Danielle Blog

First week of classes

Well, the first week of classes has come and gone.  All in all, I found myself telling HB most nights that I’d had a good day.  I think that there were enough positives in each day to make  up for some of the difficulties.

I’m teaching 2 different courses – Intro Bio – the continuation of last semester – now focusing on plant and animal anatomy and physiology, and then a Molecular Biology course for upperclass students.  I have 3 labs, like usual, but the difference is that this semester I have to prepare 2 of the labs for the Molecular Biology course.  The prof. who normally teaches this course warned me that it takes A LOT of time.  When I asked how much time, he wouldn’t even give me an estimate.

The big time sink with lab is that there is a set of 6-7 labs right at the beginning that require working with recombinant DNA.  The DNA he used last year didn’t work in some of the steps, which means something was wrong with it.  SO….  I had to re-work the labs with DNA that I got from a friend at my post-doc lab.  Doing the experiment wasn’t as bad as actually writing up the lab manual to reflect the changes.  I spent 2 days after finals and 1 day after New Year’s solely dedicated to the lab manual.  And I had to spend time this week finishing those first labs in the lab manual so that I could give them a manual with at least a chunk of labs in it.  The rest, I will hand out as we go.  I’m keeping my fingers crossed that everything works with those labs.

I did 2 activities in the Mol Bio class this week.  I had them make the structure of DNA double helix out of candy again. Then I tried a new activity where they made a molecular structure of a DNA nucleotide – atom by atom – with playdough and toothpicks.  I hadn’t had time to do one myself the night before, so I did one with them.  It was a LOT of fun.  And, I think, a really good way for them to learn the structure.  I really want them to know DNA backwards and forwards since it is what we will be working on all semester. The best part of the activity is that it really seemed to break the ice between us.  I think the students are much more willing now to ask questions.  And there is a generally more comfortable feeling in class.

Now, I just have to get IT services to get the computer and projector system working in the classrooom so that I can do some videos.  That was part of my evaluations, that the students wanted more videos. Well, what they fail to understand is that there just aren’t many GOOD videos out there for the processes we are learning.  At least, not that I have found yet.  I have picked out the good ones, and the rest sort of suck.  My mentor suggested that when I show videos, I tell them how hard it has been to find good ones so that they don’t just take them for granted.

The lectures seem to be going well.  I’m trying to go slower this semester, since a handful of my evaluations commented that I was going too quickly. We’ll see if this pace works better.  There is a certain amount of material that we have to get through in Intro Bio, so I can’t slow down the chapter rate.  However, I can decrease the amount of detail, so that should help.

Well, I guess that is it for now.  I didn’t have labs for Mol Bio last week, but I do have them this week.  So, think good thoughts for them to go well!  I’m hoping I can learn all of their names before lab starts.  I took pictures of them on the first day, like last semester, to help me learn their names.  It is somewhat easier this year, since I only have about 70ish names to learn instead of 130ish.