Frank Smith

A good teacher is many things. Most importantly, a good teacher is inspirational. First year biology introduces students to a vast spectrum of topics. In addition to mastering a rigorous curriculum, I believe students gain an enormous amount of enthusiasm for the subject by seeing biology presented as a process, solving problems, and learning how biology shapes their lives every day.

A good teacher is flexible to student inquiries. I typically structure my courses such that students have a large say in specific examples they’d like to learn more about. From one to three lectures per term are “student choice” lectures. As long as it fits within the large goals of the course, almost anything goes. In the past two years, students have chosen such diverse topics as “Bioterrorism”, “Evolution of Social Systems”, and “Interference RNA”. This year, they chose “Dinosaurs and Mass Extinction”. I did not have a deep knowledge of any of these subjects when they were chosen by students, but I think it’s important to expand my comfort zone and learn about new areas that are exciting to my students. The “student choice” lectures are highly valued by students, and I enjoy them as well. Each new class typically spends several weeks of the term in heated on-line debates as to what the chosen topics will be.

A good teacher is current in the scientific and educational fields of research. I start almost every lecture with a few minutes of “Biology in the News.” These stories come from sources ranging from News in the journal Nature, to the New York Times. I typically find news articles that relate to the subject we are studying. It is not uncommon for students to send me links to stories they have seen in the news, even years after they have left my class. These few minutes at the beginning of class provide a societal context to curriculum these first year students are learning. Sometimes we spend an entire lecture that unfolds from one news article. The daily news articles are one of the favorite things my students comment on in end-of-year evaluations. I stay current on education pedagogy by attending courses and meetings, reading current educational literature, and incorporating new and exciting ideas into my classes. This summer I took a course in teaching with case-studies, and have been using them regularly in my teaching this fall.

A good teacher encourages students to think and reason. I often pose a story in the form of a problem and encourage students to solve it. Often this problem takes the form of a larger case study, which I may introduce. I then have them think about problems and issues individually or in small groups. Sometimes the case is continued as homework. When students think through reasonable solutions to a problem, they are much more likely to remember how a process works. Because students learn best in different ways, I incorporate many styles of teaching in my classes.

Assessment of student work on a regular and fair basis is a critical attribute to any good teacher. I regularly give feedback on homework, case-studies, and quizzes before students take an exam. In this way, students know what to expect on the exam and are prepared for the marking rigor. I believe that essay style and problem-solving questions give the most insight into what a student knows, the thought process put into solving a problem, and where errors have occurred. Because I teach small classes (ranging from 75-150 students), I have the luxury of using these types of questions on exams. While online quizzes occasionally incorporate multiple-choice style question formats, the vast majority of problems that my students are exposed to (including exams, case-studies, and homework) are essay-style or problem-solving questions where students must support an idea, show work, and/or describe a thought process. I often ask open-ended opinion questions, where marks are allocated depending on the students’ ability to use information from the course to support their own original idea. This exam format is often foreign to first-year students, and while it typically generates some growing pains, the process is well-worth the outcome. I am confident that students leave my courses with an increased ability to pose questions and argue reasonably.

Finally, a good teacher is available to their students. In addition to set office hours, I have a general “open-door” policy. I am also available to my students (past and present) on e-mail, MSN, Facebook, and through Vista almost constantly. I believe it is critical, especially for first-year students, to have a large amount of access to their teachers. Many first-year students are under an enormous amount of stress, not just academically, but socially and personally as well. Sometimes a well-timed reassurance message the night before an exam makes all the difference.

Goals for Teaching

My goals for teaching are to inspire enthusiasm for biology, and create independent thinkers and problem solvers. I believe that students are capable of primarily learning on their own; my job as an educator then, is to probe them in the right direction and support their learning endeavor.

I have high expectations that my students come to class prepared. To facilitate their preparation, I have an active online support for my courses (formerly on WebCT, now moved to Vista). Part of each learning module includes preparatory material. In addition to textbook reading, I ask my students to read various publications, practice problems, or web-sites. One goal I have is to increase my students’ exposure to primary literature. I’d like to have about half of their assigned preparatory reading to come from their text book, and half to come from journals or other resources. Students quickly learn that they are left out of exciting discussions if they have not done the preparatory material, and I’d like to take advantage of that in a positive way.

I also use e-learning to provide students with a skeletal outline of the PowerPoint lecture presentations. The outlines are not sufficient to stand alone, but provide necessary definitions and diagrams to help class move along at a relatively brisk pace. While I think PowerPoint is an excellent tool for teaching, I’d like to incorporate more “chalk-time” in my lectures. I’ve realized that when students are working through complex pathways, processes, or problems, they appreciate a step-by-step approach that I think may be better presented by the process of writing.

My teaching often involves going outside the classroom, sometimes at the students’ request. Most of my Biol 121 classes do periodic field-trips to the forest for an “Ecology Scavenger Hunt”. When someone in my summer Biol 111 class asked about how to make a scanning electron micrograph, I organized a special field trip to the electron microscopy facility for them. About 20 students participated and a few were able to “drive” the scanning electron microscope. I’ve also stopped in the middle of a lecture in Biol 111 to run upstairs and get a sea anemone from the invertebrate zoology lab, because some students had never seen one. I believe these sometimes spontaneous “adventures” are an important and exciting part of my students’ experience, and I’d like to build on these activities.

I consider myself to be a perpetual learner. Additional specific teaching goals for the upcoming academic year are to incorporate mathematical modeling into my Biol 121/Science One courses, and to incorporate case-studies into lectures in all my courses. I’ve come to appreciate modeling as a unifying thread between math and biology. I hope that modeling in Biol 121 will help to bridge some of the increasingly artificial gaps that students sometimes perceive between subjects. Although I have used case-studies as homework and tutorial exercises for several years, I have not used them in lectures. I hope that using case-studies in lectures will further help to unify the class and inspire enthusiasm for these real-life scenarios.

Teaching Responsibilities

Sometimes I feel like someone is going to learn my secret; I get to teach all the best courses! My favorite part about the courses I teach are the diversity of students I encounter throughout a given academic year.

September through April, I teach the Biology portion of Science One. The program is challenging and time consuming, but the students are amazing. From an instructional standpoint, the biggest benefit to being involved in this program is taking the other core science courses each year. Because I attend almost all of the lectures in the other subjects, I know exactly what the students have been exposed to during any given week. As an instructor, this is a very powerful tool. Not only has my own appreciation of the interdisciplinary nature of science increased, but I have adopted portions from the other subjects that I can build off of or massage into a unique biology curriculum. As an example, I know when my students have learned about stable isotopes in physics or chemistry. In those subjects, they learn that stable isotopes form more stable bonds. Knowing this, I can transition into a lecture on stable isotope analysis in the temperate rainforest. Teaching Science One has been a huge growing experience for me, both intellectually and emotionally. I have re-learned enough calculus during the summers to help the students with some biological modeling. I may not know all the mathematical terms, but I can help them understand what an equation is telling them as they navigate through primary literature for various projects. Science One also provides a unique experience for knowing students. It’s a small program (70 students) and we have them for the entire academic year, including two weekend field trips. The students spend an enormous amount of effort rising to the high standards we expect from them. I’m proud to be a part of their education, and keep in touch with many of them as they move on into mainstream programs.

In addition to lecturing in Science One, I teach tutorials three hours a week, every other week, and small group discussion one hour per week. Because this program is relatively highly funded, I was able to design and implement a molecular ecology field and lab activity with the Science One students. The students isolate DNA from a plankton tow at the Bamfield Marine Station, and work most of the year in tutorials to eventually identify an organism in the sample through its DNA sequence. The students appreciate exposure to current molecular biology techniques and additional hands-on experience. The remainder of the tutorials dedicated to biology are spent problem solving, or investigating case studies that parallel lectures. In small groups, I have 8-10 students for one hour. I usually design a debate type of activity for them, or investigate a more complex problem that can be best managed with fewer students.

In January, I teach the Biology 121 section of the Coordinated Sciences Program (CSP). This class is roughly double the size of Science One, and I only have them for one term. However, they have had classes together since September, so by the time they arrive in my class, they are clearly a unified cohort. What I enjoy about this class is that I can step in immediately and take advantage of their established bond. For a large class which meets at 8AM, they are extremely talkative, interested, and willing to work. I have used PRS response in this course in the past, but I’m not convinced that it is appropriate for this particular group. I am currently struggling with the decision of whether to use them this year, and in what capacity. As with Science One, Vista is an important part of the management of CSP. The discussion board is always active, and I assign problems and readings regularly. One of the unique aspects of CSP is the weekly student tutorials. These are sometimes Biology related, and provide an interesting contrast or compliment to lecture. The tutorial teaching team and I try to always parallel our topics.

In May, I teach an evening section of Biology 111. These students tend to be about 1/3 returning students, 1/3 computer science students, and 1/3 other. In a way, they are in stark contrast to the students I teach during the academic year in that many of them have no recent science experience at all. However, this is what I enjoy most about this class. I can start from the ground up! They are generally quite an interested group. In this class, I work a lot off of what their specific interests are. This is the one and only time many of them will have biology, so I try to create an important, meaningful experience for them. When I design the course each year, I try to incorporate many of the top stories in the news that I assume they have been reading, but maybe don’t understand scientifically. For example, this year we may examine ecological principals from a global warming perspective. In terms of student profile, this class is the most diverse of all those that I teach, but because the class meets from 7-10PM, we form an odd bond with one another. I try to lecture about 90 minutes, and have them work as teams for the other 90 minutes. The class uses the discussion boards heavily, since they are not on campus during regular hours. Two years ago, the class became so close that they started a recipe-trading stream on the WebCT discussion board. For this class in particular, I hope the students leave with some basic knowledge of what science is, and some basic skills for interpreting science that they will see in their daily lives. In addition to my formal teaching, I participate in teaching in the community several times a year. In the past, I have taught for Humanities 101. I typically go to University Hill elementary school a few times a year with a collection of skeletons for an informal “Science Day”. In the summer, I have taught an ecology workshop for SHAD. Recently, I co-taught a Science Supper Series workshop on teaching Science with Case Studies. These experiences help me feel a sense of belonging in the community.

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