I’d like to dedicate this week’s “Teaching” blog post to the interwebs. As a kid who grew up in the 1990s East Coast United States, I’m a part of a group of people that experienced the push to incorporate the internet into their everyday lives in primary/elementary school. All of a sudden, my homework assignments involved finding something on Google to help me answer the questions. Computer classes were evolving, too. We eventually spent more time learning how to find online resources than how to type as quickly as possible and make the best digital art of all time:
Now, nearly half of the world population is online, and we've reached an entirely new level of accessibility. While developers have brought us amazing things like Facebook and Netflix, I still see the internet as a tool to help me learn new information. I’d like to use this blog post to show you online resources that I've utilized in my teaching endeavors (please feel free to share some that you like in the comments!).
What sparked my idea for today’s blog post was actually today’s date: March 1st. It’s officially time for March Mammal Madness, the most marvelous month of the year (there’s some alliteration for you haha). A few of you probably associate the phrase "March Madness" with college basketball, and while you're historically correct, you've really gotta get with the times: mammals are where it's at! |
The super cool Dr. Katie Hinde has spearheaded the effort behind March Mammal Madness (MMM) since 2013. Essentially, Dr. Hinde’s team uses scientific research and probabilities to determine the winners of simulated battles between non-human mammals. They post a mammal bracket and battle schedule at the beginning of March (click the button above to download yours), then use Twitter to narrate the “battles”. Each battle contains a slew of factual information about each contender, and, while the winner is determined by probability, an element of chance means you should never count out the little guys. As MMM has grown in popularity, so has the team itself, and the battles are often accompanied by custom artwork and experts in the field. This is a really fun way to learn about mammals all around the world (sometimes even fictional ones!) and to interject some friendly competition into the learning atmosphere. Our lab's winner this year gets to "adopt" a World Wildlife Fund animal of their choice - yet another cool way to learn about and help support some amazing animals :D
I am also a huge fan of educational YouTube videos. A quick Google search can point you to a few people that have already compiled useful lists of freely accessible videos for a variety of lesson plans: Meghan Duffy’s list of Videos for Teaching Ecology is an excellent example (button below).
In teaching Biol 110, I had the opportunity to tie some lab work that we were doing directly to research being done at PSU and other research institutions. Dr. Nina Jablonski’s video on human skin color biology (below) could not have been more appropriate for our discussions about melanin adaptations in the spiny mice of Israel’s Evolution Canyon. Harvard Medical School’s video about bacterial antibiotic resistance (button below) was invaluable during a simulated lab activity in which the students determined the origin of antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains in several turkey farms. Khan Academy is a wonderful resource for nearly any teachable topic that’s out there (except for home cooking – for that, I recommend Food Wishes). Do me a favor – take a mental health break from whatever you’re doing and click through some of these links. Enjoy yourself and learn something new, then share it so others can too :) Cheers, and I’ll see you guys next week!