Suddenly, the end of every semester rushes in surprising me with how little time is left to finish the material I wanted to cover. As with any semester, I could have used more time. Despite reaching the end of my syllabi, I could easily have used another week or more to fully cover that material for each class.

But done is done. All in all, I’d call it a good semester.

But what’s next?

My next semester brings a return of Microbiology, where I will again try to sit material from the front end of the course in order to have more time to cover immunology at the end.

I will also be teaching Ecology. This will be a first time for me doing this class, so I expect it to be interesting. My ideal is a discussion-based class where we do a bunch of reading, maybe watch a film or two and then talk through the big ideas. Because I expect us to spend a good amount of time talking about evolution, we will be reading Jerry Coyne’s Why Evolution is True, and follow his blog for some spontaneous talk about evolution and related topics (like cats).

HHMI’s Earth Viewer complements readings from Shubbin’s Your Inner Fish

In the meantime, I’ve been invited to speak on the use of technology in the classroom- featuring my use of the iPad to present an interactive handbook, apps that go along with course material, games (and/ or gamification) as learning tools and other online resources like HHMI, NobelPrize.org or iTunes Course Manager.

I look forward to the opportunity to find out what others are doing in this area and maybe even find collaborators to help put together even better materials.