Competency 1: Developing Discipline Related Teaching Strategies
To complete this competency, I am be taking a Scientific Teaching course in Spring 2024 at MSU (ISE 870). This course includes demonstrations of pedagogy such as teaching through modelling and argument driven inquiry in addition to developing lesson plans using these techniques. The course also include teaching demonstrations throughout the semester.
I have already completed online teaching courses including An Introduction to Evidence-Based Undergraduate STEM Teaching and Advanced Learning through Evidence-Based STEM Teaching through the CIRTL Network. These courses taught effective pedagogy backed by data collected in the classroom and the CIRTL course videos are great resources to return to as a refresher on topics.
During the Introduction course, I developed a lesson plan to teach Mendelian genetics. This was particularly important because it allowed me to practice principals taught thoughout the course such as Backward Design to develop lesson plan for a course I am likely to teach in the future.
Taking both the online and in person pedagogy courses have been fundamental in my professional development as a future teacher. They offered me a unique chance in graduate school to learn effective pedagogy and to practice using skills I will need in my future career before I was preparing to teach my own course. Additionally, these courses empowered me to increase my role as a TA in courses and suggest evidence-based approaches to improve aspects of class design, such as implementing collaborative group work during recitation sessions and re-writing exam quetions in genetics to be inclusive.
Competency 2: Creating Effective Learning Environments
I completed the required work for this competency in May 2023 in a workshop with Dr. Kirstin Parkin during the Certificate in College Teaching Institute.
Description: In this session, Dr. Parkin shared some of her tips for creating an inclusive learning environment for all students. These include using a QR code sto students can
get slides before class without the instructor needing to upload them somewhere. QR codes can also be good ways for students to share something
with the instructor during the first few days of class. On the first day of class, be sure to genuinely introduce yourself and get to know your students.
She also recommends walking around the classroom and always recording class sessions. To be effective in the classroom, it is important that students know what
being successful in your course will look like, and all of the course materials should prepare them for success. It is a good idea to use
examples from your discpline of "final products" such as journal articles or figures to help students understand what scientists
in your field work with. Dr. Parkin also touched on how to ensure out of class materials are effective for learning. My main takeaway was that prep work for class
should have a low cognitive load that mainly provides guidance for students and in class work is where higher cognitive load activities should occur. While not mentioned during this session, Dr. Parkin had previously shared her recommendation for the book Grading for Equity by Joe Feldman as an additional resource to build a welcoming class.
Reflection: This session talked about how to start the classroom experience by being inclusive which includes introducing yourself to students including your pronouns and sharing a bit about your life which includes your research interests and some things about your life outside the classroom. These actions can be very impactful on increasing student feelings of belonging in the classroom. We also practiced finding ways to connect the course to our research so that we can teach outside of textbooks and show students that they are building skills that professionals in their field need to be successful. Dr. Parkin’s example was using data in an immunology course so students were (through a unit) taught the importance of the axes and the different proteins that were on their and how to interpret the results. One example I could use is real Mendelian genetics data for doing epistasis. Another student showed an example of using a reaction norm which is another figure that would be important for students to understand and that we could teach around in ecology/evolution – important for me because my dissertation data uses many reaction norms!
This session also briefly talked about flipped classrooms and that prep material should be low cognitive load and short to maintain student attention spans. However, I am curious how to encourage students to do this work by balancing some level of assigning too much that they can’t get it done but also not too little that they don’t complete the work or find it helpful.
Everything we talked about in this session can be applied to increase my teaching. In particular, I would like to be better at talking to my students like it is a conversation rather than a seminar type lecture when I am in front of a classroom. I think this will help make me more approachable to students. I also want to be intentional in identifying topics that I struggled with as a student to share that it is ok and expected to not grasp everything right away. There were also more difficult topics that we covered such as effectively flipping a classroom that are more difficult to put into practice, but what I can immediately apply is the knowledge that we can redo a class one piece at a time, so if initially the change is flipping the classroom I can start by using video resources already available on the internet (such as khan academy) and later can add in personalized for my course videos.
Artifacts: The slides used in this workshop, including Dr. Parkin's annotations, can be found here
Materials Developed: Coming soon.
Competency 3: Incorporating Effective Learning Environments
Description: I completed the required work for this competency in May 2023 through the "Assessing Student Learning" session with Dr. Rique Campa and the "Technology in Teaching" session with Dr. Stefanie Baier. These concepts were implemented during a working session to develop a classroom activity. In Dr. Campa's session we were introduced to backward design and writing student learning objectives. We were then tasked with developing a student activity that addressed an important question in our field after reflecting on our favorite classroom assessments from prior courses. My favorite prior assessment was writing a research proposal in an undergraduate evolution course. I developed a short activity where students would investigate genotype-by-environment (gxe) interactions in an evolution course to explore where phenotypic variation comes from and why it is important. Students would be given an example where researchers identified gxe, and the students would need to draw a model showing the genetic, environmental, and gxe contributions to the phenotypic variation identified in an example. I illustrated this with a mock example about fish coloration but in the classroom I would use real-world examples.
In Dr. Baier's session, I was introduced to student response systems such as iClicker and more interactive ways of using technology in the classroom like google jamboards. We were then given the context of an introductory course on ecology. As a group, we then developed learning objectives and learning outcomes for the students in this course. To use technology, we imaged an activity where students are shown images of different ecosystems that are impacted by humans through. Students could then use a jamboard or student response system to submit ways that humans could impact each ecosystem and their services.
Reflection: These two sessions were really helpful to jumpstart my thinking on how I would design classroom activities when I am the instructor of record. I am still uncertain about what types of technologies work well in large verse small classrooms. iClicker seems to work well in large classrooms but jamboard has a limit of how many people can be on the board at once so it is restricted to smaller classrooms or group work. I do like that jamboard can offer some anonymity in responses. After the technology session, I want to reflect on the learning curve for students to learn a technology before they are able to use it in the classroom to make sure the technology I use enhances student learning rather than detracting.
Artifacts: Activity Instructions from Dr. Baier's session
Materials Developed: 
Competency 4: Understanding the University Context
I completed the required work for this competency in May 2023 by attending a workshop title "The University Context" with
Dr. Juddith Stoddard from MSU during the Certificate in College Teaching Institute.
Description: In this session, Dr. Stoddard emphasized understand the teaching and learning
environment of each university including the physical space you teach in, the support around you, the curriculum, and
the teaching resources. The material presented in this session emphasized that university context matters when
applying for faculty positions and when setting up your classroom. In particular, we focused on how University mission statements
are guiding documents, but they do not always match the guidelines a Univeristy has for faculty. Dr. Stoddard discussed how teaching prep work is constant, but teaching load varies
between departments and appointment types so those are important elements of a job description. Additionally, faculty contracts are typically 9
months, but there are usually summer positions available.
Reflection: This information is particularly useful as a graduate
student because I can explore the different unveristy contexts available, and tailor my graduate training to prepare
me for a job with a univeristy context that fits my goals and teaching philosophy. In particular, this session highlighted
that knowing how faculty are evaluated at the university you apply to is important in understanding the university context. It was also helpful to think about how the University context also impacts the learning environment of the students in my classroom - students all come from different places and the student population influences the university context. Parts of this session are
also really useful as I begin to draft my teaching philosophy statement because I will want my teaching philosophy to use language
that matches the University context I am hoping to apply to in a few years.
Artifacts: This session focused on the differences between institution types and we completed an assignment analyzing mission statements and faculty evauations. This session also touched on teaching philosphy statements with a help sheet and a rubric.
Materials Developed: Notes from group project, coming soon. I also filled out a tool for preparing a teaching statement
Competency 5: Assessing Student Learning
This competency will be completed when my FAST project! My project assesses changes in student science literacy after implementing a modeling approach to teach the societal context of science. I have completed the classroom portion of this project, and am waiting to receive anonymized data from a collaborator. Stay tuned for results!
Check out my May 2023 poster on this project here
Teaching Philosophy
Check out my teaching philosophy here (last updated March 2024)