It’s a wrap

Portrait of the Fall 2024 semester

The grades for all of my classes, Fundamentals of Genetics, Evolution, and Development, and History of Evolutionary Thought, and Cell Biology lab, and Biological Communication II, have been submitted. I am done. This was not my favorite semester of the 50-some semesters I’ve taught here.

Now I’m getting ready for spring semester — or rather, I have been getting ready. I set up fly stocks way back in early November, I have to do one more generation, and then I set up all the flies for our first lab. Bonus: next semester, I have no classes on Fridays. Three day weekends every week! That might make up for all the grading I’ll have to do in the writing class I’ll be teaching.

If it’s not one thing, it’s another

It was hard to get motivated this morning — Fridays are typically low attendance days in the classroom, and I had worked hard to get today’s topic condensed down into a lot of digestible information (we’re talking about the rediscovery of Mendel, the biometrician and Mendelians arguing with each other). I had a presentation that was pretty tight and I thought would help make the conflict comprehensible to a group of liberal arts majors, none of whom are biology majors.

So I get to class today, and was pleasantly surprised to see that I had 80% attendance, which is kind of a miracle. I tell you, standing at the front of a classroom with only 3 students who don’t really appreciate the work you put in to the class is mighty depressing. So I was temporarily heartened that maybe this lecture wouldn’t go to waste, I fired up my laptop and the projector and got ready to tell this exciting story…and the projector is glitched out. It’s not connecting to anything, and is showing me a message that the projector and microphones were not receiving any data since 5:21pm yesterday. Isn’t technology nice that it has become so sophisticated that it can tell you precisely when it broke down?

I fumbled with it for about 15 minutes — that was the show today, watching the old geezer prof toggling switches and poking at a keyboard in front of the class, and seeing everything fail. I ended up giving up, giving them a brief oral summary of the history of biology from 1900-1915, telling them I’ll give them all the details on Monday, and sending them home early. So many smiles from the students! I didn’t tell them that I don’t find that encouraging at all.

Now I’m sitting in an empty classroom waiting for the IT people to show up. At least I can cheer myself up by thinking, hey, this isn’t the worst thing to happen this week.

Some days, I wonder why I’m doing this

Yes. But they’ll feel like they’re the one who failed.

Today, I had 3 students (out of 11) show up for what I thought was a scintillating talk about the immediate aftermath of publishing The Origin. Wilberforce and Huxley! Huxley humiliating Owen on the hippocampus minor question! Fleeming Jenkins’ extremely awkward question! Darwin’s epic genetics failure! How can you not want to discuss these dramatic events?

Maybe I’m not as scintillating as I thought. How are these students going to learn anything if they don’t keep up? Less significantly, how do they expect to pass?

Retirement looks ever more attractive.

P.S. I should mention that my entire class is not at risk of failing. Some are. Others may be working on a lower grade than they want.

Today I’m doing a “fool’s experiment” in the classroom

Fridays are the worst, from a teacher’s perspective, and Mondays are great. Students start out the week full of enthusiasm and slowly deflate, so today I’ve only got 50% attendance…and that’s typical. I try to pack Mondays with all the deep information, while on Fridays I try to do something different.

We’ve been talking about Darwin this week. I’ve given them an in-class exercise to browse through the Darwin project and begin to put together a short essay. Here are their instructions.

In your next essay, you’re going to be a real historian: I want you to read a few samples of primary historical references from Charles Darwin, and interpret and explain what he is writing about.

The Darwin Correspondence Project (https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/) is a massive archive of letters to and from Charles Darwin, containing about 15,000 documents that have all been indexed and made publicly available. I want you to dive into this pile of letters, pluck out a few, and read them carefully. You may have to do additional research to figure out who these long dead people were, but the Darwin Project has actually done a lot of that work for you.

Write a 750 word essay that explains the context and meaning of the letters you choose. Unlike most scientific writing, this kind of essay encourages quoting your source — but don’t use up more than 250 words in direct quotes.

You get to choose the topic of the letters. Some might contain heavy scientific arguments, others might be friendly chit-chat, some are questions about that flower you were supposed to mail to me. They’re all good and interesting! Peek into the mind of a famous scientist, and you’ll find both deep revelations and mundane conversation.

In class: before you go, summarize to the group what you intend to write about, or tell us something interesting that you found.

I’m in class, working in parallel with them, and occasionally interrupting to get an idea of what they’re focusing on. I was most interested in Darwin’s “fool experiments“. These were experiments where you figured that it would never work, or that the answer would be obvious, but you go ahead and do the experiment anyways.

‘I love fools’ experiments. I am always making them’, was one of the most interesting things the zoologist E. Ray Lankester ever heard Darwin say. ‘A great deal might be written as comment on that statement’, Lankester later recorded, but he limited himself to stating that ‘the thoughts which it suggests may be summed up by the proposition that even a wise experiment when made by a fool generally leads to a false conclusion, but that fools’ experiments conducted by a genius often prove to be leaps through the dark into great discoveries.’

That’s a really good idea. I should go do a fool’s experiment this afternoon, maybe I’ll be surprised.

My students are right now digging into Darwin’s religious beliefs, his love life, his speculations about the age of the earth, and are going to give me the details next week. This should be fun.

The things we get away with at a liberal arts university…poetry in a science class? Tsk.

I am struggling with student engagement in all of my classes: poor attendance, poor participation, all those horribly negligent bugaboos that make it hard to teach. So here we are, halfway through the term almost, and I’m trying to shake things up.

I’m teaching a course titled “The History of Evolutionary Thought,” which is also a writing-enriched course — I’m expected to spend half the class time, approximately, teaching writing skills. I consider that permission to get experimental at times. This past week I lectured on the history of geology, Hutton through Lyell, so today I made them sit down and do a writing exercise.

We read poetry.

Can I do that in a science building, in a science course? You betcha. I did. I made them think about a poem about James Hutton. I gave them these instructions:

The idea of Deep Time inspired many writers, and some of them are poets. Today, I want you to write a paragraph on this poem. You can
• interpret some aspect of the poem
• write about the virtue of poetry to science
• explain how it makes you feel
• express your own ideas about Deep Time
• write your own poem!

And here’s the poem!

JAMES HUTTON LEARNS TO READ THE
HIEROGLYPHICS OF THE EARTH
by Ron Butlin
 
Woken once too often by the rattle-clatter
of tumbril wheels on cobbles, the click . . . click . . .
click of distant knitting needles,
James Hutton decided never to go
to sleep again.
 
Then, by the light of several Edinburgh Council moons
(spares, in case the heavens were taken over
by the church), he tip-toed past storm-wrecked
Holyrood Abbey, went striding down
unimagined corridors,
through undreamt-of walls and doors where
Scottish Hope would one day
be cemented into place
(the bars across its parliament windows
wooden, just in case).

The Park . . . Salisbury Crags . . .
 
where several hundred million years ago,
the Earth had cracked itself wide open –
*
Detailed as a map of Man’s undiscovered self,
zigzag Time lies flat-packed,
for everyone to see . . .
 
Stacked magma, olivine, dolerite chilled to glass,
eternity crushed to lines of slowly
spelled-out hieroglyphics, and cut
in blood-red haematite.
 
. . . and Hutton sees it. He’s the first!

First to know he walks upon an ancient ocean floor
(God’s Flood, the merest puddle in all that vastness).
First to hear the stone-hard heartbeat pound-pound-
pounding out Existence.
 
Elsewhere, Revolution has taken to the streets
with an accusation and a scream,
a guillotine-swish . . .
French clocks run backwards to Year One.
 
Sunday 23rd October 4,004 BC?
All in the blink of a biblical eye! says Hutton.
*
Meanwhile, you and I continue turning
on our axis to the tick . . .
tick . . . tick of Time that never
started Once upon a . . .
And will surely never, ever –
 
Ah, these strata, these infinities glimpsed between!

I made them ponder and write for 25 minutes, and then we had a discussion. I think it went well. They were wide awake, at least!

Next week, I’m talking about pre-Darwinian ideas about biological change. Maybe I should read them one of Erasmus Darwin’s poems? Or maybe not — they’re awfully suggestive, and I don’t want to end up like Joe Gow.

Behold, the worst teacher in the world!

If you see this face coming, kick him or spit on him or otherwise scorn him. He’s terrible.

I’m having a bad semester. I’m teaching my intro biology course, which is small and ideally sized with 10 students, and every day is a trial. I go in prepared; I’m cheerful and friendly, I think; I’m working on the shaggy Santa Claus look; I’ve got lectures with frequent pauses and breaks where I encourage discussion; I think it’s an interesting topic. I’m talking amiably, and I ask the class a question — it can be as simple as “what are the results of crossing two heterozygotes?” or more open-ended, like “what is your opinion of IVF?” and it’s always the same result: dead silence, stony faces, everyone avoiding my eyes. It’s killing me. Am I intimidating? Boring? Hideous? Should I wear a bag on my head? I keep trying to get them engaged, and all I’m getting for my troubles is flop sweat.

These are not stupid students, either. I gave them a quiz last week, the mean was somewhere in the low 80s, so I know they’re understanding the material. They just don’t want to talk to me.

I’m thinking that maybe I should try some in-class ice breakers next week, and see if I can get them more active. Anyone got any good suggestions? I’m getting desperate.

Alternatively, I pick up a fifth of vodka and numb myself before walking into the classroom, because the strain is getting to me.*

*Not actually an option. I gave up all alcohol during the pandemic.

If you’re in the neighborhood…

On Thursday, 12 September, at 2:30, I’m joining forces with another class to drag our freshman students outside, before the snow starts falling next month, to confront the reality of life on campus. I’m bringing some handlenses, my macro camera, and an endoscopic camera for poking into holes, and we’ll take a look at life in the desert of the campus lawns and shrubbery (there is some, but it’s mostly springtails, ants, and spiders). We’ll also talk about how “spider” is misleading, because there are at least 30 different species of spiders living here, alongside the human monoculture.

I’m encouraging the students to sign up for iNaturalist and to use Seek to begin their careers as natural historians. It’ll be fun! Especially since otherwise I’d be lecturing them on meiosis. You’re welcome to join in if you’re in the neighborhood of Morris, Minnesota — this is going to be casual and geared to the first year college student.

They like me! They really like me!

I hit a wall yesterday. It was just one of my bad days, when I felt kind of useless, and worried about what was coming in the fall — I’ve got one week of instruction planned, out of 15 weeks in the semester, and I’m coming out of a semester in which I’d gotten all experimental and weird and tried some things that maybe the administration would not approve of, because I was tired of trying to wedge students into boxes all the time. I just wanted them to learn how to think and have a good conversation about a subject for a change, and not be fretting over points and grades!

So that’s been weighing on my mind, in addition to the usual stuff, like backaches and being tired and it’s been raining pretty much nonstop for the past week.

And then the student evaluations appeared in my mailbox. I put off opening that message, like I usually do, because I was dreading what they would say, like always. I bit the bullet this morning and opened it up, since I didn’t think anything would make me feel worse this week, anyway. Yikes…they liked the course!

I skipped over the numerical scores, because they were always useless (despite being the only thing the university will use to evaluate my work) and went straight to the comments section. Here, they’re answering the question, “What did the instructor do that most helped your learning?”

PZ structured the class such that we had a predictable workload each week, with a variety of class activities, which was useful. Lecture days on Mondays were nice and relatively easy at the start of the week, and small group discussions on Wednesdays and Fridays were always fun. The final presentation for the class was also valuable, as it gave us the opportunity to explore a topic from the class that we found particularly interesting in depth and share our discoveries with our classmates.

Had lecture on Monday’s and allowed students to help each other.

I appreciated that we did a lot of article discussions as well as chapter discussions. It was good to think over those chapters without being lectured at

Wittyness and Sarcasm were plentiful, 10/10 course

Discussion based on what we were learning

I liked the discussion questions because they went with the lectures really well

Yes! They saw what I was trying to do!

The next question was “What suggestions do you have for improving the course?”

Clearer expectations for final presentations or updates on participation grades throughout the semester would be appreciated, although PZ did assure us periodically that we were all doing well and that he had no concerns about our performance in class.

Maybe have slightly more background when discussing topics that students don’t tend to be strong in.

I wish some of the grading standards were more clear, and that there was a proper rubric for the presentations. I honestly have no clue if my presentation was even good or not because I didn’t have any guidelines to work with other than “15–20 minutes long and can be about whatever that’s relevant and also it can be whatever medium you like”

Get these college kids to talk more, they all look so nervous to have a hot take on microplastics.

It would be good if grades were updated more frequently

I like this course

Criticisms accepted. Next time I’ll try to outline my expectations more, and incorporate a few more metrics throughout the course. I may have gone too far in trying to avoid grade-chasing and point-tallying. I did appreciate the comment to “Get these college kids to talk more, they all look so nervous to have a hot take on microplastics,” because that’s exactly what I wanted, a class full of people eager to talk about eco-devo.

All right, I feel a little better today.

SCHOOL’S OUT FOR SUMMER!

Last class today; I’m not giving any finals, but I do have some term papers coming in on Monday evening. I’m wrapping this thing up in short order.

This week my eco devo course has been nothing but student presentation. I encouraged them all to be creative, and one student gave us a grand finale with a song. Here it is!

Hex here! And welcome to “hi I made another song for a school project because I can” 2 electric boogaloo.

Context for the regulars on this channel, the Ecological Development class I’m taking this semester has some rather lax requirements in that like- It has to be 15-20 minutes, but I could do music and such.

So I’m doing a presentation on allergens because I discovered I’m allergic to cats and wanted to know WHY when I’ve been around cats all my life. Sadly, my research didn’t give me any good news, and in fact I might’ve developed worse allergies from being around so many cats for a solid 18 years of my life before spending the past few years in college.

As for this song? Basically me incorporating some of my research into a song that’s basically me being like “WHY AM I ALLERGIC TO CATS WHEN I LOVE THEM SO MUCH???”

Anyways, now onto the classmates who might be watching this. Hello! These aren’t humans singing. They’re vocal synthesizers! The feminine vocal is Mai, and the masculine vocal on the harmonies is Kevin. I had no reason to pick them other than Mai is cute and then Kevin gets used for memes.

If y’all are curious about exploring my channel or commenting, just remember to avoid breeching my privacy when you do. I do not share any of my personal information like my name on this channel for safety reasons.

Two weeks to go

I made a brilliant planning decision way back at the beginning of the semester. Bless you, Fall Term PZ!

My big course this term is EcoDevo — big ol’ textbook, lots of papers from the scientific literature, all new lectures, etc. One part of the course is that the students have to do presentations on aspects of eco devo that interest them, and I scheduled that for the last two weeks of the class, which is coming up. That means I have no new lecture prep coming up! My weekends have been frantic this year: Saturday is dedicated to reading and studying, and Sunday is spent assembling those one hour lectures and putting together lists of concept questions. But not this weekend!

My second biggest class is called BioComm, and it’s a course in which I shepherd students through the exercise of writing a formal research paper, and this term by a terrible miscalculation I have 8 students. It’s too many. Never again. The problem is that I have to personally read these long papers in multiple steps of their development, and it’s a hell of a lot of grading and criticizing and revising. And here it is, the end of the semester, and there’s a pile of 20+ page papers sitting in my in-box.

So this is where I planned brilliantly: the weekends where I don’t have to work to make content for my eco devo course, are these final weekends where I instead have to read and mark up a monstrous mountain of student writing assignments! Perfect dovetailing! Two courses meshing smoothly together to bring me to the brink of insanity, but not quite over the edge into a gibbering breakdown!

My biocomm students get another chance to address my criticisms next week, so next weekend will be similarly consumed with a returning pile of papers, but then, in two weeks…FREEDOM! Spider time! Also I get to spend the summer preparing for yet another new class in the fall, so even my relatively free months have wicked shackles holding me back.