On November 16th, I had the opportunity to run a 2-hour long lesson in an isotope geology graduate course (EOSC 523). I was asked to provide information on isotopic analyses in archaeology, forensics, and palaeontology, which is the specific field of study for my PhD. I know most of the participants in the class very well and was able to plan my content around this to some degree. Also, because we were talking about humans instead of rocks for this class, it was a great way not only for me to connect real life examples and the theory I was providing, but also to help the participants put the whole course into a human framework and connect all of the theory they have learned with something that is tangible to them in the real world: themselves!
I have never had the opportunity to teach for a full two hours, so there more planning than usual that went into this lesson. I wanted to be sure that the students were well prepared for the higher-order activity I had planned (a nested jigsaw), so I carefully constructed pretests, discussions, and postests throughout the first hour of the class, when we went over the basics. I was particularly nervous about this activity, as it was prepared for graduate students and was intended to be particularly challenging and high-order. If it was too challenging, however, would be determined only when I delivered it for the first time.
Engagement and motivation has been a bit of a challenge for the professor of the course, Dr. Dominique Weis (also my supervisor), due to the participants not necessarily being keen about active learning (and being quite vocal about this). There is also a strong, but logical, divide in the class between those who are doing isotope geology for the graduate work, and those who aren’t. It’s about a 50-50 split, and the two groups of students even sit on the opposite side of the room from one another (not out of dislike, just out of habit, I suppose). To mitigate this, I arranged for one person from each group to sit together for the first part of the lesson so they could share with one another during discussions. To explain how I did this, I first need to explain my activity, a ‘nested jigsaw’.
What is a ‘nested jigsaw’? After my lesson in EOSC 425, where we did the hominin cards jigsaw activity, I modified my approach a little to limit the amount of time it took to share the results. With a class of 12, I decided that I would find two interesting case studies that applied isotopes to archaeological problems and mix up the two groups that the students normally sit. I split each of the case studies into 3 manageable chunks, either based on the different isotopic systems used, or the different sets of archaeological remains analysed. Each 6-person group had to first work together to figure out the regional geology of their case study. They summarized this as a together and filled out the worksheet, and then split into pairs to work on one of the three smaller parts, for which they had to interpret complicated datasets. I went around and helped them during this time, and delivered important clues when they were stuck. Then, the three small groups in each 6-person group shared their piece of the puzzle with the rest of the 6 participants, and together they had to answer a few synthesis questions. Once they synthesized, they presented their findings to the other 6-person group. All in all, it took about 30 minutes to complete the activity, after I gave about an hour’s worth of lesson (including, again, lots of pre and post assessments and discussions). Everyone got where I was hoping they would, so apparently it was just challenging enough!
So, back to setting up the room at the beginning of class. I made sure that I had preassigned the 6-person groups for the activity based on who I thought would benefit from the different case studies. Again, because of the small group size and because I TA for the course and share office space with soem of the students, I had the luxury of knowing the students quite well. After I made the 6-person groups, I took one person from each group and made pairs, keeping in mind again the students who normally worked together and those who didn’t. The case studies included worksheets, so I spread the worksheets around the room in pairs with different coloured sticky notes (indicative of their large, 6-person case study group) on the back. This spread everyone out in a good way and also ensured that there was lots of mixing between the two sets of students who normally don’t communicate much.
During the first hour, everyone was really engaged, asked lots of questions, and generally assessed well. The activity went really great (I am not even sure if I will change anything for next time), and, after the activity, we came back to a typical lesson situation and I went over some of the more interesting aspects of the relationship between isotopes and archaeology, before summing up on the big picture. I was surprised at the end to receive a round of applause from my peers, and about a half hour of additional enthusiastic discussion from the class after the allotted time was over. Overall, it was a great success and I look forward to doing it again next year!