April 26, 2013 by Chris Buddle

Kids Like Bugs: entomology outreach in elementary schools (Part 2)

On Wednesday, Chris Buddle and Paul Manning posted the first of a two-part series on outreach activities in elementary schools. That post focused on the ‘why’ - this one (also written by Chris and Paul) is about the ‘how’.

How to talk to kids about bugs:

First thing about talking to elementary school kids is stay calm and don’t worry! If you have any University-level training in Entomology, you are qualified – Now, this doesn’t mean you have to be able to speak about all aspects of entomology: play to your strengths! If you are a taxonomists working on Syrphidae flies, bring in your flies and talk about them these magnificent animals. If your experience is broader and less specialized, browse some notes, look on-line, or peek at a textbook: do a short overview of the main Orders of insects and their characteristics. Although most kids get some entomology in elementary schools, it’s not usually very much (although ALL kids do seem to learn about monarch butterflies!).

One great way to speak to kids about bugs is to make the session thematic. In addition to bringing in a drawer or two of insects, link the specimens to biology. For example, one of us (Paul) has recently used ‘metamorphosis’ as a focal point for discussion. The transition from larvae to adult is a biological wonder, and acts as an excellent focal point for discussion. It brings together different facets of biology, from hormones, to physiological development, behavioural adaptations, through to discussion about life history strategies. Paul brought galls into the classroom, and demonstrated that there were larvae living inside. The students screamed with excitement when they saw the larvae living within the gall. One student described it as a ‘cute white blob‘. Several students asked if they could bring the larvae home (wouldn’t Mom and Dad just LOVE that!).

Kids like bugs. And they like to draw them.

Don’t be afraid to say “I don’t know”. In fact, kids find it refreshing to hear that an ‘expert’ doesn’t know all the answers. Turn it around to illustrate that the world of entomology is so vast that there are a lot of unknowns out there, and many questions still to be answered.

Have patience. With younger grades, asking kids questions, or having them answer questions, can quickly turn into ‘stories’ from young, enthusiastic students. For example:

Q: Does anyone know what kind of insect a ladybug is?

[Hand shoots into the air...]

A (from a 6 year old): Um, yes, I know a lot about those things. Once, when I was 4, I remember that I saw a beautiful bug flying by my garden – it was really big and black and I think it was a ladybug and my granddad told me about how ones like that eat trees and kill the trees and that makes me sad because we have a big tree in our front yard that I really like but sometimes my little bratty brother hides behind it and scares me when I am walking by. But I really like all bugs especially ladybug ones that are red but they smell funny sometimes and my mom said they can bite – will they bite me if I play with them? why do they smell funny? why are there so many spots on them? do their spots get bigger when they grow….

Give kids a chance to tell you these stories, but know that it will take patience…. but heck, if bugs get them talking and excited, that can’t be a bad thing!

(as an aside, most elementary school teachers will typically coach students so that they will ask/answer question instead of tell stories)

Bring a few props: If you can do an event outdoors, try to bring a few sweep nets and vials. We will often bring extra vials from the lab and give students the vials to keep (heck, plastic vials cost very little!). For MONTHS afterwards, parents will often tell us about how their child packed that vial full of insects and carried it around obsessively for weeks. That’s a great way to inspire entomology.

Beetle galleries are easily found in wood, and can be a great prop to bring to an entomology session with school kids.

If you are doing an indoor talk, make sure to have a lot of photographs of interesting insects, and whenever possible, discuss/show or use examples from your local fauna – this will allow kids to connect to things they have seen on the playground or in their own yards – this connection between the content you are discussing and the insects they are seeing on their own, is very powerful. With a smaller group, you can certainly bring in a few drawers of insects – if you don’t have any, this becomes a great excuse to make a little synoptic collection of your own to use for educational purposes. Or, ask your local entomology museum, or local naturalist club, about borrowing some specimens.

Whenever possible, bring a few ‘real’ field guides. One of us (CB) ran a biodiversity challenge at an elementary school and managed to convince the school to buy a couple of sets of field guides. The kids LOVE the look and feel of real field guides and will thumb through them with delight. Part of our own passion about natural history can be traced back to field guides in our houses when we were young.

A field guide to insects – suitable for all ages!

Don’t dumb down the material: Too often we think kids need to be talked down to, but nothing is further from the truth. As mentioned above, kids are sponges for information and in our experience they want to hear the details. You will want to avoid jargon, but other than that, provide the details whenever you can. Again, doing a ‘thematic’ talk with school kids becomes quite important because you just won’t have time to cover anything in-depth if you try to cover too much.

Finally, and most importantly, be passionate and enthusiastic. Kids will feel your positive energy and love of entomology; they will feed off of this, take it home with them; they will start asking more questions, start to dream, and fall further in love with the world around them. Spending a bit of time in a classroom is perhaps one of the most important kinds of outreach activities to do.

April 23, 2013 by Chris Buddle

Kids Like Bugs: entomology outreach in elementary schools (Part 1)

Written by Chris Buddle and Paul Manning.

Spending time talking to kids about Entomology is ALWAYS worth it. If ever invited to speak at an elementary school about insects, always say “yes”, and in this post, we’ll expand on why it’s worth your time. In a second post on this topic, we’ll provide some tips on how to talk to kids about bugs. Although these posts are focused primarily at elementary school events, the ideas and tips could be expanded to community nature walks, events at an ‘earth day’ celebration, hosting a bug day in your backyard, etc.

Part 1: Why talk to kids about bugs?

Most kids aren’t afraid of nature. In our experience, elementary school kids (especially the younger grades) still have a fascination with entomology and are still curious and excited by ‘bugs’. Later in life, it seems that many kids will follow one of several paths: (a) disinterest, (b) disgust, or (c) delight. As entomologists, in a field that is so important, getting kids to be delighted is very important.

Kids like bugs.

Kids already know a lot but they like an expert to verify their findings and support their interests. In our experience, kids can get especially excited about insects because they see them all the time – they have played with them in their yards, tasted them (perhaps), and probably spend time trying to burn them with a magnifying glass. Bugs are accessible, small, curious, and catchable, and thus kids learn about them – an entomologist can keep facilitating this learning.

Kids are truly amazed that you can ‘get a job‘ studying insects. This is unfathomable to them, since they don’t typically get much exposure to biologists. They are exposed to limited career options (“I want to play in the NHL“, “I want to be a doctor“, “I want to be a firefighter“) in part because our school systems often exclude the cool jobs like “stream ecologist”, “geologist”, or “entomologist”. The idea that you can spend time (as an adult!) collecting and curating insects (i.e., FUN STUFF) can be quite extraordinary. In our experiences, it’s so painfully obvious that working outdoors with insects is simply not noticed as a real job by many people; entomologists must work to correct this. Giving kids exposure to wonderful careers (like entomology) can help encourage future scientists that there are truly enjoyable careers that involve getting ones hands dirty, and spending time outside.

Entomologists have a responsibility to dispel myths about arthropods, and this should start at an early age. Invariably, we get statements from kids such as “My Dad told me to stay away from spiders ’cause they will bite you“, or “My aunt told me that earwigs go into your ear, so I hate them“, or “I am allergic to bees because my cousin is allergic“, etc. We can bring clarity to these kinds of statements, and by offering an ‘expert opinion’ on these topics, can help kids understand the real facts about entomology.

Kids are sponges: it is satisfying to speak to an audience who is fully engaged and willing to soak up as much as you can provide. Bugs are a very exciting topic for kids, and they will remain interested, excited and enthused if you continue to provide good content.

Kids ask great questions. As an example, one of us (PM) recently talked about insects to an elementary school class. The class was asked to guess what was living within a gall, and to make guesses as to what they thought the gall was, and how it was formed. After one student quickly suggested that an insect was living within the gall, a flurry of wonderful questions began. Students asked questions like:

How did the insect get inside the gall?
How does the insect survive the winter?
What does the insect eat when inside the plant?
Why doesn’t the insect kill the plant?

All of these questions prompt interesting, and relevant discussions that fit well within learning objectives in science curriculum. Providing a concrete example that is applicable to students, might also result in a better understanding of the concept.

Finally, it’s nice to talk to kids about bugs because they genuinely appreciate it. Being thanked for spending time doing this kind of outreach is really, really nice. And, sometimes you might receive some nice thank-you cards or posters to put up on your wall. To us, these are as important as a diploma on your wall, or a favourite butterfly poster. Thank-you notes from kids are some of the most wonderful things to read, and they often include delightful, creative, and colourful drawings.

April 16, 2013 by Chris Buddle

Ecology and Mathematics: perspectives from undergraduate students

Post written by Chris Buddle and Carly Ziter (MSc student at McGill – you can follow her on twitter)

Population and Community Ecology is an introductory undergraduate course at McGill University and each lecture typically starts with an x-axis and a y-axis drawn on the chalkboard – something like this:

Chalk board, with x- and y-axis. The start of every lecture.

The course is taught from a quantitative perspective, and it uses equations, models and graphs to cover concepts ranging from logistic population growth, to metapopulation ecology and estimating species diversity. The class uses Gotelli’s “A Primer of Ecology” as the text – a book that walks through many ecological concepts from first principles. It includes calculus, probability theory, statistical distributions, and null models.

It was therefore fitting that the ‘E.O. Wilson versus Math” debate was discussed during lecture last week. Students were asked to read Wilson’s piece in the Wall Street Journal, and read some of the blog posts that reacted to this, including Jeremy Fox and Brian McGill‘s posts on dynamic ecology. Students were also asked to look at some of Terry McGlynn’s writing over at small pond science, and to come to lecture prepared – to have opinions and be willing to discuss these opinions.

For those not fully aware of this debate, here it is in a nutshell: Wilson argued that a ‘deep’ understanding of math may not always be prerequisite for doing great science, or at least may not be required for generating big ideas and concepts. Wilson was in part trying to encourage people who are ‘math phobic’ that this phobia needs not be a reason to stay out of science. Not surprisingly, this stirred up a lot of debate (and some of it was rather harsh!), and the debate was particularly interesting from the perspective of Ecology since this discipline has always struggled with this topic (see Terry’s excellent post about tribalism in ecology for some perspectives on this).

Here is a summary of the key points that were discussed during lecture – and let’s just say that a 50 minute lecture slot was NOT enough time for this topic! (by the way, there were between 50 and 60 students who attended this lecture, and the class is comprised primarily of students studying environmental biology).

Many of the students were surprised at the tone and overall discussion points that emerged from Jeremy Fox’s post – they argued that when they read Wilson’s piece, they didn’t feel the intended audience was ‘established’ ecologists – but rather the post was meant for students at the start of their careers. Some of them found the blog posts way over the top, and the academic discussions took away from the main message. Some felt that Wilson was arguing in part about the need for freedom to think without any boundaries (mathematics, or anything else). Creative thought need not be constrained, and students coming up through the system, whether they are math literate or not, should never fear heading into science (indeed, some confessed that an increase in math courses may have driven them away from biology altogether). Related to this, mathematical models all require assumptions (we talked a LOT about this when working through Gotelli’s book!), and any assumptions are limiting and could distract from thinking out of the box about any topics, including ones that are ecological. These students worried that the constraints imposed by math could force ecologists to view the world through a particular lens.

That being said, many of the students also agreed that a deeper understanding of mathematics was absolutely required for ecology – especially since the world is complex, with complex problems – problems that require multiple disciplines to solve. However, while these disciplines include mathematics and biology, they also include literature, history, environmental policy, and more. What a solid argument! And it was great to see that argument expressed by 20 year-olds. Yes, math is important, but it is one tool that we need in this world, and it’s not necessarily more important than other tools. While some ecologists are strong in math, others may prefer to hone their policy skills, for example. Ecology’s strength, in part, is in its ability to bridge different disciplines and students expressed how ecology is actually a ‘great uniter’ of biology and math (and other fields, certainly some areas of ecology draw upon a range of ideas from sustainability science, medicine, economics, history, etc).

The students also expressed concern about how mathematics is taught, from elementary school all the way to University – they expressed how learning mathematics in isolation of other topics is ‘ok’ for individuals with an intuition and natural ability with math – but many students felt that a better way to learn about math was applying it to the ‘real world’. The application of mathematics is the best route to learn mathematics. Ecology was again touted as a perfect example of a discipline in which application of mathematics is clear – from predicting distribution of invasive species to modelling species richness in fragmented forests. For some students, math was not a subject they initially enjoyed, or strove to learn – it was ultimately through their study of ecology that they began to value math as a tool they could use to support their discoveries, and lend credibility to their work.

By in large, students agreed that mathematics was required for ecology, but there was certainly debate about how much was enough – whether it was enough to use mathematics as a tool, or that perhaps mathematics was more like a language. A language in which fluency is required so all the nuances can be understood and that the full meaning is in place. From those advocating mathematical “fluency”, there was a strong opinion that like languages, mathematics can be learned with hard work and focus (yes, they agree with Wilson on this point!) – this opinion comes with a wealth of experience in the classroom at McGill since many of the students are mother-tongue French and have learned English after coming to McGill. In other words, if you can learn a language you can also learn math.

The final argument put forward by students was that this entire discussion about Ecology was from a very narrow perspective – what about the role of traditional ecological knowledge? Ecology is a much older discipline than Clements, von Humbolt, Haeckel, or even Aristotle. Throughout history, humans have been interacting with their environment, and have been observing nature. By this act, humans have been counting, developing models, and making predictions… for thousands of years. Linking mathematics to nature is very, very old. Ecologists ought to pay more attention to other ways of looking at the natural world, other ways to visualize, predict, observe and count. Although this is certainly not the same kind of math as presented by Gotelli, perhaps it could be as insightful.

In sum, the discussion with undergraduate students on this topic was insightful, fascinating and important. There was clearly a strong appreciation for the role of mathematics in ecology, but also different ideas about the degree to which a deep understanding of math is required – which often related back to the students own struggles with, or aptitude for, math earlier in their studies. It was validating to hear that they appreciated using Gotelli’s book to learn the foundations of ecology, and recognized that ecological models can be both limiting and liberating.

March 13, 2013 by Chris Buddle

Teaching Innovation: Opportunities and Challenges

I just returned from a terrific visit to the UK – part vacation with my family, and part work. The work part included a trip to University of Hull, to visit with my colleague Dr. Graham Scott (you may recognize his name as he visited McGill almost a year ago). Graham and his Bioscience Education Group have an impressive track record of publishing about teaching in Higher Education, including papers about the value of field work in University.

I gave a seminar in the Biology Department at Hull about the use of social media and mobile technology in a field course I teach (St Lawrence Ecosystems), and I had plenty of time to discuss with Graham and his colleagues about teaching and the ways to improve teaching. In this post, I wanted to reflect a little bit about some of the ideas that resonated strongly as I visited Hull.

My souvenir from Univ. Hull - a wool scarf. It'll remind me of pedagogy and that's a good thing.

My souvenir from Univ. Hull – an official wool scarf. It’ll remind me of pedagogy and that’s a good thing.

1. It is important to talk about teaching. Academics are very used to talking about our research, but we seldom get a chance to reflect in detail upon our own teaching. When agreeing to give a seminar about my teaching, this caused me to seriously consider why I adopt specific strategies with my teaching, and whether or not these strategies actually work (i.e., impact learning!). This presented many challenges, especially because I sometimes don’t fully know why I selected certain teaching strategies, and I began to recognize that some of my own teaching strategies come from trial and error. A solution to this is my second point of reflection:

2. I should be reading the education literature. Graham is deeply involved with pedagogy and publishes often in the education literature. When discussing teaching ideas with him, he would often tell me how that particular idea was well discussed in paper X, Y, or Z. It takes a lot of energy to change teaching approaches and strategies, and it takes a lot of risk – things just might not work and this has real and important consequences for students, and for the instructor. Reading the education literature could help to avoid reinventing the wheel, and also help guide the development of teaching strategies. I’m going to try to find a bit of time to get into this literature – I am sure it will be time well spent.

3. Teaching innovations cross disciplines. This seems obvious, but I think it’s easy to forget that we can learn a great deal about teaching from colleagues from very different background and disciplines. I had lunch with a microbiologist from Hull and she told me about her use of short, weekly, private ‘blogs’ from students. She used these reflective blogs as one way to assess how students were getting along with content, and as a way for students to benchmark their course goals (and whether or not they met their goals). These short posts were a great idea for her to assess whether students were on track in the course, how they were handling the course material, and whether her expectations were reasonable. This great idea did not depend on discipline. Another good reason to embrace interdisciplinarity.

4. My challenges are common challenges. It was incredible to see that despite different systems between the UK and Canada, different undergraduate programs, and an entirely different context, the challenges of teaching remain similar. It’s comforting to know that everyone struggles with finding the right way to assess students with large classes without depending on multiple choice exams, or how to help students improve writing skills, or how to convince administrators that there is value to field biology courses. So many challenges are shared, and we can learn a great deal from each other…all the more reason to talk about teaching more often, both within our own institutions and among institutions.

5. We must find systems that enable Academics to work on innovative teaching ideas. There are numerous, excellent arguments for Academics to work on teaching innovation, but it’s not entirely clear how to go about this. Many institutions have “teaching and learning” units that help Professors with strategies to improve teaching, but many of the workshops or services offered by these units are short in duration, and don’t typically involve deeper projects about pedagogy. A secondment at a “teaching and learning” unit might be a good idea but this would only be possible if an Academic on such a secondment was given relief from other duties (e.g., applying for research grants, or administrative duties). Alternatively, it is possible to devote a sabbatical to pedagogy, but this would require a culture shift since sabbaticals are most often linked to research interests that don’t normally involve pedagogy. I do believe strongly that taking ‘real’ time to improve teaching would be valuable, but I will be honest in saying that I don’t see a clear path forward with this. Ideas are welcome.

In sum, my visit with Graham Scott and colleagues offered a chance to reflect on teaching, discuss teaching, and allowed time to really think about the opportunities and challenges when considering different ways to modify and hopefully improve my own teaching. I sincerely thank Graham Scott and his colleagues at Hull for being an inspiration, and a model.

Let’s keep the discussion going, and please share your thoughts.

February 27, 2013 by Chris Buddle

How “professional baggage” may be a key barrier in changing how we teach

A little while ago, a colleague in the UK sent me this article (via twitter, of course!): “Barriers to Faculty Pedagogical Change: Lack of Training, Time, Incentives, and…Tensions with Professional Identity?” by Brownell and Tanner. He knew I’d be interested – I’m always experimenting with my own teaching, but I’m also aware that I’m in the minority.

The article starts by making an excellent argument that we KNOW how to improve teaching at Universities, but little change takes place regardless. Brownell and Tanner make the argument that barriers to Professors wanting to improve their teaching are often related to lack of training, lack of time, or lack of incentives. This fits with my impression of Academia, especially at a research-intensive University such as McGill. When I arrived over 10 years ago, I had little training as a teacher (other than a couple of short workshops), I had little time to devote to teaching improvement (I was barely ever one lecture ahead of the students!), and I was mostly encouraged to concentrate on developing my research program. There were not a lot of incentives to foster, improve, or change my teaching approach. I don’t blame anyone for this, nor am I bitter about my experience. It was the norm, and perhaps still is for most tenure-track Professors at a University with a significant research focus. So, as I began reading Bronwell and Tanner’s paper, it resonated, and I agreed that training, time and incentives were key barriers to changing pedagogy.

Brownell and Tanner, however, ask a clever question: if we imagined those three barriers gone, would we see immediate improvements in teaching? Would Professors suddenly value pedagogy and teaching improvement differently, and find ways to change their approach to the classroom? Perhaps not – and this is where the article gets interesting.

The article focuses on “Professional Identity” as being a key barrier to improved teaching, but one that is often understudied and underappreciated. They define professional identity to be the following: “how they [scientists] view themselves and their work in the context of their disciplines and how they accrue status among their professional colleagues as academic scientists”. In other words, it’s the process related to the way that we become an expert in our discipline – the culture, the context, and the training we receive. It’s the intangible as well as the tangible things that become our professional baggage. Brownell and Tanner argue that, for many scientists, we learn early in our careers to value research over teaching, and there is (for the most part) a greater emphasis placed on developing our research profile. There is often time and incentives to do some teaching (e.g., Teaching Assistantships are paid, and have hours associated with them), and there is training available (McGill’s SKILLSETS programs are a fine example). Regardless, the culture of science is mostly related to research and we are ultimately judged on research production rather than teaching. My personal experience supports this idea, and I have found myself often discussing this with my graduate students – I sometimes have advised them to avoid extra teaching responsibilities if it is going to slow down their research productivity.

Brownell and Tanner go into a lot of detail about the tensions between the development of professional identities and participating in pedagogical change. They make a very strong case: among several lines of arguments, they illustrate that scientists are often afraid to change their teaching approach for fear that it may be frowned upon by their peers, or that their teaching evaluations might suffer (and, in in the short term, this may be true). They also argue that the scientific culture, at large, places a lower value on teaching than on research, and it’s hard to overcome this.

The article finishes with some ideas for change: “we need to find ways to challenge the assumption that a scientist’s professional identity should be primarily research-focused and consider ways in which teaching could become more integrated into the fabric of the discipline“. The authors suggest 1) graduate student and post-doctoral training goals need to be broadened, 2) scientific journals should include/value papers and research related to education, 3) scientific conferences should better integrate education into the (typical) research focus. These are intriguing, thought-provoking, and interesting ideas. But are they enough to shed some of our professional baggage? I’m a bit skeptical, but I do agree that some pretty fundamental paradigm shifts are required if we want to shake up the system, and see Professors placing higher value on teaching improvement.

Reference:

Brownell, S.E. & K.D. Tanner 2012. Barriers to Faculty Pedagogical Change: Lack of Training, Time, Incentives, and…Tensions with Professional Identity? CBE – Life Sciences Education. 11: 339-346 doi: 10.1187/cbe.12-09-0163

February 14, 2013 by Chris Buddle

Careful what you say in lecture: a tale of tweets, ice-storms in Quebec, and population ecology

While discussing age pyramids in my ecology class last week, I mentioned that there was a mini baby-boom in Quebec following the 1998 ice storm. In other words, after an extended period of time without electricity, more babies were conceived. This is one of those ‘urban myth‘ stories for which I had no data to actually discuss whether this was fact or fiction, but it was mildly amusing, and certainly related to the discussion we were having about population ecology and the effect of the baby-boom generation on Canadian demographics.

I expected this story to stop there, but a savvy student in my lecture tweeted what I had said (yes, there are definitely pros and cons of being an active participant in social media, including twitter). I was being called out, publicly, about my casual comment in lecture. This forced me to look to the data and test my hypothesis that the birth rate in Quebec may have been higher after the ice storm of 1998.

Data required? Yearly population estimates of areas affected by the ice storm (i.e., numbers of females), and number of births in these regions.

Thankfully, these data were readily available. However, not all data were tabulated in the same way by geographic region in the Province. This meant that I had to narrow down the region to just the island of Montreal (thankfully one of the more populated parts of the province). I took the number of births, divided by the number of females to get a per-capita rate of births per female per year in Montreal, and I looked at the years from 1997 through to 2000.

I predicted that if my hypothesis was true, birth rates would be higher in late 1998, therefore if data were collected properly, the ‘boom’ in births would likely be in that year (…or possibly in 1999).

Here are the results:

1997: 0.012 (babies born / female)

1998: 0.012 (babies born / female)

1999: 0.011 (babies born / female)

2000: 0.011 (babies born / female)

So, the data do not support the hypothesis that the ice storm resulted in a higher rate of births in Montreal.

Caveats? There are a lot. I have made quite a few assumptions, and my methods are partially flawed… I do expect students in my class to think about this…

Two other points to mention:

First, while searching for information about population-level effects of the ice storm, I came across a McGill press release about how babies born during the ice storm may be stressed later in life – Interesting! And also somewhat counterintuitive to what I originally proposed in lecture.

Second, (and less related), we must be wary of these myths – they pop up all over the place (e.g. increase in births after the publication of Fifty Shades of Grey?), but without a more detailed look at the data, we must be careful what we say. Thankfully the urban myth about mini-baby booms and power outages are debunked with some regularity.

In sum, I learned an important lesson. Careful what you say in lecture.

…and thank you to my student who forced me to look more carefully into the story of the ‘ice storm babies’

January 17, 2013 by Chris Buddle

Misadventures in teaching: Technology Begone!

At the start of term, I discussed my continuing adventures in teaching, and I professed about how a tablet + whiteboard app would make me a better instructor, and help me deliver content more effectively in an introductory ecology class. Here’s an update.

At first, it just didn’t work. I was sure it was because I had yet to perfect the technology – the writing was sloppy, the interface was awkward, and stuff I was writing was always appearing on the wrong part of the screen. Students were chuckling in the classroom. I think the students could see the potential opportunities with the i-pad and whiteboard, especially being able to bring in complex graphs from a textbook. However, potential is one thing and reality is another. The biggest problem was that my writing on the i-pad was positively ridiculous.

Example #1:

Just admire this amazing handwriting!

So, that was lecture #1. I did not give up – I practiced in my office, worked on my penmanship, tried different i-pad apps, and kept at it. It saddens me to say that Day 2 and 3 were not much better.

Example #2:

Another problem was that when I exported the whiteboard as PDF (i.e., so students could have a record of the lecture), I realized that over the course of the lecture, my handwriting continually got bigger. Let me clarify: the whiteboard app was an ‘ever expanding’ whiteboard – so if you wrote and filled up the screen, you simply move down or sideways to expose more whiteboard, and you can continue writing. The problem is that if you aren’t careful, it’s easy to change the size of what you write without realizing it until you look at the entire whiteboard, as a PDF. The student did not, therefore, find the exported whiteboard very helpful.

Example #3:

I also tried using the typing feature a little bit – instead of writing like a 6-year old, I would sometimes bring up the keyboard and type. However, I am not much of a fan of typing on an i-pad. I need a real keyboard in order to be quick and in order to not make any mistakes (And let’s not talk about that dang auto-correct feature!). Sigh. The efforts at typing were a complete failure.

I’ll point out one final problem with the technology: there was not a 1:1 ratio between the i-pad screen and the whiteboard that was projected. This meant I would write away on the i-pad, assume everyone was following along, but would sense some unhappiness from the audience. Sure enough, when turning around to see the screen, not all that I had written was being projected. This led to more fiddling around, more wasted time, more swearing under my breath. I’m sure there was some technological fix for this, but I was out of patience.

Yesterday I went back to using the chalkboard, and the lecture went smoothly, the class was happy(ier), and most importantly, I felt the content was being delivered in a more effective manner.

Technology: BEGONE!

January 7, 2013 by Chris Buddle

Teaching with Technology

Classes start today. You can sense the excitement in the halls as undergraduates and instructors rush to classrooms – eagerly awaiting the start of lectures. OK, perhaps not EVERYONE is that excited… but I am. The start of term is always fun, and the start of class provides new opportunity to adjust, and hopefully improve, my own teaching .

I wrote a post about a year ago that expounded on the value of teaching without technology (In Praise of Chalk). Fundamentally, I can’t stand Powerpoint – it’s annoying, boring, causes information overload, and puts people to sleep. In my course that starts today (Population & Community Ecology), I have traditionally used the chalk board, and feel it has numerous benefits. It allows for a more engaging and interactive classroom environment, facilitates high attendance, and slows down content delivery. That being said, using a chalkboard also has some important drawbacks including (but not limited to): a) students having to decipher my poor handwriting; b) having to frequently have my back to the class; c) inability to easily bring complex graphs and figures into the lecture (i.e., from the textbook) – to do this would require switching between the data projector and the chalk board – an impossibility in the classroom in which I am teaching.

So, it’s not without a heavy does of irony that this term I am reintroducing some technology into the classroom. In fairness, I see this as a natural evolution from the chalkboard, and will hopefully allow to overcomes some of the disadvantages of the chalkboard (In my previous post, I did discuss how a ‘smartboard’ or ‘whiteboard’ may be worth trying…). This term, I will try using a tablet (i-pad), connected to the data projector (via a $35 cable), along with a tablet-friendly pen, and a piece of free software (a type of whiteboard – I’m going to try the Educreations app).

Teaching tools.

I’ve been playing around with this for a few days and here are my initial impressions: this approach will allow me to import photos – in particular, I will use images of complex graphs/figures from my textbook, and I can use the pen to highlight / draw / write on these figures. I should also be able to face the class when writing on the i-pad, and the software does have a function which allows for typing – this will help with the handwriting problems. The software does have a few issues – it doesn’t allow easy options for saving (i.e., you must create an account with educreations, etc), nor does the app come with an eraser (it does have an ‘undo’ button, but that button only works on the page you are currently working on – so, if you have to return to a previous slide, you can only add content, not remove what is already there). Nevertheless, I think the app will serve its purpose. If I really like using the i-pad for teaching, I might invest in other apps – there are many out there.

So, onwards with another exciting adventure in teaching! I’ll keep you posted about whether this approach works or whether I return to the comfort zone of dusty chalk.

What are your opinions and experiences? Please share….

November 21, 2012 by Chris Buddle

Strategies for teaching a field biology course

…Part 2 from a series of posts about the value of field biology courses

I previously wrote about the value of field courses in undergraduate University programs, and promised to follow up with a post focused on the ‘how’. It’s also timely since my field biology course from this term is wrapping up, so it’s a good opportunity to reflect on the past term. It is important to write about some practical strategies for instructing field biology courses because I sometimes hear from my colleagues (and some University administrators) that field biology courses are too expensive, only possible with small class sizes, impractical for introductory classes, and otherwise difficult to successfully integrate into an Academic program. I have been teaching field biology for a number of years, and believe that most of these criticisms are not valid. I hope this post can dispel some myths about field biology courses, and convince more people to offer outdoor experiences and experiential learning as part of University curriculum.

Sampling pond invertebrates, five minutes from campus

1. Think global, act local. Field biology classes do not need to go to exotic locations to be successful. Many people associate field biology with traveling to a Caribbean Island, a rainforest, or the desert – true, these are prime locations for field courses, but it’s not necessary to travel far to teach field biology. Our own backyards are ideal locations to study. In fact, our own backyards are highly relevant to field biology since they are habitats that can be most relevant to our own well-being! A trip to a local agricultural field will firmly implant the importance of food security and the relationship between food production and global food markets. A trip to a urban park can be an opportunity to discuss and learn about introduced species and how they are affecting our local biota (European starlings, anyone?). A trip to a roadside ditch can illustrate how local dispersal plays a role in governing the population dynamics of aquatic macroinvertebrates. All of these concepts can be illustrated by habitats found within walking distances of many University campuses. No flights required.

2. The yellow school bus. Without a doubt, transportation is expensive, and even local trips can be costly. However, it’s important to remember that ALL courses are expensive, and the fees associated with a yellow school bus are analogous to fees for chemicals, glassware and other consumables associated with a wet chemistry laboratory. Unfortunately, my experience has been that Administrators do not see outdoors labs through the same lens as indoor labs. Although indoor ‘lab fees’ are often within Departmental or Faculty budgets, renting buses is often an expense that is not accounted for in the same way. This can be a key reason for the impression that field biology courses are expensive. I urge you to work within your own systems to find a way to make the yellow school bus as important as all other fees associated with delivering any University course. Until this institutional shift is made, you will need to come up with creative solutions to the transportation issue. For example, I often work with my colleagues to find a way to share busses, or do some laboratories within walking distance of our campus. It may also be possible to have students take public transit to a designated field site.

3. Group work! A few years ago I was faced with increased enrolment in my field biology course and this presented a challenge. Suddenly ‘in the field’ lectures and discussions would be impossible (how do you speak to 60 students outside, in a gale-force wind?). Discussing strategies with colleagues was informative, and I learned that many field biology courses were capped to avoid taking too many students outside. I didn’t like this – and I could not cap my course without good reason, especially since my course was a requirement for the program. The solution? Group work and student-led learning! For most of my laboratories, I have designed specific activities that don’t require any formal ‘outdoor lectures’ (which, by the way, are generally useless). Upon getting off a bus, students are often put into groups (sometimes predetermined, sometimes not) and they rotate through different activities. Here are some examples:

(i) In a lab about agroecosystems this term, groups of students walked separately through different field crops at the local horticultural centre, and were asked to observe various aspects of the small-scale agriculture system. The instructor and the TA walked among the groups and took part in the discussions as necessary. The students were asked to ask questions, make observations, and then meet at a designated time to discuss their questions with the head of the horticultural centre.

(ii) In an earlier offering of my course, students were put into groups at a local forest, and were asked to move around to different locations where they were met by instructors or TAs, and at those locations they took part in small activities related to studying biodiversity in the forest – invertebrates at one location, bird calls at another, plant identification at a third, etc.

(iii) I have sometimes sent all groups off to do the same activity (e.g., measuring soil types in a forest or agroecosystem) and then bring the data back to a classroom and their data provided the content for a lecture about variability in nature and bias in observation.

(iv) As a final example, in one laboratory to a wetland conservation area, individual students were asked, ahead of time, to research specific species that we would see while visiting a field site. The students became the experts and they were asked to share their knowledge with their peers (i.e., when they were in groups, in the field). The students became the instructors, and nothing reinforces concepts and content like having to teach it!

….Fundamentally, field biology with a larger class size must embrace the idea of doing group work.

Students, working in groups

4. Bring in the experts. Field biology is complex to teach in part because of nature’s variability and because an instructor cannot be the expert in all things. I use the approach of inviting my colleagues (and graduate students) to take part in (and lead) specific activities related to their own expertise. By in large, I have found my colleagues to be very open to this idea, and provided I do not ask them for help every year, they are most willing to take part. For many of my colleagues who do not teach in field biology courses regularly, this is a nice opportunity to get outdoors and take part in a different style of teaching. It’s also a big advantage to students as they are able to appreciate different teaching styles, and gain a recognition for various levels of expertise by instructors. In fact, this week I am inviting a geologist to take my students on a walk around Mont Royal in Montreal. Understanding the geological foundations to our local ecosystems is only possible in this class because of the generous involvement from my colleague. In sum – a field biology course can be improved by bringing in additional help.

5. Set-up your lab with a lecture: I have found it immensely useful to set up a field biology laboratory with some kind of content in advance of the trip. This allows for ‘setting the stage’ so the unfamiliar can be a little more familiar. To relate this back to my geology field-laboratory, earlier in the term the same colleague came and gave a (indoor) lecture on the geology of the greater Montreal area. The students therefore have had exposure to the topic in advance of the lab, and were asked to do some readings prior to the laboratory. This avoids that problem of tying to deliver lectures outside. Trying to combine experiential learning, in the field, with learning content and concepts, can be difficult. Use an earlier lecture slot as a means to set up the field activities and laboratories. Sometimes this will mean unique scheduling options for your course. For example, I have timetabled my course by doing a one-hour lecture each Tuesday an one four-hour field lab each Thursday – the Tuesday lecture can be used to cover some content and allows me to devote the entire field laboratory to field activities.

Field Biology in the winter – why not?

6. Embrace the unpredictable: Taking students out in a rainstorm, or when it’s -15C, is part of the field biology experience. Nature can be unpredictable, and we need to embrace this instead of shy away from it. In the Montreal area, seasonability is a driving force in all our ecosystems, yet field biology courses tend to be focused in ‘nice weather’ seasons. My colleague Murray Humphries is always telling me that our students must realize that winter ecology is as important as what happens in the summer! He’s right! (Murray, by the way, does take students out on winter trips in his mammalogy course, and they do winter tracking and other activities relate to cold-weather science). We can see and do a lot of field biology in all seasons, and must change the mindset of associating field biology with the warm months. And, as an anecdote, of all the camping trips that I did with my father when I was (much) younger, I remember vividly the ones with rain, sleet, snow and wind storms. Nice weather is boring.

In sum, field biology courses are doable, providing the instructor can be creative and embrace alternative approaches to teaching.

What are your own strategies? Please share…

Arthropod Ecology

Writings about arthropod ecology, arachnids & academia at McGill University

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