By the end of every course I hope my students have become a little more passionate about learning and start to take on a certain responsibility for their own growth as learners. Like all teachers, I feel an inner challenge to foster long-term comprehension of the main concepts so that they remain with the student long after the course has ended. However more importantly, students should be able use or “transfer out” these concepts to solve novel problems now and in the future. Lastly, I am also interested in my students gaining a sense of belonging to the scientific community.
In someways these are challenging and idealistic goals. However, I feel that my humility as a perpetually evolving teacher has enabled me to maintain an open mind to different pedagogical approaches that can create memorable experiences in- and outside of class. These experiences hopefully facilitate the retention and utilization of key ideas and skill sets later in life. Whether it is the use of medical case studies in intro biology, web conferencing and grant writing in Dev Bio, real and novel research opportunities in a lab course, or the professional production of documentary movies, students are continually challenged and inspired to learn and use Biology.
The recent COVID19 pandemic has forced most faculty to teach online. In response to this, Dr. Michael Barresi has produced a webinar focused on discussing relevant teaching practices geared for professors of Developmental Biology. See this webinar below.