The best way to learn is to teach. As the French moralist Joseph Joubert wrote, "To teach is to learn twice". To allow students to teach and learn from each other I always incorporate active learning into my lesson plan.
I begin each section with a brief lecture to familiarize the students with the activities and their goals. I have the students break into groups and carry out the activities while I observe and give guidance. Group work allows the students to be teachers. If I see a number of groups struggling I change the teaching strategy. Instead of just lecturing and explaining, I demonstrate by putting myself in the role of a student 'that gets it.' For instance, if the activity is a difficult dissection, I will have the students observe me carrying out part of the dissection. I concentrate on the areas where the students were having the most trouble. Once I explain how to overcome the problem, I normally ask one of the students to continue with the dissection I started. This allows the emphasis to be on one of their peers. Observing a peer being successful often gives students confidence that they can follow suit.
Although most teachers set and discuss goals at the beginning of class, few follow-up on these goals at the conclusion of class. Before I let students out I always review what the goals were and if they were met. I try to set each lab or discussion in the context of the entire class and larger subject area. This technique helps students see the point and often makes the activities more fulfilling and interesting.
Tying the students motivations (e.g., doing well in the course, having fun) to the teachers own (e.g., expressing concepts clearly, reaching the goals of the experiments) makes for an exciting setting. Being excited about a subject is contagious. Students learn subjects better if they are interested in them. When I taught Animal Diversity I had to make nematodes and sponges interesting: animals that for most students have no business being interesting. I love these animals but unfamiliar students find them dull and inanimate. I had students do an experiment where florescent dye is dropped on one end of a water dish with a live sponge. The sponge channeled the dyed water through numerous pores using the same law of physics that allows planes to fly (Bernoulli's law). Watching it take in a stream of brightly colored dye then filter and release it as millions of tiny exiting streams of florescence turned a once mundane object into an organism with a nervous system, active feeding mechanisms, and beauty.
I love the challenges and the rewards of teaching. My teaching philosophy of reaching every student with active learning techniques and flexible strategies has paid off. I've learned as much about the subjects I've taught as my students. Teaching has given me confidence that I will be able to train my own students and that I am capable of articulating complex ideas simply and clearly - something that is essential to my research and career.
Animal diversity, comparative anatomy, ichthyology, and systematics are all subjects I love to discuss and look forward to teaching at either the undergraduate or graduate level.
