On November 9th, 2021, I observed Dr. Denise Gabriel instruct ISCI 330A – Topics in Integrated Sciences, a third-year level, 3-credit course, which is an “Interactive examination of a theme common to all areas of science”. This course is held in KLINK 464 on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:30 am to 11:00 am. Of the 25 students enrolled in the class, 24 were present. The layout of the classroom is instructor-focused, where large tables face the front of the classroom, the direction of the instructor and a single projector screen.
The lesson was designed in the following repeating sequence: introduction to new ideas, self-reflection solo or in pairs, brief lecturing, group discussion, followed by a summary of the newly learnt ideas. At the beginning of the class, Denise made it clear to the students that this is a capstone lesson of all preceding lessons; the lesson topic was “Our adaptability via Genetic and Learnt Traits”. Before she proceeded with the lesson, she gave a brief overview of how the ideas taught preceding this lesson link to this lesson topic. I think this was a nice way to highlight key concepts that the students need to consider thinking about and linking to each other (plus any new ideas) during their reflections and discussions for the remainder of the lesson.
Throughout the lesson, Denise gave students the opportunity to reflect on their previous knowledge, then briefly lectured to provide more information for context, and then built an understanding of the concepts together by classroom discussions. This lesson format shows that Denise values active learning and metacognitive practices, as she ensures to hold space for the students to reflect and actively engage in discussions regarding course materials with their classmates’ multiple times throughout the lesson.
For reflections, Denise would often get the students to do a think-pair-share. These paired reflections were successful because the first few minutes of the reflections would start out quiet as students reflected, and then chatter would build up in the room until Denise would call back their attention. These reflections usually lasted 10 minutes. I noticed that Denise didn’t often explicitly state how long students have, just asks them to discuss the question(s)—perhaps there has been some sort of expectation set throughout the term that the students are used to? Or maybe this is a strategy that has other purposes built into it (e.g., time management).
When introducing new ideas, Denise ensured to review any foundational definitions/topics related to that idea to ensure that everyone could follow along and participate in the reflections and class discussions. For example, after introducing the idea of genetic adaptability, Denise asked the class how much they know about the basics of genetics and how genetic adaptations occur. The response from the class was vague, so she decided to briefly recap the basics of what genes are, how zygotes are created and how mutations occur to ensure that the students would be able to understand the difference between genetic adaptations and cultural adaptations.
When lecturing, Denise ensured to simplify and connect pieces of complex ideas together. For example, when a diagram on heritability was shown on the slide, Denise ensured to go through the entire diagram in steps to break it down into digestible chunks. She then proceeds to provide a couple of well known “real world” examples and how they break down in the diagram (i.e., to supplement what she was verbally describing, she simultaneously had visual cues pointing to the spot in the diagram on the slide). Breaking down these complex ideas and connecting them to examples made the lesson ideas very digestible for students, as no one appeared to be lost, and students were able to attempt to link their own ideas to the diagram during a classroom discussion. The action of breaking down an idea, providing examples that apply to that idea, and then getting students to apply their own experiences to newly learnt ideas highlight that Denise values experiential learning and far transfer of knowledge in the classroom.
During classroom discussions, Denise acted more as a facilitator than an instructor; asking question prompts to get the students to share ideas out loud and recording key points on the board that were related to the lesson topic. To build onto what was being said, Denise would validate student responses and either ask the students to relate what is being said to the new ideas they are learning about (i.e., is what the student shared cultural or genetic adaptation? Why?), then, Denise would clarify any necessary gaps that were missing regarding the relationship of what has been said with the lesson topic. When people are reluctant to share their experiences/ideas during class discussions, Denise shared her own examples (general well-known ones or personal) with the class. Doing this ensured that students had enough examples to think of the new information they are learning in different ways, and to help encourage them to share their ideas with the class—which it did, as students would begin putting up their hands to share their ideas after Denise would share an example.
At the end of the lesson, Denise left the students with a question (written on the lesson slide) to reflect on regarding their experiences with the contents in the question prior to the next lesson. Doing this helps to bridge the lessons together and gives the students the opportunity to practice self-reflection, thinking about how the application of ideas transfer to different areas of life (i.e., far transfer of knowledge), and to create intrinsic motivation to connect with and engage in learning about the subject matter.
After the lesson, I had a fruitful chat with Denise where I provided her with some constructive feedback on her lesson, asked her about her pedagogy, how her experience has been teaching since returning to in-person teaching and talked about some learning theories. I won’t discuss all these things I just listed; however, I will bring up some highlights that I thought were quite insightful in the paragraphs below.
From our conversation, I learnt that Denise values a democratic classroom, where she asks students how they feel, and allows them to vote on future deadlines and how they would like to be assessed throughout the course (e.g., final exam vs. final assignment, doing a presentation or handing in a written report, presenting online or in-person, etc.). I listened to her once the lesson was over, having a meeting with the students about how they want to be assessed in this course, and she said something along the lines of “We have learning objectives for the course, how we meet those is up to you”. Being flexible on how students are assessed in the classroom allows for more inclusivity with respect to assessment (e.g., allows for students to choose the most comfortable option for them).
Finally, I learnt that Denise has noticed a change in her students’ attitudes since coming back from learning virtually during the pandemic. She noted to me that it is more difficult to engage the students in classroom activities and that they now seem to want more lecturing before so that they don’t have to physically “do” as much work. She notes that almost all of the students want the lessons to be recorded so that they can go back to them and “listen” to them—Denise was firm on not recording her lessons, and instead for students to contact a friend in class to discuss the lesson if they have to miss a class. This highlights that the virtual learning during the pandemic, for these students at least, likely meant a lot of passive learning (i.e., just being lectured to online with minimal student interaction), and now they seem to be more used to that style of being taught. However, Denise does not value passive learning, and clearly communicated to the students those students need to participate in class in order to learn the topics; being lectured at will not allow them to truly understand the material and work on seeing how concepts apply outside of what is being taught in the classroom.