TEACHING ALL VOLUMES SUBMIT WORK SEARCH TIEE
VOLUME 1: Table of Contents TEACHING ISSUES AND EXPERIMENTS IN ECOLOGY
Experiments


Challenges to Anticipate and Solve:

       I have identified 5 challenges that commonly arise:

  1. making field observations: Students who are not used to making observations in the field will need some help and special training. One way to do this is to show slides of field sites in class and work with students on making observations first (we call this "page one") and developing explanations for these second ("page two"; see essay on this in the Teaching section. Many students have a difficult time distinguishing between observations and interpretations. Another idea is to go outside near your building and have students write down observations of what they see, and back in class to discuss their observations. The next step is to help students develop specific questions based on their observations.

  2. using their observations and questions: Another skill is to use their observations and questions in the field site to develop a project that you have already have sketched out. You need to be open to their ideas, but the project needs focus and must meet your course objectives. This is a very tricky balance. For the first project of the semester especially, I tend the guide the questions a fair amount.

  3. dealing with large data sets: An issue for students will be dealing with a fairly large data set. You will have to decide how much creative chaos you find useful for your students and how much you need to own and orchestrate to effectively accomplish data reduction. Students who don't how to use the spreadsheet and graphics package should be taught this ahead of time. You can do this in class or perhaps a student assistant can do a session outside of class.

  4. focusing their data set: Many students have trouble finding a focus for their paper from this large data set. I ask them to ask specific questions that require use of only part of the data so that they can develop a few ideas in more detail. For instance, some students may analyze the temperature data in more depth than others or focus on one tree species. During lab time you can ask students who have a more focused idea to describe it to other students as an example.

  5. writing a research style paper: How much time you spend teaching students how to write scientific style research papers depends on their prior experience with this. If they have not written such papers before take class or lab time to explain the structure of research papers and how to write them. If the class is small enough and if you have time, ask your students to rewrite this paper. They will benefit enormously by doing this.
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Comments On the Lab Description:

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Comments On Questions for Further Thought:


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Comments On the Assessment of Student Learning Outcomes:


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Comments On the Evaluation of the Lab Activity:


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Comments On Translating the Activity to Other Institutional Scales:


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