Sometimes students graduate without noticing the connection between biology and other natural sciences. They think that biology is about memorizing binomial nomenclature, anatomy, or amino acids, and that these words are to be memorized for a test and then quickly forgotten. Until I started my graduate research, I was one of those students. Quickly I became aware of all the connections between the different scientific disciplines I would not have thought are related to each other. By making the connections between physiology, metabolism, thermodynamics, and chemistry, I was able to develop a deeper understanding of the data I collected. I aim to show these connections to my students and to initiate thinking within these relationships regardless of the path they choose to take with their education. By implementing active learning in the classroom, I aim to prepare students in my class to process information in a way requires them to make connections between topics and gain a deeper understanding of the materials taught. An environment that allows students to discuss ideas and practice problems aloud supports a diversity of learners, particularly those from underrepresented backgrounds. Therefore, the goal that I always keep in mind when designing my classes is to create a tutoring scenario in which students actively participate in discussing concepts and approaching problems. In my experience, I have found that many of the instructional strategies that engage students in a smaller class can effectively be applied on a larger scale and online. As a result, I replace traditional lectures with class time that is spent actively applying foundational concepts and solving problems.
Experience and Approach
In addition to being student-centered, my classes are highly structured. For example, the course I most recently taught (BIOL140 Laboratory Investigations in Life Science at UBC Vancouver), I begin instruction prior to each class by assigning relevant readings and providing my students guided reading questions. These questions focus on key concepts and introduce new terminology and content. They also make reading a more active process for the students. I hold all students accountable for the guided reading assignments by having them complete a graded quiz prior to coming to class. In class, I utilize a polling system that allows me to ask questions and get feedback on where they are in the learning process. Typically, I reward them with some easier questions and then challenge them with a few questions that require them to apply their knowledge and think more critically about the material as we learn it. For example, when I teach about bottom-up effects in aquatic food webs, I start with a poll question on the effects of food quantity on consumers. As a more challenging follow-up question, I ask students to predict how a community acting as a food source for consumers affects a consumer when it consists of two different species with different traits in digestibility. Using poll questions on zoom and i-Clicker, allows me to evaluate the effectiveness of my teaching techniques but also help to adjust my course materials and class structure during the term.
I believe that the use of various instructional strategies to reinforce the material forces students to process information in different ways and deepens their understanding of core concepts. Therefore, I complement lecture outlines with drawings, animations, and videos during class. Outside of class, I often replace guided readings with case studies and group activities. For example, when I teach about experimental design, I start with presenting an experimental study highlighting its design and later I let the students create a follow-up experiment within a group. During this activity they must work through a worksheet that guides them through the planning process starting with stating (1) the learned observation, (2) formulating a research question, (3) phrasing hypotheses, (4) thinking about the needed methods for the proposed experiment, (5) identifying the variable investigated and manipulated, and followed by (6) making predictions about the outcome. This method of creating a follow-up experiment combines the prior learned knowledge and includes the necessity to do online research about the proposed topic. This activity is both fun and a real-world example that introduces biology students to the concept of how research works by asking them to submit an experiment design proposal and record a pitch-talk of their project idea.
I believe that the active learner can achieve both higher order thinking skills and an understanding of the nature of scientific inquiry. Engaging students in higher order thinking allows them to gain a deeper understanding of scientific concepts and practice critical thinking. Whether my students become scientists, doctors, consultants, government employees, or decide to pursue a career in another field altogether, they will all have to make decisions for themselves and society on relevant issues. Consequently, scientific literacy is arguably one of the most valuable skills that I can instill in my students. I use instructional strategies that challenge students to think more critically about science as a process. Specifically, I use instructional strategies that get my students thinking about how to address scientific questions related to a topic that we are learning in class. For example, in my BIOL140 course, students learn about the marine ecosystem and trophic interactions using the Southern Resident Killer Whale – Chinook salmon – zooplankton food web as a local example. To help students catalogue the many facets of trophic interactions and environmental effects leading to changes in such interactions, I give them a news article summarizing all the topics to be addressed, my students then draw a concept map about the given information. Every time we talk about a new aspect of trophic interactions or how environmental changes affect marine trophic levels, we will go back to the concept map and add arrows and new descriptions to each topic that we are learning. As we learn about the relationships between the different trophic levels, we draw arrows between them and define these relationships. Although they must learn a certain amount of content to understand the different topics and concepts taught in the course, successful students must also be able to apply their knowledge of topics to scientific questions. Using their concept maps, they design experiments that would address questions related to course content in class and on exams.
To further equip my students with the reasoning and problem-solving skills of scientists, I require students in my introductory biology course to spend some time reading and understanding a piece of primary literature. In their first reading of a module on primary literature students complete an assignment on the methods used in each of the figures of the paper. The following week, they read the entire paper and complete an assignment that asks them to think again about the methods, this time in the context of the whole paper. Specifically, they are asked to describe how each method relates to the claims that the authors are making in the figures of the paper. Once they have thought broadly about the methods, each student is assigned a specific figure and tasked with becoming an expert on that figure. In the final week of this module, I use a jigsaw cooperative learning technique. This technique gives each “expert” the opportunity to present their figure in a small group setting. Because groups are composed of one representative for each figure, this technique also promotes collaborative learning.
Learn more about my courses taught in the past:
BIOL140 (Laboratory Investigations in Life Science)
BIOL121 (Genetics, Evolution, and Ecology)
BIOL402 (Aquatic Ecology)
Experience and Approach
In addition to being student-centered, my classes are highly structured. For example, the course I most recently taught (BIOL140 Laboratory Investigations in Life Science at UBC Vancouver), I begin instruction prior to each class by assigning relevant readings and providing my students guided reading questions. These questions focus on key concepts and introduce new terminology and content. They also make reading a more active process for the students. I hold all students accountable for the guided reading assignments by having them complete a graded quiz prior to coming to class. In class, I utilize a polling system that allows me to ask questions and get feedback on where they are in the learning process. Typically, I reward them with some easier questions and then challenge them with a few questions that require them to apply their knowledge and think more critically about the material as we learn it. For example, when I teach about bottom-up effects in aquatic food webs, I start with a poll question on the effects of food quantity on consumers. As a more challenging follow-up question, I ask students to predict how a community acting as a food source for consumers affects a consumer when it consists of two different species with different traits in digestibility. Using poll questions on zoom and i-Clicker, allows me to evaluate the effectiveness of my teaching techniques but also help to adjust my course materials and class structure during the term.
I believe that the use of various instructional strategies to reinforce the material forces students to process information in different ways and deepens their understanding of core concepts. Therefore, I complement lecture outlines with drawings, animations, and videos during class. Outside of class, I often replace guided readings with case studies and group activities. For example, when I teach about experimental design, I start with presenting an experimental study highlighting its design and later I let the students create a follow-up experiment within a group. During this activity they must work through a worksheet that guides them through the planning process starting with stating (1) the learned observation, (2) formulating a research question, (3) phrasing hypotheses, (4) thinking about the needed methods for the proposed experiment, (5) identifying the variable investigated and manipulated, and followed by (6) making predictions about the outcome. This method of creating a follow-up experiment combines the prior learned knowledge and includes the necessity to do online research about the proposed topic. This activity is both fun and a real-world example that introduces biology students to the concept of how research works by asking them to submit an experiment design proposal and record a pitch-talk of their project idea.
I believe that the active learner can achieve both higher order thinking skills and an understanding of the nature of scientific inquiry. Engaging students in higher order thinking allows them to gain a deeper understanding of scientific concepts and practice critical thinking. Whether my students become scientists, doctors, consultants, government employees, or decide to pursue a career in another field altogether, they will all have to make decisions for themselves and society on relevant issues. Consequently, scientific literacy is arguably one of the most valuable skills that I can instill in my students. I use instructional strategies that challenge students to think more critically about science as a process. Specifically, I use instructional strategies that get my students thinking about how to address scientific questions related to a topic that we are learning in class. For example, in my BIOL140 course, students learn about the marine ecosystem and trophic interactions using the Southern Resident Killer Whale – Chinook salmon – zooplankton food web as a local example. To help students catalogue the many facets of trophic interactions and environmental effects leading to changes in such interactions, I give them a news article summarizing all the topics to be addressed, my students then draw a concept map about the given information. Every time we talk about a new aspect of trophic interactions or how environmental changes affect marine trophic levels, we will go back to the concept map and add arrows and new descriptions to each topic that we are learning. As we learn about the relationships between the different trophic levels, we draw arrows between them and define these relationships. Although they must learn a certain amount of content to understand the different topics and concepts taught in the course, successful students must also be able to apply their knowledge of topics to scientific questions. Using their concept maps, they design experiments that would address questions related to course content in class and on exams.
To further equip my students with the reasoning and problem-solving skills of scientists, I require students in my introductory biology course to spend some time reading and understanding a piece of primary literature. In their first reading of a module on primary literature students complete an assignment on the methods used in each of the figures of the paper. The following week, they read the entire paper and complete an assignment that asks them to think again about the methods, this time in the context of the whole paper. Specifically, they are asked to describe how each method relates to the claims that the authors are making in the figures of the paper. Once they have thought broadly about the methods, each student is assigned a specific figure and tasked with becoming an expert on that figure. In the final week of this module, I use a jigsaw cooperative learning technique. This technique gives each “expert” the opportunity to present their figure in a small group setting. Because groups are composed of one representative for each figure, this technique also promotes collaborative learning.
Learn more about my courses taught in the past:
BIOL140 (Laboratory Investigations in Life Science)
BIOL121 (Genetics, Evolution, and Ecology)
BIOL402 (Aquatic Ecology)