Teaching a Class Online

Far too frequently, some so called "education expert" spouts off about how "lectures are bad"!  

Here is a link to a recent article entitled "Is the Lecture Dead?" which provides what I consider to be one of the best statements about how lectures and and should be used effectively in the classroom.  (I got the link from Jeff Lee's website and you MSCIers should be familiar with him, right?).

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/01/is-the-lecture-dead/272578/#.UQgzhpI63P8.facebook

Here are some of my favorite sections of this article-

To begin with, we lecturers must ask ourselves a basic question: why am I lecturing? What will I be able to get across to learners through a lecture that they could not get just as well and with less inconvenience by reading a book or working through an online learning module? The answer, in part, must be that the physical presence of the lecturer and the unfolding of the lecture in real time will make a difference for learners. Great lecturers not only inform learners, they also engage their imaginations and inspire them.

The core purpose of a great lecturer is not primarily to transmit information. To this end, other techniques, such as assigning a reading in a textbook or distributing an electronic copy of the notes, can be equally effective. The real purpose of a lecture is to show the mind and heart of the lecturer at work, and to engage the minds and hearts of learners. Is the lecturer enthusiastic about the topic? Why? Could I get enthused about this, too? 

This leads to the issues that I am facing when teaching via distance.  I think that I can provided the information that I would like you to know (if we can ever get all of you able to see the online textbook), but I think that distance course inherently lack "the magic" that can occur when motivated teachers and students meet face to face.  As one of the commentors on the "Is the Lecture Dead? article stated, "a good lecture is like a dance between the teacher and students, but it is difficult to dance online (Don't worry- I promise you will never have to see me "dance" either in person or online!!!).

So here are some of the things that I try to get across to my students when I lecture about ecology.l

1. Ecology is cool!!!  I am a self-admitted nature and science nerd.  I can't think of a better way to have spent my life than to have been able to learn and tell other people cool things about nature and science.  I worry that kids today do not have the experience playing around with nature that I had growing up as kids.  Thus, I try to get them interested in learning more about nature, both in their own neighborhood and around the world.

2.  An understanding of Ecology should help them in their real lives.  Ecology is the science that will help us to understand the environmental issues facing us.  I worry that we have not been very good stewards of our planet and that things will continue to get worse until we have the will and the knowledge to try to change things for the better.

Thus, where possible I will try to related things we are talking about to real life problems.  Ideally, I would like to provide you with the information that you need to introduce these ideas to your students.  I know that you are the experts in interacting with your students so I want to try to provide you with the best info possible so that you can translate that to your kids in the way that you think is most effective.

Please let me know how I can help you be better prepared to teach your students!!  

Writing Articles for EoE

Here is a link where we can start conversations about writing aritcles for the EoE.  Please let me know your hopes, fears, etc.  If you have ideas about possible topics you would like to write about please post them here so we can start a conversation.

Questions About Natural Selection

Here is the section for posting questions and comments related to natural selection.  Let the discussion begin!!!!

Questions About "Factors Influencing the Physical Environment"

As an experiment designed to foster interaction among the class I have created a Blog post in which you can ask any questions or make any comments you have about the factors that influence the physical environment.  I anyone has questions then I will try to answer them on the blog so that everyone can learn from the answer.  If you have topics that you think might be fun to discuss then please add them and hopefully we can generate some "lively discussion" this semester.

Why I Love Scuba Diving

Photo: Eye of crocodile fish by Matt Segal taken in Solomon Islands.

One of the problems with teaching Introductory Biology, is that is is often difficult for us to convince you that what we are teaching you is relevant. Because Introductory Biology is the first step along your university biology education and in order to give you a firm foundation there is a relatively large amount of material that you need to be introduced to, it is often difficult for us to show you the context of how the things that we are teaching you might be applied in real life. For example, I can tell you that learning how to draw and interpret graphs is a critical skill (and its fun!), but perhaps it would be better if I could actually show you. Thus, this semester I am going to try to find new ways of illustrating how the material that we are learning might be interesting, useful, and applicable.

Natural Selection and The Diversity of Life

One of the goals of this course is to introduce you to the diversity of life on earth. When I was studying biology at UCSB, we were able to go on field trips to the intertidal zone simply by walking across the street and we could visit deserts and mountains in relatively short drives. Obviously, because we live in one of the most human-modified regions in the country, it is more difficult for us to take you out and show you some of the diversity of life. As I mentioned in class, taking my first scuba dive and seeing first hand the creatures that live on a coral reef was a life changing experience for me. While I am diving I am constantly asking myself "how could natural selection ever have created something like that?"

Here are links to a powerpoint presentation and some videos from places that I have been diving. As you watch them try to (1) look at the diversity of critters that are found living under the water, and (2) to try to figure out how natural selection might have helped produce such creatures.

1. In 2009 I travelled to the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia. I prepared this powerpoint presentation to show people in my dive club. I took almost none of these photos (they are borrowed from the internet) but I saw all of the things that are shown in this presentation. I was especially fascinated by all of the fishes that walked rather than swam.

http://www.slideshare.net/secret/l5XPJ7vMrEM5mI

2. In 2008 I visitied the Galapagos Islands which for a biologist was like returning to the motherland. Here are some videos shot on that trip by my friend Josh Jensen. Josh is a talented videographer who lives in Australia. The best part of this trip was seeing the 35 foot long whale shark; it was great to watch a bunch of grown ups act get excited like little kids after we saw that.

http://www.underseaproductions.com/demo_reels/galapagos_video_footage.html

3. Last summer I took a dive trip to Puerto Galera in the Philippines.  Here's what I did on my summer vacation.

http://www.slideshare.net/MarkMcGinley/dive-trip-to-puerto-galera-philippines


Malaysian Bat Education Adventure

While I am distracted thinking about cool places that I have visited and crazy things that I have seen I will add the link to the website that we have developed about Malaysian bats for 4th grade students. Take a look at some of the bat videos if you want to see some really odd critters.

http://www.ttu-mbea.org/

Natural Selection

An understanding of the process of natural selection helps us to understand the amazing diversity of life on the earth.

Expected Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course a fully engaged students should be able to

1) define the process of natural selection

2) distinguish between the patterns of stabilizing, disruptive, and directional selection and provide examples of each pattern

3) describe how the process of natural selection has produced a trait that is an adaptation to a particular environmental condition.

4) explain why organisms are not expected to be perfectly adapted to their environments

5) discuss the conditions that would cause natural selection to stop

6) explain why natural selection is expected to produce selfish traits

Readings

Natural selection http://www.eoearth.org/article/Natural_selection

Here is a link to a website from UC Berkeley that might be useful to take a look at-

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evo_25

The Physical Environment

Introduction

The physical environment can have a profound influence on ecology at a variety of levels. For example, the physical environment can act as a strong selective presssure to produce adaptations or can influence the rates of nutrient cycling through an ecosystem. For our simple purposes here, the two most important components of the physical environment are temperature and precipitation. I suggest that we can predict a lot about what is going on ecologically in an environment if we know something about temperature and precipitation patterns.

From watching the nightly news we all know how difficult it is for the local weatherperson to accurately predict what the weather is going to be like tomorrow. Fortunately, it is much easier to understand broad patterns of variation in temperature and precipitation.

Temperature



The dominant global temperature pattern is that it tends to get cooler as you move away from the poles. The cause of this is relatively simple. Because the earth is so far from the sun, the light rays hitting the earth are basically paralell to each other. Because of the curvature of the earth, sunlight hitting the earth near the equator falls over a smaller area than sunlight hitting near the poles. Because the same amount of light energy is hitting a smaller area near the equator, the concentration of energy/area is greater near the equator than the pole thus resulting in higher temperatures.

Elevation is another factor that influences global temperatures. Because there is less insulating atmosphere above areas of high elevation temperatures tend to decrease as you go up in elevation.

Large bodies of water can mediate temperature variations. For example, seasonal and daily variation in temperatures are much lower in areas near the ocean (maritime climates) than they are in areas far from the ocean (continental climates).

Global temperature patterns can also be affected by patterns of ocean circulation. For example, the west coast of continents are often cooled by cool water flowing from the poles to the tropics while the east coasts of continents can be warmed by warmer water from the tropics to the poles (e.g., the Gulf Stream). If you have ever been to the beach in southern California you surely noticed how cold the water was; east coast beaches at similar latitudes have much warmer water.

Precipitation

In order to understand global precipitation patterns you need to understand global patterns of atmospheric circulation. Hopefully, after studying the article on atmospheric circulation you will be able to explain-

1. why there tends to be high precipitation in tropical regions and

2. why precipitation tends to be low at 30 degrees North and South of the equator.

Patterns of precipitation can also be influenced by the presence of mountains. As air masses containing moisture hit a mountain they are forced upward. Because rising air cools and cool air







holds less moisture, precipitation occurs on the windward side of mountains. Once the air mass has passed over the mountain in falls to lower elevations and gets warmer. Because most of the moisture has been lost as precipitation on the windward side of the mountain and the warmer air holds more moisture there is very little precipitation on the leward side of the mountain resulting in a "rainshadow desert".

Let's think about Lubbock!

Let's see if we can use our newfound understanding of some of the factors influencing temperature and precipitation to make predictions about what the climate should be like in Lubbock. What information do we need about the geographic location of Lubbock to help us understand the climate? First, we need to know the latitude; Lubbock is located approximately 33 degrees north. Second we need to know something about the proximity to the ocean. As an old beach boy, I can guarantee you that we are a long, long way from the ocean in Lubbock. Third, where is Lubbock in relation to mountains? Lubbock is located to the east of the southern extension of the Rockies.

Why is all of this important?

1. What can we learn from the latitude of 33 degrees North? This latitude is still close enough to the equator to be warm so we expect relatively high temperatures. Because Lubbock lies near the 30 degree zone of low precipitation we would predict relatively low precipitation. At 30 degrees North we would predict that Lubbock would receive predominately winds from the west.

2. From the continental location of Lubbock we would predict fairly extreme daily and seasonal fluctuations of temperatures.

3. Because Lubbock lies in the Westerlies most of the precipitation that is arriving in Lubbock comes from the Pacific Ocean. Because these winds have passed over the Rockies we would predict that Lubbock would lie in a rainshadow, again causing low precipitation.

How did we do. If anyone has ever been in Lubbock (especially in the spring time) you would know that the wind almost always blows in from the west. Temperatures are relatively warm but there is fairly large seasonal and daily variations in temperature. Lubbock has a semi-arid climate and receives on average about 18 inches of precipitation per year. Thus, with just a little bit of knowlege about the factors that influence global patterns of temperature and precipitation we were able to fairly accurately the climate in Lubbock. Thus, I would expect that organisms native to Lubbock should be well adapted to the low precipitation, continental climate of the region (the short grass prairie was the dominant vegetation type presettlement).

See use these patterns to understand climate in your town (note climate patterns in Texas are complicated in central and eastern Texas becasue of the influence of air masses coming up from the Gulf). Compare the temperature and precipitation of your town with that if very divergent locations around the globe.


Further Reading

If you would like some more detailed information about factors affecting climate and the atmosphere you can check out the Atmosphere Chapter in Michael Pidwirny's online Physical Geography textbook http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/contents.html.

Powerpoint Presentation

Click here to see the powerpoint presentation "Factors Influencing the Physical Environment".
http://www.slideshare.net/secret/EaVq4nm5KuSsBI

Expected Learning Outcomes
At the end of this course a fully engaged student should be able to

- describe global patterns of variation in temperature and precipitation and be able to explain the causes of these patterns

- for any location in the world, use your knowledge of the factors that affect global patterns to preict the local climate

The Mark McGinley Story

Here is the perfect cure for insomnia!

The Formative Years
I was born in Corpus Christi, TX and after a couple of moves we ended up in Rosenberg, (near Houston) where I attended grade school. I was interested in biology from an early age; I watched Marlin Perkins and Jacque Cousteau (your parents should know who they are) and I spent a lot of time outdoors on family camping and fishing trips. Even though I grew up near Houston during the Apollo years, I always thought that it would be much cooler to be a biologist than an astronaut.

When I was in the sixth grade my family moved to Australia for four years. This was an amazing life change for a kid who thought that the annual trip to my grandparents’ house in Oklahoma was a big deal. I had the incomparable experience of living in another country and experiencing a whole new way of life. Probably the biggest difference between Australia and the U.S. was the schools. I went to an all-boys English-style, private school where we had to wear uniforms (suits and ties) and straw boater hats to class everyday (this probably explains my preferred style of dress today).

The move also provided me with the opportunity to travel the world. During trips through Europe and Asia we saw many places of historical and cultural interest. Among my favorites were the Coliseum in Rome, the Tower of London, and Mt. Fuji in Japan. More importantly, my travels exposed me to many new biological experiences including seeing hippos, gazelles, elephants, and a cheetah in South Africa, snorkeling and beachcombing in Hawaii, Tahiti, Fiji, and the Great Barrier Reef, chasing emus through the Australian outback, watching a male lyrebird do his mating dance, watching fairy penguins come ashore for the night off of the coast of southern Australia, and many sightings of other Australian wildlife including kangaroos and koalas (how many people do you know that have ever seen a koala running along the ground?).

During the summer before my sophomore year in high school we moved to Thousand Oaks, CA (old-timers will remember TO as the former summer home of the Dallas Cowboys before they were ruined by Jerry Jones) where I graduated from high school. During my senior year I spent a week studying ecology and philosophy in Yosemite National Park and this trip confirmed by desire to be a biologist.

Education

I enrolled at the University of California, Santa Barbara to study biology. UCSB is an incredible place to go to school (I could see the ocean from my bedroom window three out of the four years that I was there) and it also happened to have one of the best ecology programs in the world. Joe Connell (one of the most influential ecologist of our era) taught the ecology section of my intro biology course and also taught my first ecology course, so it is probably his fault that I am here today because after finishing his course I knew that I wanted to be an ecologist. Later, after taking courses from Steve Rothstein and Bob Warner, I became interested in behavioral and evolutionary ecology and I decided to go to grad school to study behavioral ecology. I went to Kansas State University in Manhattan, KS which was a pretty big change from UCSB. I enjoyed K-State (I learned to bleed purple for Wildcat basketball) and I was lucky to be able to spend summers working for my advisor Chris Smith at the Mountain Research Station in Colorado studying pollination in lodgepole pine. My Masters Thesis extended optimal foraging models to examine woodrats foraging for non-food items (sticks that they use to build their houses). I also did a theoretical study examining how food stress should affect sex ratios. I earned a Ph. D. at the University in Salt Lake City. For my Ph. D. thesis with Jon Seger, I developed models and conducted experiments to understand the causes of seed size variation in plants. During my little free time, I played volleyball with the U of U Volleyball Club team and I was probably the only person in the whole city who did not ski (I still don’t see the point of intentionally getting cold). I spent two years working as a post-doctoral researcher with Dave Tilman at the University of Minnesota. Our research focused on succession in old fields at Cedar Creek Natural History Area just north of Minneapolis.

Life at Texas Tech
I started as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Texas Tech University in 1991. I am currently an Associate Professor with a joint position in the Honors College and the Department of Biological Sciences. In the Honors College I work closely with the Environment and the Humanities degree. (http://www.depts.ttu.edu/honors/evhm/)

Teaching

I teach a wide variety of classes at Tech. Two of my favorite courses are Tropical Marine Biology (taught in Jamaica and Belize) and the Rio Grande Class (we take a week-long canoe trip through Big Bend over Spring Break). For the past 6 summers I have worked as a scuba instructor and marine biologist with Odyssey Expeditions leading sailing and scuba trips through the Caribbean (British Virgin Islands, Martinique, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent & the Grenadines).

Scholarship
For several years I conducted ecological research in the sand shinnery oak community in West Texas. My current interests are in science curriculum development, environmental education, and informatl science education. I serve as a member of the Stewardship Committee of the Environmental Information Coalition and as an Associate Editor for the Encyclopedia of the Earth (http://www.eoearth.org/). In the Malaysian Bat Education Adventure we are using the ecology of Malaysian Bats as the focus of an integrated science curriculum for students in Kindergarten through 8th grade.

Fulbright in Malaysia

I spent the 2010-2011 academic year as a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. In addition to teaching a class at the UM, I was able to travel throughout the Malaysia and other parts of SE Asia (Thailand and Cambodia). In enjoyed exploring the rainforests and islands of Malaysia.  Some of the coolest things I saw were a sea turtle laying eggs, Orangutans, and a Borneo Pygmy Elephant. To learn more about my adventures in Malaysia you can check out my blog. http://markinmalaysia.blogspot.com/

Traveling

I enjoy traveling and I have been able to explore my passion for scuba diving on dive trips in Texas (San Solomon Springs in Balmorhea and the Flower Garden Banks) throughout the Caribbean as well as Yap, Palau, Solomon Islands, Fiji, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Galapagos Islands. My favorite marine critters include hammerhead sharks, pygmy sea horses, and “the pea”. On Monday I returned from a trip in SE Asia (Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand).

Course Syllabus

Ecology for Teachers

BIOL 5311

Course Syllabus

Instructor

Dr. Mark McGinley

Associate Professor

Honors College and Department of Biological Sciences

Room 215 McClelland Hall

mark.mcginley@ttu.edu

The best way for you to contact me during this course is via email (I spend much of my life attached to my computer and I am usually pretty good at getting back to people via email).

Course Outline

The purpose of this course is to provide a content knowledge in the fields of ecology and evolution to practicing teachers. The ecology portion of this course will examine ecology of individuals, populations, and communities and introduce you to the techniques that ecologists use to develop hypotheses (including mathematical modeling) and test their hypotheses in the lab and the field. The evolution portion of the course will discuss the apparent controversy between science and religion and discuss topics of micro and macro evolution.

Required Readings.

There is no textbook required for this class. The readings for the ecology portion of this course will come from this class will come from the Ecology for Teachers Reader published in the Encyclopedia of the Earth.

Course Blog

I have created a blog for this course (my initial effort at blogging). The Ecology for Teachers blog can be found at http://ecologyforteachers2013.blogspot.com/. This blog will offer a means of communication among all members of this course. I will post regularly (at least weekly) on this site and I encourage you to use this as a forum for interaction. I am not going to grade your participation in the blog, but obviously the more that you share your thoughts on the blog, the better indication I will have about how the class is going.

Expected Learning Outcomes

Explicit expected learning outcomes for each lesson are located in the Ecology for Teachers Reader.

Methods for Assessing the Expected Learning Outcomes

The expected learning outcomes will be assessed using a midterm exam, a final exam, and a project. Students in this class will be involved in the Student Science Communication Project with the EoE. You will be required to write an article suitable for publication by the EoE. All articles that meet my approval will be submitted for review by the EoE and articles that are accepted by the Topic Editor will be published. More details of this assignment will be coming.

Grading

Midterm Exam (Due February 28th) 20%

Cumulative Final Exam (due May 2nd) 20%

Articles for EoE  60%

Because it is not always possible for me to make the grades fall on a 90, 80, 70, etc. scale, I will let you know the grade that your score would have earned after each assignment. This course is not graded on a curve, so it is possible for all, or no, students to earn a particular grade.

Welcome and Introduction

Welcome to Ecology and Evolution for Teachers (BIOL 5311)! By now most you are all veterans of the Multidisciplinary Science Masters Program. I am excited to be teaching this course because I believe that improving science education is an important issue facing Texas and the USA today. I hope that this course will play a positive role towards meeting that goal.

This is the second time that I have taught this course via distance education.  Although I much prefer to teach in person, I am excited about the challenge of teaching a distance education course. Let me try to give you some ideas about how this course will work.

My Plan for This Course

Required Readings
For the past several years I have worked with the Encyclopedia of the Earth (EoE- http://www.eoearth.org/) an online source of information about the environment. On November 1st I took over as Editor in Chief of the EoE.   Part of the funding of the EoE is being supported by Trunity, a high tech company from the east coast.  Their business model is that ultimately they will be able to develop on-line textbooks using material from the EoE and sell them to students around the world.

We will be part of a grand experiment with online textbooks this semester.  I have created an online textbook , "Ecology Reader: Ecology for Teachers" that should be available on the Trunity website.  My goal is that you will be able to use this book for free this semester (at least the price is right).  Unfortunately, you need a password to access the textbook on the Trunity website.  I am currently trying to get permission for all of you to have access to the book and I will let you know as soon as I have.

In the meantime you can start reading an older version of the Ecology Reader that is currently hosted on the EoE.  http://www.eoearth.org/article/Ecology_Reader-_Ecology_for_Teachers (which you can also read for free)

The required information for the Evolution portion of the course will be available online (websites from the University of California, Berkeley and University of Utah among others) and from Powerpoint presentations that I have developed. (More Info on This Later On).

Course assignments
Obviously, I will need to assess your mastery of the material. There will be one midterm exam and a final exam. These exams will test how well you have mastered the expected learning outcomes for the course. In addition, you will write articles suitable for the EoE. If your article is approved by a Topic Editor your article will be published for everyone in the world to see!!!!

Interaction
The best part of teaching face to face is that it is easy for us to communicate. I imagine that you have all had the experience of being halfway through your brilliantly-prepared presentation when you look at the students’ faces and realize that none of them have a clue about what you are talking about. Similarly, I am sure that you have your presentations interrupted by questions from students that either helped to clarify the material for them and their classmates or opened up new interesting areas to talk about. We won’t be able to share these opportunities in this class. Thus, in hopes of allowing for valuable teacher-student and student-student interaction I have developed a blog. I encourage you to post answers to questions that I ask on the blog, comment on the answers of your classmates, ask questions, or any other clever ways that you can think of you use the blog (this is new territory for me so I am up for suggestions about how to make this course as interactive as possible). You are also encouraged to contact me via email  with any questions or comments that you have.

Suggestions
Here is how I would approach this material.
1) Preview the expected learning outcomes
2) Read all of the reading material
3) See if you can meet the expected learning outcomes
-if you would like to check your level of understanding you can write out answers and submit them via email for me to take a look at.
4) answer the questions posted on the blog (I highly encourage all of you to post your answers online).
5) ask questions
You can ask me questions via email
You can ask me and your fellow students questions on the blog