Session Type
Presentation
Room
P&A Rm 150
Start Date
10-7-2015 12:00 AM
Keywords
Pedagogy, curriculum, exemplification, monologue, dialogue, student engagement, student experience, learning potential, knowledge transfer
Primary Threads
Teaching and Learning Science
Abstract
The use of examples is a powerful teaching and learning tool in the sciences, as they effectively illustrate concepts or processes above and beyond their theoretical basis. Whereas, the traditional pedagogical approach involves the teaching of fundamental principles or theories followed by a process of animating or illustrating them with examples; in the biological sciences exemplification is rarely the means by which theories or principles are taught. In other words, the generality of sciences are often taught first and foremost and the use of examples as particularities may be used to reinforce the rule or to show its exceptions. This approach is an inductive teaching process, wherein students are learning generalities from particularities in a constructivist manner. Furthermore, some branches of the life sciences may in fact lend themselves well to pedagogical exemplification, in that they allow the instructor and the students to co-engage in dialogue, whereby captivating student interest and putting them in an active role on learning the fundamental concepts within. One such branch is that of animal behaviour, which is often described by students as a ‘nature channel’ course, in which they enjoy the particularities of the examples, as much as the biological principles that underlie them. In this talk, we will describe the process by which a 3rd year Animal Behaviour course is taught via exemplification, illustrate the ease with which it leads to stimulating in-class dialogue between the professor and students, as well as a description of the types of examples that most effectively contribute to learning generalities from particular instances.
Elements of Engagement
Not sure to fully understanding what is expected here:
I will present lesson plans, describe pedagogical approach, characterize the diversity of examples used and explain process of decision-making for choice of examples used in curriculum, describe and illustrate the pedagogical use of monologic vs. dialogic discourse with students and present testimonial information from past students about their learning experiences.
Teaching by Example: A Pedagogical Approach to Animal Biology Instruction
P&A Rm 150
The use of examples is a powerful teaching and learning tool in the sciences, as they effectively illustrate concepts or processes above and beyond their theoretical basis. Whereas, the traditional pedagogical approach involves the teaching of fundamental principles or theories followed by a process of animating or illustrating them with examples; in the biological sciences exemplification is rarely the means by which theories or principles are taught. In other words, the generality of sciences are often taught first and foremost and the use of examples as particularities may be used to reinforce the rule or to show its exceptions. This approach is an inductive teaching process, wherein students are learning generalities from particularities in a constructivist manner. Furthermore, some branches of the life sciences may in fact lend themselves well to pedagogical exemplification, in that they allow the instructor and the students to co-engage in dialogue, whereby captivating student interest and putting them in an active role on learning the fundamental concepts within. One such branch is that of animal behaviour, which is often described by students as a ‘nature channel’ course, in which they enjoy the particularities of the examples, as much as the biological principles that underlie them. In this talk, we will describe the process by which a 3rd year Animal Behaviour course is taught via exemplification, illustrate the ease with which it leads to stimulating in-class dialogue between the professor and students, as well as a description of the types of examples that most effectively contribute to learning generalities from particular instances.