I have a special connection with the first year Genetics, Evolution and Ecology course. This is a course that I would probably take upon myself to design the curriculum for and teach if I were an instructor at UBC. It is at the same time both a broad and fairly deep course, just touching on each of the topics, but giving enough to engage the students and ‘hook’ them to try to learn more. It reminds me of why I wanted to get into biology in the first place, about a decade ago now. I’ve had the opportunity to teach in this class before, while serving as a teaching assistant, although not from my own lesson plan, and I will likely teach in this course again.

For this class, I was offered to take the ‘guest lecture’ slot, and so I agreed as I thought it would be a good opportunity to use topics that I was familiar with (forest biology and genetics) and try to use them to integrate some of the concepts the students have learned so far as well as preview some real world applications for these concepts. Due to the nature of the lesson (covering topics that are not within the overall examinable material), the lesson took on more of a lecture format, although I did make sure to ask questions and engage the class. Unfortunately, the nature of the class as a guest lecture also meant that attendance was somewhat low, although the instructor did clarify to the students beforehand that she would be putting one question on the exam relating to my lesson.

The focus of the lesson was forests, tree improvement and climate change. In my research, we are working on applying novel genomic methods to making better predictions for breeding and planting of Western Redcedar. Western Redcedar is an important climate change species in BC, as it tolerates a wide range of climates and conditions, and is thus projected to be well suited to the predicted climate changes over the next century. I explained how we use the principles of genetics to make predictions for how well trees will perform, and how well they will resist pests and pathogens, and how we must also be aware of the tree’s unique ecology and evolutionary history in order to succeed. I asked the students how they would tackle these issues using the elements they learned in the course. Overall, the feedback I received was very positive for this approach, and the students felt that the lesson covered a lot of what they had dealt with in the course, while giving them an idea of why the things they learn are important.

I used a few iClicker questions to assess how well students are aware of certain facts, but I also used the questions to try to refresh their knowledge on a topic that they had learned earlier in the course that they would need for the final exam and I felt that they might still be struggling with or had not dealt with in a while (since before the last midterm). The response to these questions was mixed: some students liked them but most students felt that they didn’t fit as well into the overall lesson. This lesson was one of the first where I felt I could really integrate pedagogical content knowledge. From the feedback I received, it was clear that my use of examples, questions, and the story on climate change, they were able to understand the importance of the concepts of forest management and using genetics and genomics for breeding, even if they were beyond the scope of the course itself. Students also expressed interest in the topic to me after class, which, for me, was the greatest reward in this lesson.

Overall, I felt that this was my best lesson so far. In the future, however, I will probably stick to teaching lessons within the course curriculum, as these tend to lend themselves better to experiential learning and activities, which I need to work on developing and implementing within my teaching.

This was my first lesson for a first year class. The feeling in the classroom was noticeably different; mainly, there was a clear lack of enthusiasm and participation when compared to the second year course I taught a few weeks ago. We are nearing the end of the term, and I can remember what it is like being an undergraduate student at this time of year, so this is not entirely unexpected. The use of a short video at the beginning of the lesson, together with an anecdote from my own experience seemed to open the students up more to the lesson.

I continued my approach to teaching biology as a system, rather than an assortment of processes. Photosynthesis is actually two reactions that occur in the chloroplast of photosynthetic organisms: light-dependent reactions (also called photophosphorylation, which generates chemical energy from light), which occur in the thylakoid membranes, and light-independent reactions (also called the Calvin cycle, where the energy from light-dependent reactions and carbon dioxide are used to make sugars), which occur in the stroma. It was important to me that the students be aware of the spatial localisation of these events in the cell. I also made a point of emphasising the flow of inputs and outputs through the system as a major learning outcome.

To finish up the lesson, I had the students write down their thoughts on the similarities and differences between the processes of photophosphorylation and oxidative phosphorylation, which takes place in the mitochondria. They had previously learned about oxidative phosphorylation, and there are many parallels to the two systems, largely because both chloroplasts and mitochondria are theorised to have arisen from an ancient symbiotic relationship between prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Thus, they were able to tie together some of the concepts they had learned in the course. I found this question a little more limiting than when previously trying out these integrative questions, mainly because this is the first term of the first year in university for most of these students, and I cannot assume very much prior knowledge. Developing insightful integrative concept questions is something I need to work on for future lessons that I teach in first year courses.

In addition to the concept question, I also used several iClicker questions, although the questions I asked were meant to assess whether the students had completed the required reading prior to coming to class. I think I have some room to improve with my iClicker questions, in terms of difficulty and in terms of clarity of questions and possible responses. I was surprised that in one of my questions an overwhelming majority of students gave the (same) wrong answer for one question, which I had initially thought was quite simple. It is possible that the selected responses were not clear enough.

If I were to do this course again, I would try to develop a worksheet for students to work on in groups. I would have them draw the flow of electrons through the process of photophosphorylation, since this is a key concept, and I’m not sure it came across very clearly through lecture. Overall, I thought the lecture went well, and I was able to refresh myself as well on some concepts in biology that I have not touched since my undergraduate program.

In this lesson, I taught the basic principles of gene duplication as part of a course that is supposed to serve as a broad introduction to genetics. Because of the structure of the course, I was actually able to give the same lecture both in the morning section and the afternoon section on the same day. This allowed me to discuss with the course coordinators between the lessons and improve upon my delivery of the lesson. The experience was overall quite positive. There were a few hiccups in the first lesson but the course coordinators were quite happy and thought that the second lesson went much better. This was my first time giving an hour long lesson so it was a learning experience for me.

One of the focal points of the lesson was an exercise in which the students had to draw an event occurring in the cell (unequal crossing over) which leads to gene duplication. I tried to frame this activity by first introducing the concept in a simple situation, and then having them try to draw it out with a slightly more complicated situation. I then repeated this more complicated situation in a more directed example as part of a clicker question later in the lesson. I think that the way I presented the problem could have been clearer, or the example could perhaps have been less difficult. Some of the students felt that it was confusing.

I have been including one or two questions in each of my lessons which are designed to make the students think back to concepts and ideas that they have learned previously in the course or in previous courses, and apply their knowledge to a specific problem. I am basing my Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) self-study project off of this, as I want to test whether these questions are effective in helping students better grasp concepts and content. Overall, the response I received using an online survey has been positive so far, although there has been some criticism that it took time away from some of the lecture concepts. This can be partially reconciled by better designing the lesson to fit within the time constraints of the lecture slot, although this also is something that comes with experience with the particular lesson. Designing these types of questions to both be useful to the students as well as insightful to previous knowledge that they might have is not trivial. This is something I aim to work on throughout the year. I am also curious to see how these questions will work in a first-year course, with students who have less university experience.

I tried to implement a few of the methods we’ve covered in the CATL program in this lesson. Unfortunately, I was too unfamiliar with the content of the lesson (i.e., I had learned about it at some point in the past, but have not dealt with it since) to do proper justice to a pedagogical content knowledge approach. I used real world examples (evolution of colour vision) to try to help the students understand how gene duplication works and why it is so important in evolution of new functions. I tried to use learning as transformation by consistently emphasising the reality of the situations that I was describing. In molecular biology, it can be very difficult to visualise all the internal mechanisms of the cell as anything but abstract concepts, while losing sight of the larger picture. I tried using a graphics approach to constantly remind the class that these situations are occurring in a three-dimensional space, and that nothing in the cell is happening independently of anything else. I believe that learning to approach biology as a system where almost nothing is independent is critical to actually understanding what is going on.

I spent roughly half the lesson presenting an example in which gene duplication has led to important evolutionary outcomes. The idea behind this was to show the students how these events occur and to give them a real world example of what they can lead to. In this case, the topic was evolution of trichromatic colour vision in primates. This is a particularly interesting example because it really only involves two different genes, and the duplication of one is what leads to old world primates, such as humans, having trichromacy. Furthermore, the duplication in question occurred in a gene on the X chromosome, which means that males are more likely to inherit certain problematic traits more than females (since they only have one X chromosome) – in this case, colour blindness. I liked this example, since many people know someone who has colour blindness, or may even have it themselves, but they might not know the origin of the trait.

Overall, I think this lesson went quite well and having the ability to do a ‘redo’ in the second section was really helpful in improving my delivery of the material and the activities. For my next lesson, I would like to focus on improving my timing for any activities, and remembering to repeat any questions asked in class to make sure everyone hears.