Reflections on the 2017-2018 academic year and Fall 2018 semester:

From the moment I was hired to teach in the Biology Department I was looking forward
to when I would teach the courses that I consider my specialty, such as comparative
animal physiology and metabolic physiology. The classes, offered in the fall and spring
of the 2017-2018 year, were everything I had hoped they would be: fascinating and
challenging material shared with engaged and invested students. The thrilling
environment of upper level, elective courses is what drew me to a teaching career in the
first place; experiencing the satisfaction of working with students who have elected to
take your course rather than those who are present merely to fulfill a degree. This
wonderful experience of a small classroom filled with upper level majors of my own
department was in sharp contrast to the non-major general biology course I taught
during the fall of 2017. Facing a classroom of more than one hundred students, many of
whom who had no interest in biology of any other type of science, was frustrating and
eye-opening. I spent much of the semester adjusting my teaching style and material to
relate to these students and try to impress upon them my love of biology and the
importance of their understanding of the topics. By the spring of 2018, I felt that I had
vastly improved my ability to relate to non-major students and I had grown some
“tougher skin” to some of the negative reviews I received at the end of the class. Up until
this point, my reviews had been very positive; therefore, I was shocked and disappointed
to receive less than stellar evaluations. But while reviewing these evaluations and
evaluating myself, I was reminded again how different students perceive a course and a
teacher when they are required to take a class compared with those who choose to take a
course. I gleaned what useful information I could from the critiques and promised
myself I would work harder to relate to students outside of my major and my personal
interests.

The fall 2018 semester brought me back to teaching Human Anatomy & Physiology. The
make-up this particular group of students was very different from the first time I taught
the course: the newly implemented exercise science department had brought numerous
non-biology majors into the class. I was faced again with an unfortunate dichotomy, this
time within a single class: those biology majors who were taking A&P for their own
electives and because of a desire to prepare for future careers and a number of exercise
science majors who were taking the course because it was required for their degree. The
same issues I had faced before were evident again: how do you teach an active,
interesting, dynamic course when one third of the students are uninterested and
unwilling to put effort into the class? Unsurprisingly, my evaluations at the end of the
fall 2018 semester were also rather bimodal: stellar reviews from students who clearly
enjoyed the course material and scathing reviews from those that struggled heavily with
the material and didn’t want to be there.

This is an ongoing struggle; I have many of these same students in the second part of
A&P that I am currently teaching. I’m reminded of a “honey-moon” period of a
relationship. The first two years of teaching were exciting and adrenaline-filled. Now,
coming into the third and fourth year, I’m faced with new trials as the newness fades. I
am challenged to continue trying to reach out to students and to meet them where they
are so that we can both improve and grow together.