Sign me up for RSS!- Four exciting postdocs in Ecology and Evolution at Washington University in St. Louis!
- Postdoctoral positions available in our lab!
- How can you go wrong with a gap year?
- Advising undergraduates: encourage them to get to know themselves
- Did you join Mastodon yet?
- Is there a book you want to write?
- What I learned from reading my book aloud
- Retraction with honor
- Ten steps to optimizing learning at large conferences
- Do not love your writing
Category Archives: The joy of teaching
How to group your students in class
These are glorious days to be a teacher. Not only is there all the fun of teaching that has always been there, but there is an increasingly active community interested in making teaching and learning as effective as possible. We … Continue reading
What E. O. Wilson got right, what confused him, and what he disrespected
The brilliant conservation and ant biologist E. O. Wilson wrote a bizarre piece for the Wall Street Journal recently. It is modified from an upcoming book of advice for young students. It has inspired an intense flurry of highly negative … Continue reading
Ignite your audience with lightning or Pecha Kucha form talks
Long before Powerpoint existed I once was a teaching assistant for an introductory biology class in the intensive summer session at the University of Texas at Austin. One of my main tasks was to sit in the back of the … Continue reading
Teaching graduate students to write, Memphis style
Isn’t it a shame that some people think writing is a born talent, not a learned trade? We writers know that is not true, so we all have our methods for helping others also become writers. There is a lot … Continue reading
Posted in The joy of teaching, Writing
Tagged graduate students, Research, sociology, teaching, university, University of Memphis, writing, writing workshops
5 Comments
Massive Open Online Courses
Isn’t it delightful when someone does something good for everyone? That is how I feel about MOOCs, massive, open, online classes. This allows teachers to polish and perfect lectures, to use other people’s lectures, and to keep the class time … Continue reading
Undergrads in the lab!
Undergraduates bring joy to research. They are new, they are fresh, and they are easily amazed. They work well in teams. They are also much more likely to break the centrifuge, contaminate the bench, mislabel the samples, or even start … Continue reading
What not to do on your first day of class
Are you about to teach your first class of the semester? Is your syllabus ready? Have you picked just the right texts, balancing content with cost? Are you a few PowerPoints ahead? Have you thought about how this semester you … Continue reading
Posted in The joy of teaching
Tagged class, College, engagement, evaluations, exams, lecture, students, syllabus, teaching, university
2 Comments
What is behavioral ecology and why should I take this course?
Answers to this main question comes in the form of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), a powerful way of communicating and something I’ve covered before here. What is behavioral ecology? It is the study of why organisms behave as they do … Continue reading
The value of study questions – a set on The Selfish Gene
How do you know what is important? Have you ever read a chapter carefully, even taking the three times, once quickly, second time carefully, third time to confirm, and then still done poorly on the test? You took notes, right? … Continue reading
Posted in The joy of teaching
Tagged critical thinking, Richard Dawkins, study questions, The Selfish Gene, undergraduate
7 Comments
Make your letters of recommendation show, not tell, and be careful!
In a way, the letter of recommendation is the good-old-boy-club side of a portfolio. Maybe a kinder way of stating this is that it is the human side of a person’s file. After all, the data that should be most … Continue reading
Sociobiology 