Jayme Dyer, PhD

It's supposed to be a "Graphical Syllabus," but every time I say it in my head it's a "Graphical Abstract." If science articles can have graphical abstracts, why not a science course? #GraphicalSyllabus #AcademicTwitter

@DrCJSobers 1) that's ridiculous, you have to eat!! I second @SusanDebraBlum's advice to take a lab break for everyone 2) why the "but whatever" for Gen Chem 1? Think about all those fresh minds you get to touch! I think the Intro courses can be the most impactful, my 🪙🪙

@lkurtz_ggc Also, this particular course is very data-based - we examine figures from the literature every day in class. More here: jaymedyer.substack.com/p/how-i-got-my…

@lkurtz_ggc Lots and lots of team-based discussion around prompts that I provide during "lecture" (I don't really lecture).

Anonymous student comment on my Gen Bio course: "I love this class, I love the teacher, I love the content, I love the style of teaching, and I hope to GOD that more students will be as lucky as I’ve been to experience this style of teaching" 😭😭😭

They are getting cuter! (And greater in number...)

Not science or teaching-related, but y'all, I'm hatching duck eggs and WHYYYYYY are they so cute? These guys are ~5 hours old.

@LGBacteria Wow!!! I'm so proud and excited and happy for you!!

@thewordninja_bk @BresockCalculus @thewordninja_bk your list includes some of my favorites, I'm adding the books I've haven't read to my to-read list right now, thx!

@BresockCalculus Not hard, but The Murderbot Diaries are awesome with some cool psychological. Left Hand of Darkness. Space Opera is not hard. The Magicians and Way of the Kings and Name of the Wind are all fantasy that are hard in some way, but not in the philosophical SciFi way.

I have 11 audible credits that I need to spend before tomorrow!!! Give me your favorite sci-fi books/series. I love hard/psychological Sci-fi. I’ve already read Expanse series, 3-body prob series, collapsing empire series (Scalzi), Children of Time series. The weirder the better!

@davecormier What was good? Less good? How would you change it for the future?

@YouTooBio I tried a new approach this year... it had... mixed results. I had the course structured so that we did 1. in-class versions of the parts of the assignments 2. a workshop class for the final assignment 3. an interview week for discussions about the assignment. (all ungraded)

Student: Is this graded? No? Great! I am more able to learn when I do something that's not graded. Me: But, remember last week's non-graded assignment that was only for feedback? Why didn't you submit it? Student: Because it wasn't graded? 😬 >> Grades are complicated, y'all

Please RT! Our dpt is updating our DEIJ statement & doing associated work. These Qs came up: What are the unique challenges faced by neurodivergent faculty (esp autistic) that we should be mindful of? Are there resources that would be helpful for these faculty?

@davecormier 💯 on grading non-assessment assignments using a pass/fail, completion-only approach! I guess I'm learning that the threat of a large project is not enough for them* to submit mid-semester check-ins, they need the completion pts (*not all! ~1/3 Ss turned in the work w/o grades)

@YouTooBio I just make all discussions effort based p/f. If you do something (and I create basic scaffolding eg.. at least 150 words, has to show som effort, point form, classroom discussion related) you get 3 points. Don't do it, you get 0 points.

@vanessarosaphd Props to you for asking the question!

I asked why she asked the other woman for permission to sit but not me. She stammered, got up, and walked away. I'm unsure if I handled that well, but I'm enjoying the irony and am glad she asked me a question before I had to address her staring at my screen.

A white woman saw a seat between me and another white woman and asked her (not me) if she could sit there. Then, she stared at my screen and asked me with annoyance why I was writing about equity and diversity...

On the exam (which I'm grading today), in response to the question How do you think the skills and content you are learning in this class are going to benefit you in your future? one student wrote: "it's nice knowing how to read graphs finally." 🙌

More details here: jaymedyer.substack.com/p/how-i-got-my…

An amazing thing happened in my Gen Bio course this week: Students explained science stories to each other BY POINTING AT DATA FIGURES, not text. THEY USED EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT CLAIMS. TO EACH OTHER. I didn't even tell them to do it that way. 😭😭😭 I'm so happy... 1/2

@vermivormax Like this one, which has students use Natural History data to answer a question qubeshub.org/publications/4…

@vermivormax I've used several of these activities biodiversityliteracy.com/products

@markabelan +1 for Substack

Any recommendations for a simple, easy to use and customizable newsletter service? Don’t wanna go mail chimp or anything too elaborate/overserviced. Just a periodical email blast (1/month or less) Would appreciate leads!

@Archaeon_Alex "Adaptation" wrt evolution 1) It is often associated w/ intentionality (as in, a species *tried* to survive, resulting in the adaptation) 2) It gets easily confounded w/ the common usage of the term, where an organism changes in response to the environment (i.e. not evolution)

I want to design a lecture on misconceptions in biology. What is the most imprecise/dubious term/concept in biology? I already have 2: multicellularity and gene function Help me build the list.