Moving Theory into Practice: A Reflection on Teaching a Large, Introductory Biology Course for Majors

While this feature in CBE—Life Sciences Education most often translates some aspect of the research literature—from cognitive science, psychology, science education, and other fields—into practical strategies for biology instructors, this installment is purposefully different in kind. Below, I offer a more personal reflection on teaching, motivated by several considerations. First, many of these features have focused on a single pedagogical approach or issue. However, the disaggregation of the many aspects of teaching and learning can belie the complexity of the task of making things happen in a classroom. Practical teaching strategies inspired by research findings may appear only tangentially related to one another, and many strategies are dependent on intangibles related to individual characteristics of an instructor and an institution. In addition, while evaluating research evidence is key in developing effective approaches to teaching, I have found that many colleagues have been inspired to try something new in their teaching fromhearing stories ofwhat could be, of the possibilities, regardless of the research behind the stories. Here I am aiming to use my own recent first-time experience of teaching a large introductory biology course for majors to weave together several practical approaches that are grounded in the research literature. Since the reflection that follows is a personal story, I will emphasize my teaching experiences without unpacking the direct connections to research literatures. That said, all of the teaching strategies I utilized are strongly influenced by and grounded in numerous papers, books, and research studies. Much of the relevant research literature has been previously