During this semester, which is the second of my CATL experience, I was offered the opportunity to design, coordinate, and deliver a component of a core course in my discipline that is also a requirement for professional designations. The course is EOSC 222 (Geological Time and Stratigraphy), and I got to work with one of my other mentors, one of the more involved and supportive of my teaching,  Dr. Stuart Sutherland. He is also on my research committee. I gave the lessons on Tuesday, January 31st and Thursday, Feb 2nd, 2017.

As Stuart is a paleontologist, the geochronology and geochemical aspects of the course were far out of his subject area. My PhD research falls under those disciplinary umbrellas, so it only made sense that I deliver that content, since I am also head TA for the course. I had TAed for the class for the last two offerings, and Stuart took over the course from another one of my now-retired mentors, Dr. Paul L. Smith just this semester. As such, Stuart immediately motivated me to help with the transition and our continuous improvement of the course. He did this by communicating to me how he perceives my value in both disciplinary expertise and in the logistical expertise from working with the course before the transition of professors.

To cover the necessary content, I was given two adjacent lecture sessions. For the first, I provided much of the necessary background information on isotope geochemistry, using worksheets and iClickers for pre and post assessment and active learning during the content delivery. Then, toward the end of the first session, I delivered the jigsaw activity that had both an at-home and in-class component.

For the activity, each student got one of three different parts of a magnetostratigraphic log. They were to go and read about how to identify changes in polarity in magnetostratigraphic data and plot the reversals on their part of the log (it was given to them as a worksheet). Then, they had to go around the class during the second period (which began with the activity) and compare their sections to those of others, and, in the process, group themselves into groups of three based on their logs. Then, they had to construct the full log as a group and answer some questions about what they saw and bu how it correlated to the global scheme. We worked through the questions and answers in the second class and finished off the lecture with the answers and more information about the activity they just did, which was the required course content.

All in all, it went super well and, based on the exam questions that I just marked this morning, greatly improved their scores for that section over last year!

It was interesting to not have much control over content that I was required to deliver. The content was entirely up to me for all my other CATL lectures up until this point; this was the first time in my teaching that I had such restrictions. I found that, while it this limiting in some aspects, it was actually liberating in others. It was limiting because there was a specific amount of time that, no matter what I wanted, I had to set aside to provide content. It was liberating because I didn’t need to spend much time concerned about the actual content and its accuracy, but could focus my energy on actually how to best deliver the material.

Very cool!

Rhy

In November 2016, I developed and gave a lecture to EOSC 220 (Mineralogy) on the subject of biomineralisation and the ‘Green Earth.’ The main objective for me, as this was an additional lecture for my CATL requirements this semester, was to experiment with active learning in large classes and become comfortable teaching something that I am not an expert in.

Before the lecture, Dr. James Scoates, the course professor, and I began by defining our LOs and how we were going to align our main activity with them. I had never used iClickers before, so I wanted to find a way to incorporate that technology into the lesson and also use it in a jigsaw-ish framework.

Since we were studying an event that occurred throughout multiple geological time periods (biomineralisation), James and I decided that we would split the rows of the auditorium into a stratigraphic section. I prepared the different ‘rocks’ that each group of 4 or 5 would have in the form of a worksheet with a description of the ‘sample’ and some extra room to take notes. The students were required to use the infomration on their sheets to answer iClicker questions that allowed us to watch the evolution of biomineralisation through time (in the form of the iClicker histograms), starting with the front row representing the oldest rocks and the time before biomineralisation, and ending with the back row as the youngest period with almost the same distribution of biomineral types as we see today. After ‘collecting data’ from their ‘rocks,’ we had the student reflect. Then, we finally revealed that the student just watched the Cambrian explosion happen in their classroom. The room got brighter with all the lightbulbs that lit up. It was a great experience!

Not only did I find the iClickers to be an interesting challenge, but it was my first time wearing a microphone in a lecture theatre; what a peculiar experience to hear your own voice coming from above! After getting over that, the lesson itself went smoothly and the time/content went well. The activity went as planned, and Dr. Scoates and I immediately met after the lecture for a feedback and future planning session. With the lecture fresh in our heads, we started to discuss what went well and what didn’t, finally resulting in a new set of slides and a list of ideas for modifying the activity.

The list, presented here almost more for my own future notes than for CATL requirements, are as follows (they may not make sense with the limited information provided above):

• Give example of overlapping ranges
• Lines on Knoll figure used in activity and emphasise time ranges
• Reveal at end of activity: strat section image – connect with them and build the section together (actual picture of room?)
• Make a table on the activity with rows, rock types, mineral types, and ages
• Last slide: image of organic vs geologic apatite and ternary diagram of 3 types of minerals with question – “are biominerals minerals?”
• No more LO recap, they started to pack up
• Keep polls, asking them to popcorn why they have skeletons – when they don’t get to grinding ask them what they at and how they ate breakfast
• Go to E with all iClicker Qs but keep Qs the same
• Pictures of rocks on actiuvity clicker slides and also pictures of different hard parts (eye candy!)
• Describe timescale at beginning in more detail
• Last slide – needs to be more impactful!
  • Either come back to 3 types of minerals at the end of the lecture with something similar to a ternary diagram and ask ‘are biominerals minerals?’ OR
  • burial video and burgess in BC, link to preservation and ask ‘was there ever really a Cambrian explosion?’

Before the end of my time in CATL, I should have another opportunity to give this lecture. I look forward to updating this reflection then!

Rhy