{"id":152,"date":"2014-07-22T11:30:02","date_gmt":"2014-07-22T16:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/jenniferhuddleston\/?page_id=152"},"modified":"2016-08-11T14:29:59","modified_gmt":"2016-08-11T19:29:59","slug":"teaching-philosophy","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/jenniferhuddleston\/teaching\/teaching-philosophy\/","title":{"rendered":"Teaching Philosophy"},"content":{"rendered":"

The goal is to be sure \u201cthat the science we are teaching is the same science we are doing.\u201d <\/strong>\u2013 Carol Brewer, co-chair of the Vision and Change Advisory Board, American Academy for the Advancement of Science.<\/em><\/p>\n

In 2009, the American Academy for the Advancement of Science with support from the National Science Foundation published a document entitled,“Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education”.<\/a>\u00a0This document calls for a change in the traditional way undergraduate biology courses have been taught, specifically calling for a shift from lecture only content delivery to student-centered learning. Listed below are two relevant action items from this important document that support and contextualize my Teaching Philosophy at Abilene Christian University.<\/p>\n

1. Integrate Core Concepts and Competencies throughout the Curriculum<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2022 Introduce the scientific process to students early, and integrate it into all undergraduate biology courses.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Define learning goals so that they focus on teaching students the core concepts, and align assessments so that they assess the students\u2019 understanding of these concepts.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Relate abstract concepts in biology to real-world examples on a regular basis, and make biology content relevant by presenting problems in a real-life context.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Develop lifelong science-learning competencies.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Introduce fewer concepts, but present them in greater depth. Less really is more.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Stimulate the curiosity students have for learning about the natural world.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Demonstrate both the passion scientists have for their discipline and their delight in sharing their understanding of the world with students.<\/p>\n

2. Focus on Student-Centered Learning<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2022 Engage students as active participants, not passive recipients, in all undergraduate biology courses.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Use multiple modes of instruction in addition to the traditional lecture.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Ensure that undergraduate biology courses are active, outcome oriented, inquiry driven, and relevant.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Facilitate student learning within a cooperative context.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Introduce research experiences as an integral component of biology education for all students, regardless of their major.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Integrate multiple forms of assessment to track student learning.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Give students ongoing, frequent, and multiple forms of feedback on their progress.<\/p>\n

\u2022 View the assessment of course success as similar to scientific research, centered on the students involved, and apply the assessment data to improve and enhance the learning environment.<\/p>\n

These points of action set forth in this Vision and Change document are in line with my teaching philosophy.\u00a0 I have not attained all of these, yet I work on this daily in each of my classes in order that the reality of what happens in my classroom and in my mentoring sessions will one day reflect this philosophy perfectly.<\/p>\n

My teaching philosophy has changed over the years.\u00a0 When I taught my first microbiology lecture class (not lab) as a doctoral student at Texas Tech University, my philosophy was to lecture over as much material in the book as possible.\u00a0 I did this because that was the way I was taught biology as an undergraduate student and graduate student, and it worked for me just fine.\u00a0 I learned the material this way and so should my students.\u00a0 Fast forward a few years. It seems that everyone involved in teaching and learning is using the phrase, \u201cStudents learn differently now.\u201d\u00a0 I know that students use more technology now, but I do not necessarily think (nor have seen peer-reviewed scientific literature) that the human brain learns any differently than 20 years ago. \u00a0I believe I, like others, learned biology despite dry lectures, not because of them.\u00a0 I fell in love with biology in the labs.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 The labs were hands-on and interactive.\u00a0 The same dry lecture professors were actually engaging and passionate when they were teaching in lab. In the lab is where most of the pieces of information that I had consumed began to make sense.<\/p>\n

I will now discuss the action items listed above \u2013 what I feel I do well and what I need to improve upon.<\/p>\n

Integrate Core Concepts and Competencies throughout the Curriculum. <\/strong>One of the points in this action item is to relate abstract concepts in biology to real-world examples and make biology content relevant by presenting problems in a real-life context.\u00a0 The best way that I do this is by discussing current events in biology in my classes.\u00a0 I have students give oral presentations on current events in two of my courses where they must find the event, explain it to the class, and its future implications. These are real-life biological problems that scientists are working on. I learn as much as the students do.\u00a0 Students have presented about Zika Virus, Ebola Virus, West Nile Virus, HIV \u201ccures\u201d, outbreaks of diseases caused by microbe-contaminated food, biofuels, Facebook stimulation of the brain, and even bacteria found in dolphins\u2019 blowholes that cause devastating diseases. Students are then comfortable talking about unassigned current events by just asking questions in class about something they saw on the news.<\/p>\n

Another way that I implement this point is by literally teaching the science that I and other scientists are doing.\u00a0 I speak first-hand about transformation experiments, species identification using rRNA, and biofuel development.\u00a0 I also tell stories about other scientists I know and their work. For example, a student in my microbiology class will always give a 5-minute presentation about Pyrococcus furiosus<\/i>.\u00a0 They always mention how this organism reduces sulfur. I then pull in the story of my friend and former labmate, Gerti Schut, who discovered this and the difficult time he had convincing everyone in the lab that his hypothesis was correct.\u00a0 The students love the stories.\u00a0 They think I am telling them neat stories but I am really telling them about how science is done properly, the process of peer review, and how being a scientist is hard, yet rewarding, work.<\/p>\n

Another suggestion in the Vision and Change document is for professors to introduce fewer concepts, but present them in greater depth. I have significantly reduced the amount of material that I attempt to cover in my courses. In my first semester of teaching at ACU, I covered about forty PowerPoint slides in my Cell Biology class per day. The second semester, I covered twenty in the same period of time in a similar class. I intentionally sacrifice quantity for quality. For more elaboration on this topic, see my reflection over BIOL 101: Human Perspectives in Biology.<\/p>\n

The final point is my favorite, \u201cDemonstrate both the passion scientists have for their discipline and their delight in sharing their understanding of the world with students.\u201d\u00a0 This might be the most important point of any of the action items.\u00a0 This passion is what my undergraduate lab professors demonstrated that helped to inspire me to learn more about biology. However, my goal is to bring that passion into the lecture hall as well as the laboratory.<\/p>\n

Focus on Student-Centered Learning. <\/strong>The points listed by the Vision and Change document under this action item are much more difficult for me to implement than in the first.\u00a0 This is probably due to the fact that in all of my years as a student in undergraduate and graduate education, I saw very little of this and I do not always know how to make it work and how to make it work well.\u00a0 The easiest places to start for me are in the lab courses that I teach.\u00a0 The lab environment lends itself to hands-on activities and to inquiry-based teaching.\u00a0 In the microbiology lab, this can be as simple as giving a student a sterile swab and a Petri dish and then constructing hypotheses about microbes in the environment. Teaching labs can easily be tweaked to engage students, to employ active learning in cooperative groups, to be inquiry-based and to use multiple forms of assessment.<\/p>\n

The difficulty that I have with this action item is implementing the recommendations in my lecture classes and treating my lecture time as separate from my lab time.\u00a0 I would like for my lecture and lab courses to be so integrated and both filled with student-centered learning interspersed with mini-lectures that it is difficult to determine which is which.\u00a0 It is easy for me to lecture.\u00a0 It takes a great deal more effort to design learning opportunities that are relevant and useful and enhance learning than it takes for me to write a lecture.<\/p>\n

In summary, my teaching philosophy and hopefully, my teaching practice, is becoming more like the guidelines set forth in the Vision and Change document.\u00a0 I am mindful of all of the above action items and points, focusing on some more than others at different points in my courses. I do not believe I will ever be satisfied with the way I attempt to teach students.\u00a0 As I try different strategies, some will work and some will fail.\u00a0 In all attempts, I hope that my students will learn biology despite my imperfections.<\/p>\n

Next: Integration of Faith and Learning<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The goal is to be sure \u201cthat the science we are teaching is the same science we are doing.\u201d \u2013 Carol Brewer, co-chair of the Vision and Change Advisory Board, American Academy for the Advancement of Science. In 2009, the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8397,"featured_media":0,"parent":83,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-152","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/jenniferhuddleston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/jenniferhuddleston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/jenniferhuddleston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/jenniferhuddleston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8397"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/jenniferhuddleston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/jenniferhuddleston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":948,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/jenniferhuddleston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/152\/revisions\/948"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/jenniferhuddleston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/83"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/jenniferhuddleston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}