Competency 1:

Completed Spring 2018 & April 2024
     Biology 5001:Teaching and Learning in the Life Sciences (University of Minneosta Duluth--Syllabus)
     ISE 870: Teaching College Science (Michigan State University--Syllabus)

Description of Core Competency:
In the same way that graduate students take courses to learn more about their research areas, it is important to also take structured courses on how to teach. I took a course one year into my masters degree (Biology 5001: Teaching and Learning in the Life Sciences) that covered topics ranging from classroom climate to designing jigsaw activities for large lecture courses to evaluating your teaching and your students learning. In the spring of 2024, I participated in an evaluation of one of my active learning activities listed below in ISE 870: Teaching College Sciences.

Artifacts, Rational, and Material development
Learning from these courses, I discovered the importance of active learning activities in the courses I teach. For non-majors students I helped develop an activity to show students how vaccines reduce the spread of illness, which I demonstrated in both Biology 5001: Teaching and Learning in the Life Sciences and ISE 870: Teaching College Science. This active learning activity should show (Rather than tell) students about the importance of vaccines, which may reach students who are hesitant to believe the science, but can connect to the effect vaccines can have in this activity before their very eyes. To prepare students to learn important concepts in the lab, I also designed several "introductions" for students to read that emphasize and clarify key concepts they should be familiar with before coming to class to ensure they are able to engage with the lab activity rather than be introduced to these topics for the first time.

For introductory biology students, I created a lecture and set of active learning activities about neuroplasticity to emphasize to students that intelligence is not a fixed trait, which has been shown to increase their confidence in the course (see Competency 5 for more on this) I also adapted a multi-week inquiry-based lab for students to test how plants grow under different conditions. These inquiry-based labs are important for students to apply their knowledge in the course to real scientific problems, and expose them to the challenges and excitement of scientific research.

For an upper-level plant ecology course I designed a case-study to to have students apply their understandig of ecosystems to restoration efforts, and introduce them to the questions that land managers need to consider. For a field ecology lab at a biological statio, I developed a lab to introduce students to an endangered dune plant and conduct a demographic survey. Finally, I designed a series of activities to teach biology majors how to use R which include data wrangling, cleaning, and analysis (contact me if you'd like these activities!) See links above for course syllabi. All of these activities expose students to real-life skills that will be beneficial either in their personal lives (e.g. understanding the challenges of restoration) or their professional life (i.e. learning plant demography methods and coding skills).

All of these activities will not only benefit my students, but also reflect my dedication to student-centered teaching to future employers.

Reflection
Learning central principles that create effective and inclusive classroom environments is essential for educators. During this class I learned the verbiage to explain many of the phenomena I oberved in my own classroom, while also identifying research supporting these phenomena. For example, I knew that having students work in groups and then try and answer a question increased student participation, but did not know this was called "think, pair, share" until taking this course. I also learend the importance of identifying learning objectives and then designing classroom activities, rather than the other way around (i.e. Backwards design). Learning these concepts and evidence-based practices helped me formalize the methods I use to design and implement classroom activities in order to meet clearly specificed learning objectives for the course.