include field trips (to get students excited about nature and to increase
observational skills), journal writing in which observations are recorded
and hypotheses are presented (to give students writing experience), library
research (to find background information), group discussion (to let students
verbalize and change their ideas in a small peer group), and group presentations
(to increase their verbal communication skills). The entire class gives
feedback to peers, and groups have the opportunity to make changes. Grades
are assigned based on the quality of research, the strength of the hypothesis,
its testability, and the style of the presentation. The activities are
designed to meet the goal of developing hypotheses and also to meet other
learning goals, such as being able to communicate verbally and in writing,
being able to work in groups, and developing an appreciation for the natural
world. Assignments that layer in many skills provide students with abilities
that they will use for their entire lives.
Classroom activities can be designed to incorporate a variety of learning
styles, as well. When teaching students to construct phylogenies (trees
of life reflecting the evolutionary relationships between organisms),
I create a table with characteristics of hypothetical organisms (Plant
A has red flowers and Plants B, C, and D have blue flowers) and let students
work in groups to draw the most parsimonious tree. I next provide information
on additional characters that either require them to change the shape
of their tree or to include some cases of convergent evolution (Plants
A and D have small leaves). My goal is to create a lively, cooperative
classroom environment that encourages students to work outside of class
and teaches them how to learn. When reviewing material for tests I have
incorporated a number of different techniques, including playing “Jeopardy,”
writing rhyming poems or songs to help students remember names and characteristics
of organisms, answering questions on the electronic course noteboard,
and using movement to remember biological principles such as transcription
and translation. I have brought real or model organisms into class, had
students draw them out of a hat, and arrange themselves in phylogenetic
order, describing the characteristics that differentiate each group of
organisms. I have given classes “bio-trivia” questions to
answer each week, giving prizes at the end of the quarter to the student
who answered the most questions accurately. Students use on-line tools
to find answers, and we discuss how to determine the accuracy of each
website. Student feedback has been extremely positive, with some students
saying that they look forward to discussion sections and find the activities
fun and engaging.
Teaching to different styles sometimes takes more time than lecture, but
students seem to remember information better after having participated
in a detailed classroom activity. In one lesson, I taught students in
an evolution class about types of natural selection and calculating selection
differentials by using scenarios, group work, and presentations. I first
wrote learning goals for the day that included the ability to draw and
interpret graphs, something that is difficult for introductory students
but is an important skill. Specifically, each group of 4 students was
given a population of “snakes” (actually straws) of different
lengths. Each group calculated the mean length of the initial population.
They were given a scenario, like, “A hurricane sweeps through the
area, killing all of the smallest snakes, 3 of the medium-small snakes,
and 2 of the medium snakes. Remove these snakes from your population.”
The group had to calculate the new average length of the population following
the selection event, calculate selection differentials, and draw graphs
on the board indicating the strength of selection and the mean snake length
before and after the selection event. Each group presented the results
of their particular scenario to the entire class. After class, many students
came up to me and thanked me for presenting the information in a form
that they could understand. One student said that she did not understand
the concept from listening to lecture or doing the reading, but that the
exercise finally made it clear to her.
In my role as an undergraduate mentor to several students, I apply my
philosophy of teaching to different learning styles, teaching skills in
addition to facts, and developing learning goals to determine activities.
My students develop the ability to work as scientists, which is one of
the most rewarding and difficult skills to acquire, by designing and implementing
their own research projects. The learning goals for my undergraduate research
assistants are to comprehend and be able to explain important ecological
and evolutionary concepts, to develop hypotheses, to design and carry
out an experiment to test that hypothesis, to analyze data, to write up
results of the experiment in the form of a scientific paper, and to give
a poster and oral presentation in the undergraduate research symposium.
I begin by having my students work on an existing project in the lab to
get a feel for the larger goals of my research program and become familiar
with the study system. Activities include discussion of journal articles,
working together to collect data as part of an existing experiment, and
learning to enter and analyze data that they collected. After one quarter
of working on a project that I have designed, I encourage my students
to work on their own independent project. This requires careful supervision,
encouragement, and input at every stage. However, I alter my degree of
input depending on the independence level of the individual student. My
students have enjoyed this experience more than any other assignment in
their undergraduate career. One student has gone on to study ecology in
graduate school, and four others are pursuing master’s degrees in
other scientific fields.
I was competitively selected to be a Teaching Assistant Consultant (TAC),
training new graduate students in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology to
be Teaching Assistants in the campus-wide Teaching Assistant Professional
Development Program. Training to become a TAC included one year of coursework
in pedagogy. This experience has shown me that the literature supports
my creative lesson plans. More importantly, the TAC program provided me
with the pedagogical framework necessary to place teaching tools in a
broader context. For example, I now see each activity as part of an integrated
course that should be part of a curriculum that prepares students for
life beyond the university. I developed methods of assessment and feedback
as well as new in-class activities. I also learned the importance of collecting
student feedback and incorporating their suggestions into my lesson plans.
Within each course, assessment techniques can be designed together with
classroom activities to reflect the learning goals for that course.
Higher education should prepare students to be citizens of the world by
providing them with the ability and desire to learn and to work well with
others. My role as a teacher is not simply to impart knowledge but also
to provide an environment with activities designed to enable students
to learn specific facts and ideas as well as general communication, appreciation,
and learning tools. I incorporate various techniques to create courses
that are intellectually challenging and professionally useful. In these
courses, I plan to emphasize biological topics that are relevant to all
citizens, such as global climate change, genetically modified crops and
non-native, invasive species. I am dedicated to providing students with
meaningful experiences in the field to increase their appreciation and
understanding of nature. Student feedback and pedagogical literature supports
my student-centered teaching philosophy, and I intend to continue to follow
that literature to improve my teaching methods. I strive to teach classes
that are interactive, fun, and demanding.