3.1 It is okay to start small
It is hard to change the way we teach (Silverthorn et al, 2006).
Instructors often want to alter their teaching practices, but face
barriers to making changes (Brownell and Tanner, 2012; McMurtrie, 2019;
Petersen et al, 2020). Barriers range from fear of student push-back,
lack of administrative buy-in or support, lack of incentives, impacts on
merit and promotion materials (e.g., student evaluations of teaching),
lack of time, lack of resources, lack of training, too many resources
and feeling overwhelmed, integrating and grading active learning
assignments, depth vs. breadth, and others (Section 2.3).
These concerns are valid but going into fall 2020 and beyond we have an
opportunity. The COVID-19 pandemic has upended all aspects of higher
education including the heart of universities - the classrooms. This
situation provides us with the unique opportunity to reinvent the way we
teach. We are already grappling with the switch to more online
instruction - why not use this opportunity to alter the way in which we
present material and engage with students as well?
We can make small changes and do not have to incorporate everything at
once (Auster and Wylie, 2006; Tanner, 2013; Lang, 2016; Darby and Lang,
2019). For those who are ready to make bigger changes, below we provide
some examples of techniques for use in ecology and evolutionary biology
courses. These techniques in section 3.2, combined with discussion
prompts above, items in Table 1 , Appendix A , and/or Supplemental File 1 should give instructors a range of options.