Post-Practicum Reflection, CONS 486, University of British Columbia, 4/12/2021

For my third practicum lesson I taught the last class of the semester in Fish Conservation and Management (CONS 486), the course I TA for. It had been close to a month and a half since we had an instructor led class in the course due to a long series of classes based on student-run presentations and discussions as well as a break for Easter. This combined with my lesson not being examinable content had me a bit apprehensive that the students would find it superfluous and not attend or engage. Fortunately I was very pleasantly surprised! We had full attendance and the students were engaged in the chat and during the discussions.

I taught this lesson on Atlantic lobster ecology, management, economics, and conflict. I chose this subject because lobster is Canada’s most valuable fishery economically, students on the west coast of Canada aren’t exposed to the subject much, and conflict in Nova Scotia’s lobster fishery has been a national news topic recently. Also, it has some really interesting dynamics that I related to many topics we covered in the course such as invertebrate fisheries, climate change effects, anthropogenically-induced evolutionary change, pain and welfare, transboundary management, and Indigenous fishing rights and governance. Similar to the previous practicum lesson on Pacific herring, I had to learn nearly all of the material while constructing the lesson. I enjoyed this topic just as much and I’m proud of what I was able to put together.

The two main things I had students consider and discuss revolved around conflict arising from management. One source of conflict is transboundary management at the Canada-USA border, and the other is the Indigenous “moderate livelihood” fishery. My aim for this was to promote consideration of multiple ways of seeing and disciplinary considerations required for management decisions.  The moderate livelihood discussion in particular is a very difficult one, with a variety of sociopolitical and legal implications. My goal in having students discuss these topics is helping apply what they learn outside of this topic to similar ecological management conundrums, as well as socioeconomic issues (particularly those involving rulings pertaining to Indigenous sovereignty).

Compared to my prior lesson on herring I adopted a more conversational pace while delivering the material, and was patient while probing the class’ responses to the topical discussions. In general this was the most comfortable I have been teaching a lesson! Nolan mentioned in his feedback that he thought the delivery and pace were very effective, and that he noticed this improved handling of the discussion. He was glad to see that I asked for clarification of some student responses, and for other students to try to expand on them. I was appreciative that the students gave very thoughtful responses to the questions I posed, and did a great job building on the responses of their peers.

If revisiting this lesson I would try to incorporate more findings from the literature regarding ecology, harvest effects, and socioeconomic dynamics. I did include some, but I didn’t end up having enough time to peruse all of the papers I downloaded on these subjects. I think with more effort I could strengthen some of this content and the linkages between them. That said, I don’t think any of these areas was substantially lacking in the lesson. I think the lesson is solid in general and the topics/questions used to spark class discussion were productive. One thing I would emphasize more as a follow-up to the discussions is the need for dialogue and collaboration to help make progress in the conflicts I covered, and perhaps look for an example of successful progress in a similar conflict.