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