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.