Cohort April 2024: Faculty of Science – Laura Lukes, Alexandra Dolling, Kendra Chritz
Project background
In Sept. 2023, two new instructors took over teaching EOSC425 Paleontology and ran the course using the existing curriculum with the intent to update the course based on how this year went. Instructors and TAs regularly met to reflect on the curriculum and identify areas that needed improvement. Additionally, student experience data from enrolled students about the course and course activities (with an eye towards course redesign) was collected. From this, several major recommendations emerged:
- Align course better with prerequisite courses to reduce repeated content
- Provide pre-requisite refresher materials
- Include more modern paleontology content and methods (e.g., molecular paleontology)
- Update the labs to include more meaningful/challenging activities that include more fossils
Additionally, Paleontology as a discipline is founded on colonial practices (extractive field practices, language of “discovery,” erasure of Indigenous communities and individuals involved in fossil identification/knowledge, etc.). As we prepare the next generation of paleontologists, students in EOSC425 would benefit from being exposed to the problematic historical roots of paleontology as a discipline and learn updated/modern approaches to conducting paleontology field work and specimen management with attention to CARE principles (Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, Responsibility, Ethics; e.g., Indigenous data sovereignty). The current curriculum of EOSC425 doesn’t include field or specimen management training. Also, the course includes outdated labs that don’t leverage the current fossil collections available through the PME and Beaty Biodiversity Museum (who recently hired a new collections manager who was one of the new instructors last term). Lastly, a new co-op course is being developed by Beaty Museum that this course would benefit from aligning with to prepare students for such hands-on experiential learning opportunities. The new instructors would like to redesign the course to improve student experience and learning for this coming Sept. 2025.
Planned changes
- Evaluating recent syllabi, content and assessments that are informed by Indigenous ways of knowing and decolonial pedagogy, for the purpose of developing shared course learning outcomes.
- Researching examples of Indigenized course curricula in arts programs at other universities.
- Assessing and expanding an existing departmental list of resources for Indigenized teaching.
Anticipated results
- Student will be able to explain at least one way of how Indigenous communities and paleontology are connected
- Students will be able to list and describe ethical field and specimen management principles and practices.
- Students will be able to appropriately reference specimens in reports and lab activities
- Students will be able to answer questions about molecular paleontology