Comparative Physiology

I am, by training a physiologist. I love teaching comparative physiology. We start from looking at a basic structure and then we examine how the structure becomes adapted to animals living under different environmental constraints. This course examines how animals adapt at levels from their protein or cell membrane structure all the way up to behavioral adaptations for thermoregulation and everything in between. To me, this is the course that links biology together. Below are sample materials that I hope will give you a sense of the course.

This course got off to a rough start. However, I examined my performance critically and this led me to enact several strategies for course improvement.

Fall 2016-- refocused the course on several core concepts, created worksheets relating labs more explicitly to course material, decrease lecture.

Spring 2017-- changed some labs that did not work, introduced several activities including one which teaches about the value of failure in science, introduced some small group discussions, started recording lectures

Spring 2018-- introduced guided notes, introduced a recurring assignment where students locate and relate primary literature articles to the course, recorded all lecture, did half of the lectures without powerpoint (this increased student engagement), introduced group quizzes, and introduced a collaboration which required students to work with others from another discipline (art) and create a new animal (see examples below). In the latter they had to defend adaptations the animal had using primary literature.