"Many, Many Teachers"

A Final Reflection

I thought this an appropriate title for this blog post of my reflections about participating in the Spring 2011 EDU 255 course. The quote is from Will Richardson's Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and other Powerful Tools for Classrooms.

I was a half-believer and a relative newbie. Sitting on the fence and making excuses for my position. My self talk: there’s not enough time to develop an effective plan to use more technology, many students can’t maneuver the technology, and I will spend most of my time fixing glitches in my work or the work of others.

I was compelled to become enrolled in EDU 255, because I felt myself falling behind in terms of using powerful Web 2.0 tools. I added it during these last weeks at an almost painfully busy time for me. Now I am transformed and surprisingly, to me, am already using some of the easier ways to expand the effectiveness of my classes – podcasts, for example.

Now at the end of the course, I have a true toolkit of resources. The ePortfolio forced me to seriously work with concepts from all weeks and come up with a product to build upon. I really like that, especially that I have started two other blogs that are languishing. Understanding the power of wikis has really opened my mind. It was the requirement to incorporate many Web tools into the ePortfolio that nudged me off the fence.

In my Human Biology class lately, I felt a little guilty simply collecting lab materials onto which I will make red or blue marks and add comments. I am anxious to carry the students learning and longevity of “learning products” to a more sustainable level with a real future and learn what others are doing to facilitate this.

I am a happier, more confident instructor/facilitator now. I probably would never have investigated this world on my own, at least not to the extent required by our assignments. And as a matter of fact, I do not see Web 2.0 (and other materials) as another world but as my world. The final chapter in Richardson’s book really got to me. I have the list of these Big Shifts with my teaching materials, so I can remember where to focus my attention.

A Community of Blogs, Links & Wikis

I have compiled a set of favorite resources

Blogs

World Have Your Say

A blog that follows BBC’s World Have Your Say (WHYS). WHYS is global conversation that starts with topics chosen and guided by BBC contributors and employs all available technology to keep the “programme” as open as possible. Applicable to biology teaching, since all species affect each other, and humans have responsibility to learn about and improve the world.

Class: M

Beginning as a discussion of “pseudoskeptical arguments from those who have trouble accepting reality” it then morphed into an almost exclusive forum for climate change. “Class M” in trekky refers to planets identified to support life and civilization. Parent blog, ScienceBlogs features a dropdown menu with links to about 60 science blogs.

DNAi

Companion site to DNAi Web site, an free online teaching community where one can create personalized web pages with their Lesson Builder tool. Blog topics are searchable by topic and date. Originates in Cold Spring Harbor, Maine, site of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories famous for James Watson and Francis Crick’s DNA research.

Extreme Biology

A site originating in the Northeast US and maintained by Ms. Baker and her high school biology students. They blog about anything related to biology. One must register as a guest to blog here.

YC Tels Webletter

From Yavapai College online guidelines to the Tool of the Month, this blog is handy for ideas, refreshers, and the 57 Second Blackboard Tip of the Week that can be put right to use.

Links

Biodiveristy Heritage Library

A consortium of natural history and botanical libraries working together to digitize and bring biodiversity literature into an open access form. It acts as the foundation of literature for the Encyclopedia of Life. Items can be viewed as complete works in many formats.

Free Federal Resources for Educational Excellence

Teaching and learning resources from federal agencies including animation, primary documents, photos, and videos. Almost any topic you can imagine is available here.

Index to Arizona Trail Maps

From the Accidental Mine to Young’s Farm. Good, zoomable topos, with roads, trails, and boundaries, of sites we might want to explore.

Nature

Full episodes and educational resources by title animal, and topic.

Scientific American

I keep up to date with this premier science journal.

USGS Real-Time Water Data for the Nation

Real-time data recorded at 15- to 60-minute intervals in graph and table formats. Subscription to emergency notifications, such as during floods, is available

Wikis

The Rational Wiki

A place for analyzing and refuting pseudoscience and the anti-science movement. Content includes analysis of media coverage of these topics. Incorporates pseudoscience, politics, Conservapedia, science, religion, and fun & recipes portals.

The RiverRidge Foundation

A stunning example of how a wiki can coordinate with environmental science courses. The RiverRidge courses integrate online environmental units with collaborative field research. Research destinations include Costa Rica and Nova Scotia. Upon return from the field component, students spend several weeks constructing a Research Wiki

WikiMedia Commons

A database of freely usable media files to which anyone can contribute. Content by topic, location, author, type, license, and source. Features include “Meet our Photographers” and an invitation to name “unidentified objects.”

Wikispecies

A free, easy-to-use species directory, including all domains of life. Includes vernacular names in dozens of languages. Now integrated with ZooKeys and PhytoKeys, peer-reviewed, open-access, rapidly produced journals aimed at freely exchanging ideas.

Educational Philosophy v. 2

In this slightly revised version of my teaching philosophy I still believe great teaching revolves around motivation and active learning. I think bringing biology to life and then giving an application for that knowledge is the key. I demonstrate my passion for biology (I can’t help it!) and show that the ordinary world is brim full of the excitement of biology. I think students turn more seriously toward biology when inspired with stories of scientific discovery, disappointment, and victory, and those that show the wonder, pleasure in the unknown, of science. Then the learning really begins.

I want to add right here a comment about something I read in the Richardson book (Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts) in Chapter 10, “What it all Means.” He states that the Internet will grow (“explode”) as the most complete source of information, that the content that is created there will be increasingly collaborative, and that as students start their professional lives they will be asked to interact a lot with this medium. He indicates that skills leading to this future are derived from ideas presented as starting points for conversations. I have always thought of the ideas I present in class as starting points, even in traditional settings. But I felt helpless without a technique to motivate the students to build on the ideas and carry them forth. I thought that somewhere in graduate school, there would be an “Aha! That’s what she meant,” but I would probably never know. Now I have some foundational techniques capable of leading students toward avenues of connecting and contributing in ways beyond my dreams.

I believe students need opportunities for diverse ways of learning and diverse ways of demonstrating their learning. This starts the very first day of class when I ask my students to discover themselves within the course content by asking “introduce-yourself” questions that center on nature. When I discover a student’s interests, I can bring that directly into our science topics and expand with reports of new research or current events. Whether in a Human Biology or General Biology class, I think they can literally put themselves into the course and feel motivated to find ways to use their newly found information outside the academic world. I deliver the Big Picture in enthusiastic ways, so students will want to fill in the details. With presentation and collaboration techniques so much more readily available and understandable to me now, I see this component of helping students personally connect with nature and science having more depth, interest, and permanence, especially if they are publishing their own material and editing online as part of a learning community.

When students are self-confident, they learn more, so I offer my students learning opportunities that give them confidence and new skills. For instance, I always start class with a review from the previous class and question session. However, I like to introduce novel topics with new vocabulary to add excitement. My students almost always work in lab groups on topics that develop ideas in detail, and they benefit from sharing information in a relaxed environment. Being relaxed and self confident with technology is also important. Now that the majority of my classes are delivered online or in a hybrid format, simplicity and clarity are more important than ever. Currently, I try to only use technology if it enhances student learning, and every semester I strive for more simplicity and clarity. With my interest and modest skills in delivering more digital content and hopefully facilitating useful learning groups, the breadth and variety of material that I see as serving the student is bigger than I previously thought.

My teaching style and philosophy have changed over the years. As a product of early traditional learning, I needed to step back and listen more. Having loved science all my life, I learned the importance of appreciating and mentoring students who did not think they would like biology. What hasn’t changed is the importance I place on modeling the attributes I want my students to develop: professionalism, sense of humor, love of nature, compassion, involvement. Now I want to offer another vehicle to that end - Web 2.0.