Stephanie Pierce, Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology, and Mansi Srivastava, Curator of Invertebrate Zoology co-developed a course for undergraduates with a goal of reaching a larger number of students and exploring similar sets of questions from different angles. They bring their expertise together in a novel course that truly represents the aims of integrative biology: How to Build an Animal. Pierce is a structural biologist and Srivastava is a developmental biologist. These two perspectives of animal biology are rarely taught in the same course, but they’ve found the lenses are complementary. The combination is intended to provide students with a robust foundation of knowledge or “springboard” that can help deepen their interest in integrative biology, as well as foster deeper engagement in upper level courses. Week to week, the course is structured as a modified flipped classroom. The first of two weekly class meetings features a lecture session directed by both professors that gives the foundation needed to participate actively in the second class meeting—a hands-on lab component centered on exposure to research techniques. The week culminates in a teaching fellow (TF)-led section focused on learning to read academic literature effectively.
Read more about their colaboration in Improving your pedagogy and enhancing student learning through team teaching, from the Harvard Office of the Vice Provost for Advances in Learning.