Teaching evolution
OK, so I am kinda in denial about this CA thing in general and it's making me a horrible procrastinator. Anyone out there who has taught Evolution (or even taken it) do you have a text you would either recommend or warn against?
Thanks
6 comments:
No advice here, but I'm pushing for adding an evolution class here and will look forward to learning from your experience.
Into the Jungle by Sean Carroll is good and I think he's got a textboook that goes with it. Also, Ridley et al can be dense. What level course? Gould's Book of Life could be good for a non-majors class with additional promary source books.
It's a 300 level course, but the usual prof keeps warning me that the students don't understand texts well (he's used Futuyma and others I guess -- don't know which).
I have not taught an evolution class but can pass on what I have heard from others. When J.P. (who studied Bufo) taught a summer class at KU she used Stearns and Hoekstra's "Evolution: an introduction." She had good things to say about it, and chose it because she felt it was more user-friendly than the Futuyma book.
When I had evolution as an undergrad, we read Futuyma. I disliked this when studying (lots to read before a test) but appreciated that I could often find the answers to questions that arose from the gaping holes in the lectures.
(complete side note: the professor who taught the segment on macroevolution was abysmal. But Jennifer was the TA for that class and did a really excellent job filling in the blanks and also handling the delicate situation of dealing with really frustrated students at review sessions.)
I second Beth's thought: Into the Jungle is excellent (there's a review on my blog from January), although it's not something I would want to base a class on.
Hi Anna,
Ridley is more approachable than Futuyma. There is a new book out that I have from the publisher, but it is at school and I am at home. I will let you know tomorrow. I think by the time students are in a 300 level class, they should know how to read textbooks. As we think about redoing our curriculum to have a stronger focus on evolution, we were are considering using Ridley for first and second year students.
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