Maki Sumitani is the Learning Technology Support for UBC Biology, where she supports instructors and the Biology Program with tools for teaching and learning. What do you enjoy most about your current role? There is a lot of problem solving in this role, and working with people to tackle those challenges and building relationships make that work so rewarding. …
Author Archives: Christine Goedhart
Teaching Spotlight – Valentine’s Day Card Assignment
Bridgette Clarkston received lots of love from her BIOL 121 students this term in the form of biology-themed Valentine’s Day cards. Students were tasked to create a set of Valentine’s Day cards that incorporated concepts from the course, and as you can see from the display on her door in the pictures above, they definitely …
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TA Spotlight – Donald Wong
Donald received his undergraduate degree from UBC in Cell Biology and Genetics. During that time, he took a course on cell biology that discussed unusual cellular structures found in unicellular eukaryotes, or protists. From this, he gained an appreciation of the evolutionary processes and genetics that underlie this massive diversity found in protists and lesser-studied …
Instructor Spotlight – Abel Rosado
Got a good caption for this photo? Please share in the “comments” section below! Abel Rosado is an Assistant Professor in Cell Biology in the Botany Department and holds a Canada Research Chair Tier 2 in Plant Cellular Dynamics. He has a BSc. in Chemistry, an MSc in Cancer Biochemistry and a PhD in Plant …
5 Ways to Practice Self-care When Teaching From Home
By Christine Goedhart One of the biggest challenges of teaching from home during the COVID-19 pandemic is the inevitable integration of work and life, making it easy to work all day long. However, working non-stop can have devastating effects on your physical and mental health, causing stress and burn out, and ultimately diminishing the quality …
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TA Spotlight – Jan Xue
Jan completed her BSc in Biology at UBC. At the beginning of her undergraduate degree, she spent a summer working at the Arnold Arboretum, a breathtaking and beautiful museum of trees collected from around the world. There, a life-long affair with the botanical sciences was well on its way. During her time as an undergraduate, …
Factors Influencing Quality of Team Discussion
How can we get students to have more productive discussions during group work experiences? In this month’s “interesting read”, researchers explored this question by analyzing student discussions in response to lower-level versus higher-level questions, as measured according to Bloom’s taxonomy. They found that higher-level questions stimulated more meaningful group discussions than lower-level questions. Based on …
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Answers to Your Most Pressing Questions About Group Work
By Christine Goedhart There are a lot of decisions to make when thinking about how to implement group work, and I’ve noticed that there are a handful of questions that I frequently get from instructors regarding how to best structure group work in their courses. In general, the group work structure that will work best …
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TA Spotlight – Wesley Gerelle
Wesley was born in Surrey, BC but grew up in Kelowna, BC. He pursued a BSc in Biology at UBCO and then transferred to UBC Vancouver to complete it. He started out thinking he’d be in a zoology field, but ended up falling for botany after taking an introduction to vascular plants course (BIOL 210). …
Instructor Spotlight – Kathryn Zeiler
Kathryn Zeiler is a senior instructor at the University of British Columbia. She has a Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology from the University of South Florida (USF) College of Medicine studying nitrogen metabolism in the green alga, Chlorella vulgaris, and an undergraduate degree in Botany – also from USF. Kathryn has been teaching at …
TA Spotlight – Thomas Whelan
Thomas Whelan is a PhD candidate in Dr. Naomi Fast’s lab in the Department of Botany. He is from Toronto and completed his undergraduate degree at Dalhousie University in Halifax. It was during his time there that he became interested in protists (microbial eukaryotes) when he worked on his honours project with Dr. Alastair Simpson. …
A Win-Win: Making Mid-course Student Feedback Useful For Instructors AND Students
By Christine Goedhart The half-way point of a course is a great time to ask students for feedback. It is far enough into the course where students are able to draw upon their experience to give meaningful feedback, while also providing you enough time to make changes based on that feedback. Additionally, mid-course feedback sets …
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Teaching Spotlight – Student-produced Mycology Slideshow Displayed in the Beaty Museum
As part of a biodiversity survey in the BIOL323 introductory mycology course last term, students identified and illustrated fungi that they collected from the UBC Farm. Students were then tasked to create informational slides to present these local fungi species to the public. The resulting slideshow presentation will be displayed in the Beaty Museum at …
Instructor Spotlight – Angie O’Neill
Angie O’Neill is a Senior Instructor in the Department of Zoology. She has a BSc in Animal Biology and a MSc in Zoology, both from the University of British Columbia. Angie started teaching at UBC as a Sessional Lecturer in 2005, and over the past fifteen years she has taught a variety of courses. Currently, …
Christine Goedhart – Bio
Christine Goedhart, PhD Science Education Specialist University of British Columbia christine.goedhart@botany.ubc.ca Born and raised in a suburb of LA, Christine began her undergraduate studies at Fullerton College before transferring to Cal State Fullerton, where she earned a BS in Biology. She then did a PhD in Biological Sciences at UC Irvine, where she investigated …
Understanding the Role of Teaching Practices in Student Well-being
What teaching practices promote student well-being? This question was answered in a TLEF-funded study conducted at UBC that used a mixed methods approach to identify teaching strategies that support student well-being. Strategies are grouped into three main themes: 1) Connection and Social Belonging, 2) Learning and Motivation to Learn, and 3) Holistic support The authors …
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How To Make “Group Work” Work For You
By Christine Goedhart Group work is a common component of an active learning classroom and can be a great way to help students learn. However, anyone who has ever tried to facilitate group work in their course knows that results can vary. Group work experiences can go really well, can be a complete disaster, or …
TA Spotlight – Haley Branch
Haley Branch completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto (UofT), where she double majored in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and Forest Conservation Science. Her passion and interest in plants began in her second year when she first took a plant form and function class. This led her to complete a Master’s degree in …
Instructor Spotlight – Amy Angert
Amy Angert is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Botany and Zoology. She has an undergraduate degree in Biology from Washington University in St. Louis and a PhD in Plant Biology from Michigan State University. Prior to coming to UBC, she completed a Postdoc in Ecology and Evolution at the University of Arizona. Her …
Early failure supports future learning
In this month’s interesting read study, an interdisciplinary team at UBC took a different approach to teaching cell-biology topics. Students first struggled to solve complex problems, which primed them to learn the expert solution via a series of interactive activities – activating prior knowledge, then sifting through the available information, to arrive at a solution. …